Todd Bowles on the Buccaneers defense against the Eagles: ‘I thought it was a lot worse than it was.’

Tuesday morning, Todd Bowles stepped to mic with a brave face following his team’s 25-11 loss against the Eagles on Monday Night Football.

Week three’s edition of Monday Night Football featured two games— The Philadelphia Eagles against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the LA Rams taking on the Cincinnati Bengals. The former was an ugly, rain soaked game at Raymond James Stadium. The Eagles spent the better part of the evening running the ball into a fatigued and battered Tampa Bay defense. Philadelphia accumulated 201 muddy yards on the ground and the Bucs had no answer. Todd Bowles left the game, as many fans likely did, feeling defeated. His team had just suffered their first loss of the season, rather ingloriously, and post-game quotes (referencing the Eagles’ run game) like—

“Two or three times, we let it out.”

“Two or three times, the hole was open, they did a good job scheming up the blocks”

“They came in here and they beat us pretty good.”

Speak to that point.

For anyone keeping up with Bowles, Tuesday morning, he piped quite a different tune.

The first question he was presented with on Tuesday was regarding the success of the Eagles’ rushing attack.

“I tell you what, when I left the game I thought it was a lot worse than it was. I just thought they killed us and then watching the film this morning… [We] had some self-inflicted wounds. They schemed up one of our defenses pretty good and got two runs out of it which was good on their part. We [kind of] ran out of our gaps on certain things which is encouraging because it can be corrected.”

Tuesday’s commentary shows a change of pace for the Bucs’ head coach. What a difference a good night’s sleep and some film watching can make. The optimism in Bowles’ tone, following a 200-yard rushing performance against his defense, is not the mood that may have been expected but perhaps the coach is correct and the issues that plagued the team’s once vaunted run defense on Monday Night will be coached out of the game plan for Tampa’s upcoming rivalry game against Alvin Kamara and the New Orleans Saints.

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