The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are officially sticking with continuity with their new offensive coordinator hire.
NFL writer Mike Garafolo reported on Friday that the Buccaneers are set to hire pass game coordinator Josh Grizzard as their new offensive coordinator, wanting to stay in-house instead of hiring an external candidate. He’s been around former OC Liam Coen’s offense, and he’s also excelled in it — in fact, one of the best aspects of Tampa Bay’s offense was down to his efforts.
Liam Coen revealed earlier in the year that the team’s third-down offense was commanded by Grizzard.
“Thad Lewis is in charge of the red zone, ‘B-Mac’ (Brian McClendon) is in charge of two-minute, and ‘Grizz’ (Josh Grizzard) happens to be in charge of third downs,” Coen said in December. “Their ideas, plays, and thoughts and schemes is what does come to life as what you see on Sunday.”
Grizzard’s ideas, however, seemed to be exceptional. The Buccaneers were the NFL’s very best third-down offense, converting on an impressive 51.11% of their third downs, which bodes very well for the future. Additionally, Grizzard served as Tampa Bay’s pass game coordinator, and the Buccaneers were No. 5 in the league in yards per pass (8.0) and No. 4 in pass yards per game (246.7).
All that bodes well for Tampa Bay if Grizzard can continue those trends. And after serving as a quality control assistant under Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel, Grizzard may have a few other tricks up his sleeve as well.
