OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR JOSH GRIZZARD

Opening Statement:

"First and foremost, I want to thank the Glazer family, Jason [Licht], Mike [Greenberg], and of course, Coach [Todd] Bowles for giving me this opportunity. It's not something I take lightly. It's something I've been preparing for my entire life. With the group of gentlemen that are there in the back (assistant coaches and players) and Sarah [Evans], as well, I look forward to this season and being able to take this thing to the next level. In addition to that, of course I want to thank my family – my parents, Kevin and Evelyn Grizzard, and my brother, Elijah Grizzard – for their support from being a kid loving this game, being able to play in college and then, ultimately, being able to coach. Without them, I couldn't be here. Once again, thank you to the organization – I'm looking forward to it. It's a great opportunity with great people. Let's take this thing to the next level."

(On how he plans to improve an offense that was already very successful in 2024)

"Absolutely – the continuity of having the staff and the players together is the most important part because we can go from installing an offense to naming plays, route concepts and halfback footwork to just know now. Once we hit the field, that's the base level. What we did on the fundamentals we can now evolve to the next level of the teaching of coverages, of D-line technique, [etc.] – that way we can now expand the scheme, continue to add from around the league, add from college [and] continue to put pressure on the defense [as we] try to score points."

(On the offense evolving throughout the 2024 season due to injuries and how that can help the team moving forward)

"At the end of the day, as coaches, we need to be able to adjust to scheme. It could be on a yearly basis, [or] it could be on a weekly basis, to put the players in a position to score points. That's what we're tasked to do, and now having another offseason to be able to add to that and add different pieces – we feel like last year was just the foundation to be able to take it to the next level."

(On things he has picked up from Miami Dolphins Head Coach Mike McDaniel and Jacksonville Jaguars Head Coach Liam Coen that could help him in his new role as play caller)

"For sure. I would say, first, thank you to Mike for giving me the opportunity to stay in Miami with him when he came on as the head coach. Without the two years under him, in his scheme and with his commitment to fundamentals, I wouldn't have been in the position I was last year to be able to get this job. So then taking that knowledge and working with Liam to implement the things we did in Miami… it could have been under Mike – I was under three head coaches there, and I think six offensive coordinators – so, taking some of those things to add to what Liam had done, as well as the rest of the staff and where they had been, and then try to get on the same page, call things the same way and emphasize the same fundamentals. I think that really helped us build a solid foundation in the Spring that we were able to use in the Fall."

(On how he would describe his coaching philosophy)

"At the end of the day, we want to be physical. We want to be physical because the trenches win. When you're able to run the ball and you're able to press on a defense for four quarters, that's what wins ballgames. We also want to be multiple. It could be a week where we need to throw the ball more or we need to run the ball more. Like last year, the guys get hurt and how do you have guys step up? We want to attack, and through that, it's back on the players to do their part. With the scheme you saw last year, we were able to change plays at the line of scrimmage. We are able to can third downs. We're able to change things in the low red[zone]. By doing that, we put the pressure on the defense, but it's the players who have to put the work in during the week so that you can do that and not just go call a play and say, 'Hey, we will run it and see what happens.'

(On QB Baker Mayfield's endorsement of his promotion to offensive coordinator and what their relationship is like)

"It means the world to me. Without knowing him going into this time last year when I was brought on [and now] he was one of the first people to FaceTime me when I got the job. I know I have the support of him. I was in every meeting with him last year, whether it was gameplan meetings, on the field, going through individual [work] with Thad [Lewis], Liam [Coen] and Jordan [Somerville]. So, to take our relationship to the next level and be able to lean on him and him take that next step as a leader [is huge after] being in the league this long. Now he can shoulder more of the burden to elevate the younger guys and coach the younger guys. That way he is another extension of the coaching staff on the field. He has been fantastic. You know he is a competitor and we're looking forward to it."

(On what it's like having Mayfield under center in his offense)

"Love him because you know what you're getting every day. You know he's going to compete and he's not going to back down from anything. When it gets tough, that's when he is at his best. You can't say that about a lot of people, but you know what you're getting from him. He loves to win, and he loves to compete. I like to look at myself the same way, so it's a pretty good marriage."

