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Jenna Laine, ESPN Staff Writer
TAMPA, Fla. — One day after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers delivered a shocking 32-9 upset of the Philadelphia Eagles to cap off super wild-card weekend, coach Todd Bowles credited the organization with “staying the course” when the team had lost five of six games and appeared destined for a losing season.
“You’re going to go through adversity in the NFL,” Bowles, who is in his second year as the Bucs’ coach and 24th as an NFL coach, said Tuesday. “You’re not going to go through unscathed. Very few teams go through 17-0 and they win every playoff game and win the Super Bowl. You’re going to have to learn some lessons. You’re going to have to get mentally tougher. That comes with chemistry.
“The culture we created here, the chemistry they developed in training camp and minicamp — as long as you go through the downs together, you’ll come out of it together, and these guys have stayed the course.”
Bowles credited the Glazer family, who own the Buccaneers, general manager Jason Licht and the efforts of the coaching staff and players, who won five out of their final six games to clinch the NFC South title in their first season without quarterback Tom Brady.
“We stayed the course,” Bowles said. “We knew the things that we had mistakes on. We knew the things we had to correct and we just kept tugging the chain going forward, pulling forward, pulling forward. And then you’re seeing the results at the end.”
Monday marked Bowles’ first career playoff victory as a head coach and featured some of the best coaching of his career, including a six-man front to counter a powerful Eagles rushing attack that gashed the Bucs for over 200 yards in Week 3 and countering Philadelphia’s vaunted and much-maligned “tush push” on a 2-point conversion attempt.
In both of those packages, he turned not to fifth overall draft pick and Pro Bowler Devin White, but K.J. Britt, a 2021 fifth-round draft pick out of Auburn who Bowles described as “probably our best downhill thumper,” and had the two split reps at inside linebacker.
He also capitalized on the success of backup cornerback Zyon McCollum, who started nine games this season due to injuries to Jamel Dean and Carlton Davis, having McCollum occupy corner, nickel and safety spots.
“Now we got our three best cover guys out there,” Bowles said. “We’re letting our elephants be elephants and our giraffes be giraffes, our blitzers blitz and our cover guys cover.”
Bowles joked that he was “energized with a full 90 minutes of sleep” after the win and let out a hearty laugh when asked for a glimpse inside the mind of an NFL head coach.
“Do you really want that?” Bowles said before speaking to the highs and lows of the season and how it affected him personally, as a growing contingent of fans had been calling for his job as recently as Week 18 — even after the Bucs’ 9-0 victory at the Carolina Panthers.
Fast forward to Monday night, with Bowles’ Bucs outgaining the Eagles 426-276 in total yards of offense, and it’s been nothing but praise.
“For me, I know what I signed up for when I started coaching football,” Bowles said. “When you win, you’re great — when you don’t, you’re not. And it’s not even about me. I’m just happy to see the smile on the guy’s faces and the results from all the hard work they put in, the hard work the coaches put in, seeing it pay off and seeing them reap the benefits of it right now and just got to continue.”
