Three Games in 12 Days Will Decide Todd Bowles' Buccaneers Future

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were excited about the team they were set to field all offseason. Quarterback Baker Mayfield confidently declared that the Bucs would "shock a lot of people" in 2026, and they certainly have — just not in the way he expected or hoped to.

The Bucs dropped both their opening games to begin 0-2, including against a Cleveland Browns team at home that they were favored to beat by 8.5 points. It's only Week 3, but the team is already in panic mode at the prospect of losing their game on Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings and starting off starting 0-3 — doing so is almost a death knell for any playoff-hopeful team.

The Bucs are 0-2, and they have three games in the next 12 days. They have those three games to turn things around, and if they don't, Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles could be in serious danger of losing his job sooner rather than later.

Is Todd Bowles on the Hot Seat?

Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles looks on during the during the first quarter against the Cleveland Browns | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The owners of the Buccaneers, the Glazer family, have never fired a Bucs head coach in season. But there's a first time for everything, and a disastrous stint from the Bucs over the next 12 days could be a catalyst for a grave decision.

As it stands, Bowles is 3-10 in his last 13 games with the Buccaneers. The problems that Bowles and general manager Jason Licht sought to fix in the offseason after a brutal late-year skid are still around — the pass rush has greatly struggled, Tampa Bay remains vulnerable in the middle of the field and the offense remains anemic after a coordinator change.

If the Buccaneers were to lose all three of their remaining games to the Vikings, Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys, the Glazers may be pushed to make their first head coach firing midseason. Bowles would, at that point, be 3-13 in his last 16 games, and if these games are all losses, it's reasonable to assume that none of these problems would be fixed.

Even if Bowles did not get fired, though, he'd almost certainly still be doomed. A team starting 0-5 or even 1-4 to begin the year will almost certainly miss the playoffs, even in a division as notably weak as the NFC South. The Glazers may choose to wait until the end of the season, but Bowles would certainly just be biding his time until he was relieved of his duties the following year.

Bowles must win at least one of these next three games and, ideally, at least two of them. The most important of these games is definitely the team's primetime matchup against the Cowboys on Thursday Night Football in Week 5 — if the Buccaneers lose that game in a big way on national television, that could spur a decision from Bucs management.

A 2-2 start before that Cowboys game would be a tremendous saving effort. A 1-3 start would be tough, and a 0-4 start would almost certainly spell a functional end for Tampa Bay's season.

For now, Bowles and the Bucs will look to defeat the Minnesota Vikings in Week 3 at 4:05 p.m. If they don't, doom may just inch closer for Bowles and his Tampa Bay tenure.

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