(On if he plans to be on the sideline or in the coaches' booth on game days)

"It's a good question. As of right now, I'm not positive on that. We're going to work through the Spring and training camp to determine what's the best way to go about that. For now, I couldn't say either one. I've been on the field coaching the receivers and handling the substitutions. I've been in the box, helping Liam [Coen] last year communicate coverages and things of that nature, so we will just see how it goes. I've talked to Coach [Todd] Bowles about having more opportunities in practice to call plays live in the Spring, as well as the Fall, to try and get as many reps as possible before we get into the season."

(On the challenge of calling plays for the first time and if the gameplan experience he got last season helps with the transition)

"For sure. As a coach, when you first get into this thing, all you're doing is breaking down tape and running the scout team. Then when you're coaching a position [group], you're running a room and you're not thinking about any of that. But, over the last 2-3 years, I've started to think about, 'What would I call here?' Or, if you're designing a play, you better be confident in calling the play because you can't just say, 'Hey, this is a good play, but we're not going to call it in a game.' So, that has evolved in my mind and then this past season I took that to another level going from a [wide] receivers coach to a 'QC' (quality control coach) to being in the pass game coordinator role. When we built the plays, I had constant dialogue with Liam [Coen] on, 'Here is the sequence of the plays, here is the best play to start the series with.' That's the entire coaching staff, as well – it's not just us two. It can be anybody. Then, to your point on the third downs, because you break it up into certain windows, the players have a good idea, or at least Baker [Mayfield] has a good idea when you're getting into that third down window, 'This is what we're expecting out of this,' or, 'Now they hit us with this coverage, how are we going to combat that the next time?' I was able to do that last year and I'm confident in my ability to prepare that way. That way it gives me as many reps as possible to be able to go out and score some points for these guys."

(On his in-game role during the 2024 season)

"I was in the booth like we just said. I was communicating, really to Liam [Coen], what the coverages were. Are they giving us something that we're not expecting going into the week? It could be a pressure; it could be a coverage. And what are the best plays to potentially get to moving forward based on what the defense has given us up to that point?"

(On how he plans to change the offense to make it his own)

"The continuity will remain essentially the same. What you want to do, like we did last year, is morph it to the players. You can morph after the draft, like it was last year, or in season based on who is hurt or who is not. But we want to keep the root of that the same because that takes as much time as anything. With that said, I do think you have to evolve every year because now there is a full season of tape on what we did here and now people are studying that. We can go from the college ranks; we can do studies from around the league to put our unique spin on it. There are definitely things I've done in my past that I want to add to it to continue to apply pressure, but again, the last thing you want is to get stagnant, so now we can take it to the next level."

(On if having call-it periods during practices and training camp to help him get acclimated to calling plays is something he discussed with Head Coach Todd Bowles during the interview process)

"It is. It wasn't one of the first things, but we did discuss it in terms of ways to allow practice to feel like a game. We always talk about it with the players, so with it being my first time in that position to call plays, the amount of reps – like in any walk of life – is invaluable. So, I look forward to that, because I have a lot of friends who say it's the most fun thing in the world."

(On his reaction to finding out he was being selected for the position)

"I was, of course, fired up because it's something I've wanted to do my entire life. Just to get the offensive coordinator job is something I wanted, but because of the people in the building from Jason [Licht] through Todd [Bowles] to the [assistant coaches] in the back [of the room] – that's what makes it great, the people. You hear it all the time, but just knowing the foundation we had in place and getting to stay here with great people and great players, who care about each other and care about the game, that's what was the most exciting part to me."

(On if he will be a big advocate for trying to get WR Chris Godwin back)

"I love Chris. As you guys know, Chris is as good of a human being and football player as you're going to be around. He was a huge asset to us last year being a coach on the field and playing all of those different roles. I think he was leading the league in catches, yards and yards after catch when he got hurt. I love Chris to death, but Jason [Licht] and Todd [Bowles] have a proven track record with the roster here, so I'm going to let those guys handle that."

