Tiering & Analyzing Bucs Offensive Coordinator Candidates

I tiered the 7 current Bucs offensive coordinator candidates, assessing their strengths and the biggest question marks surrounding each coach as the interview process nears its' conclusion.

I know everyone always skips the first paragraph to get to the tiers, but please read this one! Analyzing coach/coordinator candidates is NOT the same as draft prospects or NFL player evaluations. With every candidate, my view into who they are is really limited, especially when it comes to the intangible traits that make a great coach.

So please take all of this with a grain of salt. I’m much more passionate and confident in my analysis of players or game tape than I am in predicting the next great Bucs offensive coordinator. But here are my rough tiers of the candidates who have interviewed so far.

Tier 1 - Top Option

Ravens ex-OC Todd Monken

Pros

• Older coach, but has shown the ability to be innovative and tailor his offense to his personnel. Did an awesome job adapting to what the Ravens already did well and then adding elements to make them a more threatening, multi-level passing attack
• Is decidedly not old school in his approach, and has added to his offense many times to continue to stay fresh and fit players skill sets well
• Successful offenses everywhere he has gone. Even with Lamar Jackson missing half the season, the Ravens finished 15th in EPA/play and 1st in EPA/rush
• With Lamar, the Ravens were never a heavy volume under center passing team, but they were outstanding when they did it.
• Authentic as it gets. Might be a bit testy at times, but he will also shoulder the blame when things go poorly and is open to new information too

Questions

• Admitted he could have coached Lamar Jackson better and that the relationship could have been better (although Lamar played his best football under Monken…)
• Sometimes aggressive to a fault, offenses could be more efficient at times
• Sounds like Monken is likely to end up as the Giants OC if he doesn’t get a head coaching gig

Tier 2 - Could See It Working

Giants ex-OC Mike Kafka

I’ve actually never studied Kafka, and watching the Giants offense over the past four years, during which Kafka was named play caller and stripped of play-calling duties multiple times, didn’t help. How much of what happened in New York was Daboll and how much was Kafka? I enlisted Ollie Connolly, who knows Kafka very well, for help. The comments in quotes below are from him.