Todd Bowles has his senior coaching staff in place for 2024, as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced on Wednesday the hiring of Thomas McGaughey as the team's new special teams coordinator. This came 11 days after the Buccaneers reached an agreement with Liam Coen to be their new offensive coordinator.
McGaughey replaces Keith Armstrong, who elected to retire after 30 seasons of coaching in the NFL, the last five in Tampa.
McGaughey was the first of six candiates the Buccaneers interviewed for the position, as the team first spoke with him on February 2. He spent the last six seasons as special teams coordinator for the New York Giants, originally hired to join Pat Shurmur's staff in 2018, then later retained by subsequent head coach hires Joe Judge in 2020 and Brian Daboll in 2022.
The Giants' special teams found frequent success under McGaughey's stewardship. Over the past six seasons combined, New York ranked sixth in the NFL in field goal percentage (87.1%), fifth in opponent kickoff return average (21.2) and ninth in opponent punt return average (7.8). McGaughey also served as the Giants' assistant special teams coordinator from 2007-10.
In 2023, the Giants ranked seventh in opponent punt return average, allowing 6.9 yards per attempt. McGaughey's crew finished in the top seven in that category in half of his six seasons. The Giants also finished in the top two in opponent kickoff return average in three of those six campaigns.
The Giants' kick-and-coverage units finished in the top 10 in the comprehensive special teams rankings produced annually by national sportswriter Rick Gosselin. New York was seventh in 2019, McGaughey's second season at the helm, and 10th in 2021.
Overall, McGaughey has 17 years of NFL coaching experience, including stints with Kansas City (2002)Denver (2005-06), the New York Jets (2014), San Francisco (2015) and Carolina (2016-17). He has held a corrdinator position for the last 10 years. McGaughey played defensive back at the University of Houston and spent time with the Bengals and Eagles in 1996-97. He also played for the Barcelona Dragons of NFL Europe. He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at his alma mater in 1998 and later returned to Houston to coach special teams and cornerbacks in 2003 and 2004. He also had a stint (2011-13) as LSU's special teams coordinator.