(On why he wanted to bring in Kefense Hynson as pass game coordinator)

"Kefense was the offensive coordinator when I was at Yale, and I played safety at Yale. At the time, I knew I wanted to potentially get into coaching and he would allow me to go sit in the meeting rooms with him, watching tape with the quarterbacks and [wide] receivers to try to understand their side of the ball. From that time, I learned a ton of football from him while in college, and then when I made that decision to get into coaching, he was someone who has been a mentor for me for upwards of 15 years now – that can be schematically, it could be in life, it could be in whether this job is a good job or bad job [and] on what you should take or shouldn't take. And he has a proven track record of what he's done in college, as well. [He is] a great human being and family man, he works hard, and I know he is going to be a big asset, not to only myself, but most importantly to the players and the rest of the people on the team."

(On what he has taken from all of the prior coaching staffs he has worked on)

"It's definitely been a lot. I would say going back to high school, I have to give an appreciation for Coach Jim Williams at East Wake High School. Coaching me – that's where I [found] a love of the game, instilling a toughness and accountability that I try to still uphold today, and then being able to play at the college level… Tony Reno who's the head coach at Yale – he recruited me. As a freshman, that staff got fired, so he came back as the head coach at the end of my fifth year and allowed me to coach. He was huge and learning from him… I couldn't have had a better opportunity to start coaching then at Duke University under David Cutcliffe – the foundation that he laid, the way he ran a program, the way that the recruited people, the way that he coached the coaches, [he] was hard on the coaches – I couldn't have had a better start in that. From there, John Latina who was his offensive line coach at Duke was friends with Clyde Christensen, who you guys know here. They allowed me to have an opportunity to interview with Adam Gase and I appreciate Adam Gase for bringing me on in Miami, giving me my first opportunity to coach in the NFL. [I] learned a ton from him, and then to Brian Flores for allowing me to coach a position for the first time, and then to Mike [McDaniel] – like I just talked about – about taking the scheme to the next level, was invaluable for me. And then, ultimately, to Liam [Coen] and our conversations at this time last year, to be able to feel like I had a chance to come here and help him out. There was a lot of them. Like I said, I think there was six coordinators in Miami, so take the good and the bad, and try to just take the good."

(On what QB Baker Mayfield was doing that led him to have a career year this season and how they plan to carry it into next season)

"What he was able to do was take what we were installing in the classroom, and to apply it to the practice field, and then communicate to the O-line, the halfbacks, [wide] receivers, get everyone on the same page and then put in the work behind the scenes to be able to go out and execute on game day, so that the practice execution can become game reality. With him being able to put that work in and get everyone on the same page, and try to take practice fundamentals to the game, that's where you see a lot of his success and that's what it'll take to take it to the next level moving forward, as well."

(On when he felt that he was ready to be an offensive coordinator)

"I don't know if there was a specific time where I said I was ready, but I would say two years ago I really started thinking like a coordinator. When you're in the booth and you're looking at coverages and just doing your mundane 'QC' (quality control) work, you start thinking, 'Ok, what do I call next? What do I call next? What's this situation?' Whatever it might be. Over the last two years [I was] trying to think in that way to prepare myself for this day."

(On if there is more that QB Baker Mayfield can handle in terms of responsibilities in the offense)

"Absolutely. That's why it's so great to have the continuity of the scheme and the coaching staff, so that his baseline knowledge of what we're trying to get done is there and now we can put more on him to potentially get us out of a bad play or adjust something that we hadn't prepared for. That way, it's just something that is built in and not something that we have to actually give him a play call."

(On having Run Game Coordinator/OL Coach Kevin Carberry and Offensive Line Coach Brian Picucci back on the staff with him)

"Absolutely, it was paramount having those guys back. The way they work together, the way they communicate with the players, the way they were able to evolve the scheme from us coming in here, I guess in April of last year thinking it was going to be an 11-personnel outfit into adjusting was great. Being able to adjust to Luke [Goedeke] going down, to Tristan [Wirfs] going down, getting Graham [Barton] up to speed as quick as possible was huge. I have all the confidence in the world in those guys and it's just great to have them back. Like I've talked about with the other system, it's just taking it to the next level."

