August 16th, 2026
Praise from head coach.
On Friday night, when the Bucs beat the Jets in the Bucs’ first worthless preseason game, it was the first time we all got a chance to watch some players for the first time under the lights, hitting another team.
First time we saw Ted Hurst, Josiah Trotter, Jalon Daniels and others.
But it was also the first time we saw Zac Robinson on the Bucs’ sidelines.
The new Bucs offensive coordinator had his debut with the team on Friday night, too. And just by the winning score, you’d think Robinson did OK. It’s not like he’s a rookie playcaller.
Yesterday, KitKat-eating Bucs coach Todd Bowles was asked for his feedback on Robinson’s first game running the Bucs offense.
In short, Bowles thought Robinson was just the same as he has shown in underwear football season and training camp.
“I don’t think I learned too much,” Bowles said. “I mean, it’s been pretty clean like that since practice, since we started in OTAs and mini camp.
“It carried over to training camp, and there was more of that on the sideline [Friday night]. Thought the communication was great. The understanding of the guys were great, so you know, I thought it went well.”
If nothing else, Robinson showed that he can adjust in a tight spot when needed.
With just over three minutes left, following a timeout, Daniels ran right just to the right of his blockers on second-and-one from the Jets-1 for the winning touchdown.
Daniels said after the game that the touchdown run was not on the game script, that Robinson went off-script.
Joe gives Robinson kudos for this. With a free agent rookie quarterback, Robinson could have very easily stuck with the scripted plays, not wanting to confuse Daniels. Instead, Robinson chose something, while unexpected, was clearly a play both he and Daniels had a level of comfort in using.
So that shows Joe that Robinson isn’t chained to a callsheet. He’s willing to think outside the box, even in crunch time.