Two Bouquets For Jason Licht; Two Darts At Todd Bowles
May 18th, 2026
Bucs GM Jason Licht.
Well, a couple of big name national analysts joined forces last week to throw love and shade at Bucs power brokers.
They found common ground: a top-5 GM ranking for Jason Licht and potshots at Todd Bowles.
It was reminscent of the chatter commonly heard outside the Team Glazer suite — in cigar lounges, sports bars and Home Depot lines from Largo to Lakeland.
ESPN NFL analyst Mina Kimes hosted NFL guru Sheil Kapadia of TheRinger.com on her podcast last week. They set out to rank the top 10 coaches and the top 5 general managers in the league.
At No. 4 on her GM list, Kimes had Licht; Kapadia ranked Licht at No. 5 overall.
“I just think he continually smashes it in the draft,” Kimes said of Licht. “… I think this roster is just really well-constructed. … I also think coaching, maybe Licht deserves some criticism; I think Todd Bowles, might be that time to kinda wind it down.
But I just think [Licht] continuously finds really, really good players, both either values in the draft or good values in free agency.”
Kimes whispered when she mentioned Bowles and her tone wreaked of finger-pointing at the Bucs’ head coach.
“It seems like their rosters are always good and he makes common-sense moves, and he hasn’t had a difference-making coach or quarterback since the end of the Tom Brady era,” Kapadia added.
Both acknowledged how well Licht has navigated the post-Brady era.
Most analysts and fans prefer not to link Licht and Bowles. It’s like there’s a separation of church and state. Joe isn’t 100 percent sure why that is, but Bowles overhauling his coaching staff while the front office stayed intact certainly underscores a divide.
Joe wonders if anything other than wins would help Bowles win the perception game he’s trailing by three scores.