(On what it means to have support from the rest of the coaching staff)

"It means the world to me because, as they know, it's not short hours here. We're in there all day, we see each other more than our families, so to have the continuity and trust [from] them… they know we have each other's backs, and they have the players' backs. It's a relationship business and the people in this building make it go and it's something that I'm fired up to be working with again."

(On losing Pass Game Assistant John Van Dam and if he plans on adding any other coaches to the staff)

"Yeah, I just saw that. It's something that me and Coach [Todd] Bowles and the rest of the offensive staff will have a chance to discuss and see what we want to do with that moving forward."

(On what it means to have the support of the players)

"It means the world because to at least know that they trust me and that I trust them and that I have their best interest at heart. That's aside from football and the schematics and trying to win games, it's that they know that I care about them, and they care about me, and they're also confident in my ability to take this thing to the next level. There's the ground floor on what we're trying to accomplish here, which is ultimately a Super Bowl and we fell short [last year]. To hear that from them – that's why you [coach in] this game and try to help them as much as possible."

(On what his interview for offensive coordinator was like)

"What we touched on was really my vision for from essentially today-moving forward, whether it be with the offensive roster, how would I do schedules differently, how would practice be conducted differently – like we talked about, with the potential call periods, being in the booth on game day. We went through my vision of it as well as a little bit of the intricacies on things that I wanted to keep the same and adjust that are more of behind the scenes coaching level."

(On if he feels like he has an advantage coming into this role coming from learning from a variety of different offensive coordinators)

"Definitely, because when you're a coach, you believe in core principles or core plays, so if you're able to pull from those guys' favorite plays and things that they know like the back of their hand, and they know the adjustments to them – to be able to take that from each of them to try to implement, I think is huge. There's potentially a positive of not being a play caller before too where you don't necessarily have the tendencies of someone that's been calling it for 20 years."

(On how much he takes ideas and plays from college football teams)

"A bunch, because just watching games on Saturdays you might see something they just ran at the two-minute mark in the third quarter and you write it down and then go look at it on film the next day. Really what you get is this time of the year, when you start watching college prospects, you start to see concepts and things that they're utilizing and you try to see if it's a fit for us. Whether it's from college or from the pro game, I try to watch as much tape as possible to take from other people."

(On what it was like for him watching this offense progress and improve in the run game, and how he plans build on that this season)

"It's great to see because you know that you're molding the offense to fit the skill set of the players, which is what we're tasked to do. It also puts pressure on the defense if you can be multiple in your run game style – if you have multiple runs out of 12 personnel or the package where Bucky [Irving] and Rachaad [White] are on the field at the same time – because then you don't necessarily have as many tendencies when you go into that game. Being able to evolve and try to stay ahead of what coordinators are trying to do to us, I think, is huge and that will always be huge."

(On how much he looks forward to being involved in the draft process as an offensive coordinator)
"I'm really looking forward to it because it's a lot like going from a 'QC' (quality control coach) to a coordinator. You might just be breaking down film, or if you're the [wide] receivers coach, you're really just evaluating the receivers, so even last year, being able to evaluate the receivers and the tight ends and the halfbacks and the quarterbacks, and of course this year being able to add to the O-line, is big, just because you understand what's happening in college football. You're able to have an evaluation on those players and really personally, being able to think, 'Ok, where did I miss on this guy? Or hit on that guy?' to try to adjust your decision making moving forward. Just like anything else, when you have those many reps to be able to do that, you should allow yourself to become better at it."

(On what clicked for WR Jalen McMillan in the last few games of the season)

"For one, he had to get back from being hurt. He had the [hamstring] issue and he was out for a couple games, but what really took off for 'J-Mac' was the practice execution becoming the game reality, in that he was executing at a high level in practice and treating it like a game, and so therefore, there's confidence to throw the ball to him in the game. Then when you have success at it, when you go back to game plan the next week, it's, 'What can we do to get the ball back in his hands again?' When that starts to snowball in a good fashion, you saw his season takeoff. The goal now is to continue where he left off, and now, he's someone that we can rely on and get the ball in his hands as much as possible."

