Rashad Johnson demands accountability after late-game defensive collapses and "3rd and 28" blunders cost Tampa Bay the division, forcing a secondary overhaul to restore championship standards.
New Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerbacks coach Rashad Johnson didn't sugarcoat anything: The team, and the secondary, wasn't good enough last season.
Everybody knows the story by now.
The Bucs were poised to run away with the NFC South, starting the year 6-2.
Then, everything fell apart. Tampa lost seven of its last nine games to finish 8-9 and, by virtue of a tiebreaker, lost the division to the Carolina Panthers, failing in their quest to win a sixth straight division championship.
Of those seven losses, the one that hurt the most took place on a Thursday night before the hometown fans.
Playing against an ordinary Atlanta Falcons team that came into the night 4-9, the Bucs had it in the bag. Although Tampa only led by two with 1:20 left, Atlanta was facing a 3rd and 28 and, per ESPN, a 7.2% chance to win.
Before anybody knew it, Atlanta used two plays to get a first down, and eventually kicked a game-winning field goal.
In what ended up being one of his last games as a Buccaneer, Mike Evans was captured repeatedly yelling “3rd and 28” as he walked into the locker room.
Coach Todd Bowles entered into a profanity-laced tirade in his postgame presser.
Had the defensive backs been better, the Bucs would have beaten Atlanta, and this isn’t lost on Johnson, who was Tampa’s assistant secondary coach for three seasons before being promoted.
“It’s simple and plain: We’ve just got to be better in those situations,” Johnson said. “Third-and-28, fourth downs, explosive plays on the defensive back end, those things can’t happen.”
Contrary to Johnson’s point, the Bucs were one of the best teams in the NFL at defending front down, finishing sixth in the league in opponent fourth down conversion percentage.
But Tampa did struggle in allowing big plays, finishing 25th in the league in opponents’ yards per play.
“Those things lose games,” Johnson said. “The standard here is to make it to the playoffs and then once we get in the playoffs, obviously, to win a Super Bowl. “We weren’t good enough on the back end. My job is to help the guys get better to make sure that we can correct those mistakes.”
Tampa lost its top corner from last season, Jamel Dean, to the Pittsburgh Steelers in free agency. The good news is that Tampa spent two of its early 2025 draft picks on DBs.
One of them, Jacob Parrish, became one of Tampa’s better defensive players as a rookie. Another, Benjamin Morrison, didn’t make as much of an instant impact, but still has high-upside as a second-round pick.
In this year’s draft, the Bucs drafted Miami DB Keionte Scott in the fourth round in what many feel was one of the steals of the weekend.
A better secondary could be one of the keys to Tampa reclaiming the NFC South in 2026.
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