Todd Bowles’ Buccaneers fate revealed after second-half collapse

A brutal second-half swoon did not cost Todd Bowles his job.

The 62-year-old will return for a fifth season as the Buccaneers’ head coach, he told the Tampa Bay Times Wednesday, after meeting with ownership on Tuesday.

Tampa Bay (8-9) started the season 6-2 before losing seven of their next eight games. They won their regular-season finale against the Panthers on Saturday, but the Falcons’ Sunday win created a three-way tie that gave Carolina the NFC South title and a home playoff date with the Rams.

The Bucs’ struggles reached a boiling point after a Dec. 11 loss to the Falcons on “Thursday Night Football,” as the normally even-keeled Bowles called out his team in an expletive-filled rant.

“It’s inexcusable, you don’t make excuses,” Bowles said after his team lost on a walk-off field goal. You gotta f–king care enough where the s–t hurts. You gotta f–king care enough where the s–t hurts. It’s gotta f–king mean something to you. It’s more than a job, it’s your f–king livelihood.

“How well do you know your job? How well can you do your job? You can’t sugarcoat that s–t. It was inexf–kingcusable, and there’s no f–king answer for it. There’s no excuse for it. That’s what you tell them in the locker room — look in the f–king mirror.”

The Bucs have a 35-33 regular-season record under Bowles over the last four years and a 1-3 playoff mark.

Bowles led the Jets from 2015-18 and then joined the Buccaneers as the defensive coordinator in 2019 after he was fired in New York.

In 2020, he helped lead the team’s defense to a Super Bowl win over the Patrick Mahomes-led Chiefs.

Bowles took over the head coaching duties in 2022 when Bruce Arians shifted to a consulting role. In each of his first three years at the helm, Bowles and the Bucs made the playoffs as the NFC South champions.

He — along with general manager Jason Licht — earned multi-year contract extensions before this season.