(On what his job duties were last year assisting former Offensive Coordinator Liam Coen with the offense)

"I would try to help him get ahead with each portion of the gameplan. We break up the game planning on first and second down plays, third down plays, red area plays. We [divide] that up among the staff – it was a very collaborative effort, so that once he gets to that portion of the gameplan that we were able to whittle down exactly what we wanted to do. That was the biggest role, but it could be helping script practice as the week goes on. Like we were talking about play calling – numbering the plays [in order] to get this off the sheet as quick as possible and then it would move into the gameday role of communicating the coverages and the next plays."

(On a particular moment he was proud of)
"The Mike Evans catch. That was amazing."

(On the best piece of advice he has received since accepting the job)
"Keep your phone charged. It's just cool to hear from multiple people that you haven't heard from in forever. The support of coaches you work with, and like a lot of these guys, it was cool to hear from the players too. [Hearing from players] you haven't talked in three to four years, maybe even longer, that are appreciative for what you did for them and looking forward to the next step. Just catching up with people and just talking to them and then ultimately trying to help them out. It's always a tough time of year for coaches with hirings and firings, so you want to be able to help guys as much as possible."

(On the offensive line)
"I would say going in this interview process for myself last year, I hadn't watched a ton of the Bucs, but one of the first things you [see when you] turned on [the tape] – when I was deciding to take a look at the roster here – was how talented the O-line was. Being able to add 'Breds' (Ben Bredeson) and being able to add Graham [Barton] through the draft was huge. Those guys set the tone, like we talked about what we want to hang our hat on, [which] is run the ball and being physical and those guys embody that. So, from a day-to-day basis, seeing the work that they put in – players only meetings, quarterback-player meetings, halfback, quarterback, o-line meetings – that's how you want it to be built, and that's a testament to Jason [Licht] and how he's built this thing."

(On his assessment of the tight end room)
"Yeah, Cade [Otton] was really good for us and especially being able to step up into that role once Chris [Godwin] went down was huge – hats off to him. He was doing the work behind the scenes already; you guys have been around for a number of years but to get that opportunity and make the most of it was huge. I thought Payne [Durham] – for the same reason when Cade went down – being able to step up have a couple low-red [zone] touchdowns. He brought an element of physicality and Payne loves to practice, loves to compete – keeps it light. And then for 'Dev' [Devin Culp] to be able to take that step, as well, where now he had a chance to go in there, he made some massive plays in the last two to three games trying to get into the playoffs. It's just the start for him. [I] look forward to having a full offseason to work with him. You guys have seen it – he can run, he can make plays after the catch – so the future is bright for Devin, as well."

(On what he learned from Liam Coen and the way he game planned or looked at the offense)
"I have a ton of respect for how he did it because people come up here and talk all the time about the marriage of the run and the pass game, and it [sounds] very good at a podium. But when you hang your hat on that in a meeting room and try to do that on gameday, as well, he really believes in that, and I'm aligned in that as well. Then just seeing him on a day-to-day basis, how he communicated with the players, with the coaches, his love for the game – he was a son of a coach, so [I] learned a ton from him when it came to that. And then on gameday just seeing he wasn't afraid to let it rip [and] challenge the defense and I appreciated that."

(On balancing the run game with three running backs and if it's a problem he is looking forward to having)
"It's a good problem to have. They're all deserving. You can see what Bucky [Irving] did by being able to step into that role and set the tone. Rachaad [White] was in there – three down back – did an unbelievable job getting the ball in his hands and making people miss, holding up in third down protections, and I know he's going to take that to the next level. We want to involve both of those guys even more in the actual drop back passing game, trying to get it to them not just being perimeter screens and things of that nature. And then you saw what 'Tuck' (Sean Tucker) did, especially in the New Orleans game with his opportunity, so there's a spot for him to add on to what he's done. He's deserving of getting the ball in his hands because, ultimately, he had some production when he did it."

(On his message to Buccaneers fans)
"I'm fired up. You guys know the foundation that's in place. We didn't come here to go to the playoffs and lose a home game, so we're trying to take it to the next level [and] try to bring a championship back to Tampa, and I'm fired up to be here and try to lead this unit down the road."

-BUCCANEERS-