Buccaneers' Todd Bowles: 'You Lose The Expectation of Being Great' Without Tom Brady

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers can be great without Tom Brady despite the "outside narrative" saying otherwise, according to head coach Todd Bowles.

"When you replace a player of that magnitude, first of all, you don't replace him," Bowles told NFL Network's Judy Battista during the ongoing Annual League Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. "You lose aura. You lose the expectation of being great. That doesn't mean you can't be great. You just have to do it more as a team."

Bowles continued: "We did it as a team when he was there, but he was such a great player and a great person that you focus all on that. And now that that is gone, the perception is that everything else is gone when really it isn't."

It's a message Bowles has repeated since Brady announced his second retirement on February 1: The Buccaneers, who have seen some of the best years in franchise history with Brady on their roster, can succeed as a team without their star quarterback.

During the three-year Brady era, Tampa Bay won the Super Bowl in 2021 and made the playoffs for consecutive seasons for the first time since 2002.

The Buccaneers didn't make much of a splash in the 2022 postseason, however, getting bounced from the wild-card round in a 31-14 loss to the Dallas Cowboys after struggling to score all season. The Bucs sat bottom 10 in the NFL with 18.1 points per game and ranked dead last with an average of 76.9 rushing yards throughout 2022.

The team has made offseason changes in an effort to improve a lackluster offense, including the hiring of new offensive co-ordinator Dave Canales and the signing of Baker Mayfield to compete with Kyle Trask.

Will offseason changes be enough to overcome the loss of Brady, who led the league in passes completed for the past two seasons?

With a team effort, Bowles thinks so.

"We have a lot of good players on our team on both sides of the ball," Bowles said. "We have some pieces to fill, but we have a lot of good football players on our team. And we just have to understand that and not go with the so-called outside narrative and do what we have to do to win ball games."