Todd Bowles Acknowledges Three-Game Slide For Zyon McCollum
November 24th, 2025
About eight months ago at the NFL Owners meetings, Todd Bowles made it clear that Zyon McCollum was his 1A cornerback and Jamel Dean was his 1B.
Joe suspects the head coach would pass a polygraph if he had to say the same thing again today.
McCollum’s play has been a disappointment. Bowles said he wanted “ballhawks” this season. McCollum has been anything but.
Last night, McCollum got picked on by the Rams multiple times. That stood out more than usual considering Bucs rookie Jacob Parrish was playing cornerback on the opposite side of the field.
Bowles weighed in on his fourth-year cornerback today during his Monday news conference.
“He had a couple of bad plays in the first half,” Bowles said of McCollum. “I think the last three weeks he’s got to correct a lot of things within himself. He’s one of our best athletes and our best players. He’s got to get out of that rut. We have to help him get out of that rut. And we rely on him to make some plays, you know, he had a rough outing yeterday. You got to come back and recover.”
Hard words from the head coach. All summer, Joe wrote that Dean is the Bucs’ best cornerback, and that was based on watching practice.
Given the lack of progression from McCollum, even with competition all around him, Joe’s starting to think McCollum isn’t the player a lot of fans think he is.