The sudden change at the top for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has already had an impact on the team's 2022 offseason schedule.
With Bruce Arians stepping aside and into a consultant role and former Defensive Coordinator Todd Bowles taking over as head coach, the Buccaneers face a slightly different set of rules when it comes to the structure of their voluntary offseason workout program. While most teams cannot start those programs until the week of Monday, April 18, teams with new head coaches in 2022 can start up to two weeks earlier. The Buccaneers are splitting the difference and starting on Monday, April 11.
Though a bit late to the party, Tampa Bay is now one of 10 teams with a new head coach in 2022. Four of those teams – Chicago, Miami, New Orleans and the New York Giants – are electing to start their offseason programs on Monday, April 4. The Buccaneers will be joined on the 11th by Denver, Houston, Jacksonville, Las Vegas and Minnesota.
Each team's offseason program can last a maximum of nine weeks and is broken up into three phases, with the amount and variety of work allowed and the involvement of coaches ramping up from one phase to the next. The first two weeks of the program are known as Phase One, in which players are limited to meetings, strength and conditioning and rehab work only. Phase Two is three weeks long and includes more on-field work and instruction but no drills with live contact or offensive and defensive units going against each other.
Phase Three is the part of the program that most resembles in-season workouts, with teams permitted to hold up to 10 "organized team activity days," or OTAs. While there is still no live contact allowed during OTAs, teams can conduct such offense-vs.-defense drills as 11-on-11, 9-on-7 and 7-on-7. This phase also concludes with a three-day minicamp, which is the only part of the program that is mandatory for veteran players.
The Buccaneers have scheduled 10 OTAs during the back half of May and the first few days of June. They will hold those workouts on May 17-19, May 24-26 and May 31-June 3. The mandatory minicamp will take place in the middle of the following week, from June 7-9.
