Buccaneers

The Buccaneers finished 8-9 and failed to reach the playoffs for a sixth consecutive season. When asked about ways they could improve, RB Rachaad White thinks HC Todd Bowles can relinquish defensive playcalling duties so he can focus on the rest of the team.  

“You can clip this or whatever, but it is what it is. I’m just being real,” White said, via PewterReport.com. “I do feel like Coach Bowles, I do think it would be easier on him. I do think he should let somebody else call defense and he just be a head coach. I feel like he’d probably be better off by doing that so he can just focus on really just the head coaching job, and just trust that he has the right defensive staff and things like that.”

With the amount of turnover on Tampa Bay’s coaching staff, White didn’t exactly offer a rousing endorsement for Bowles to stay on. It’s probably worth noting at this point that White is a pending free agent. 

“Obviously I’m not an executive on none of this,” White said. “I just think you get rid of a lot of the staff, you kind of should just go ahead … and I’m not wishing for nobody’s job to get taken, but just get a new everything. But I do understand where they’re (the Glazers) and where he’s (Bowles’) coming from in the aspect of ‘Yeah, another year. Won’t be bad. We won’t be a bad (I guess) chance to just see.’ Obviously we know what it is and everybody knows what it is with this year and what’s going on with him and go from there. Get a new staff so hopefully he can hire the right guys, which is tough. But you try to do the best you can and just see if you can go from there. I think that’s the biggest thing.”

Falcons

The Falcons brought in former QB Matt Ryan as their new president of football, leaving his analyst job with CBS. Ryan feels returning to Atlanta was the “right opportunity,” and they have the right ownership in Arthur Blank to turn things around.  

“I think it’s the right opportunity,” Ryan said, via PFT. “No. 1, I think when you look at organizations and you think about places you’d like to be, it comes down to ownership, ownership, ownership, ownership. Bill Cowher, I’ve sat next to him for the last three years, and he would hammer that home all the time. He would joke, the three most important people in the building are the owner, the owner, and the owner. So when you get an opportunity with a previous relationship and knowing what Arthur [Blank] stands for and what his family stands for, and you respect all of those core values, to me, that’s what makes it so exciting in terms of an opportunity.”

Ryan is excited to return to the competitive nature of the NFL and is confident he’ll be able to adjust to his new role. 

“So, getting back into that gets me excited,” Ryan said. “As you mentioned, not having previous experience in a role like this, nobody does. I’ve been around guys who have been hired as first-time head coaches after being a play caller. I’ve been around coaches who have been position coaches and never play callers and they step into different roles, and they adjust. That’s something that I’ve done my entire life, whether that be in football or whether that be transitioning into TV or doing things. I’ve never been scared of that.”

Panthers

Panthers LS J.J. Jansen highly praised HC Dave Canales for paying attention to their entire team instead of just focusing on the offense as the team’s playcaller. 

“I don’t know that there’s a lot of offensive playcallers right now that are head coaches that are doing that,” Jansen said, via David Newton of ESPN. “You just know he’s taking care of the whole team, not just his side of the ball.”

Jansen thinks Canales will continue to improve in his third year as head coach. 

“I would imagine Year 3 will be even better because that’s what we as players have seen,” Jansen said. “That while they’re asking us to develop, he and the coaching staff are always developing.”

As for working alongside senior advisor Jim Caldwell, Canales said the veteran coach has been extremely helpful in guiding him. 

“He sees things from that 10,000-foot view,” Canales said. “Because of my mixed roles with my involvement in the offense … I can get hyper focused at times on helping the run game, helping the pass game. Just trying to connect [more] with the different phases, special teams and defense. Coach Caldwell has been amazing for just some reminders or anecdotes from years past. That was a little bit of a shot in the arm.”