Though the question remains as to who the next Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback will be, Dave Canales will be the man responsible for guiding him and the Bucs offense.
The Buccaneers are hiring Canales, the Seattle Seahawks quarterbacks coach, as their new offensive coordinator, NFL Network Insider Mike Garafolo reported Wednesday.
Canales later confirmed the move while tweeting a thank you to Seahawks players, staff and fans. The team announced Canales' hiring on Thursday.
Canales spent 13 seasons as an assistant of Pete Carroll and will now join Todd Bowles' staff in Tampa Bay, replacing Byron Leftwich, who was dismissed after the 2022 campaign.
"We are excited to announce Dave Canales as our new offensive coordinator," Bowles said in a statement. "I want to thank the various candidates that we interviewed throughout this very thorough process. Dave has done a great job in a variety of roles with Seattle the past 13 years and he brings a passion for coaching and an energy level that players just seem to respond to. He has played a significant part in the development and growth of many Seahawks players who have contributed to their offensive success over the past decade, and I look forward to seeing what he will do with our players on offense. The more we talked, the more it became apparent that we are very similar in how we approach the game, and I am confident that he will find a way to maximize our strengths on offense."
The 41-year-old Canales emerged from a long list of candidates interviewed by the Bucs and will make a massive career change. Not only is Canales switching coasts, he's also set to step out from under the Carroll coaching umbrella for the first time in his NFL career. Canales joined Carroll in 2009 at USC and has been with the head coach in Seattle since 2010, assuming roles ranging from offensive quality control coach to wide receiver coach to quarterbacks coach most recently.
Canales played a vital role in the renaissance of quarterback Geno Smith's career in 2022 and will now be tasked with resurrecting the Buccaneers quarterback spot post-Tom Brady.
Following Leftwich's firing in January and Brady's (second) retirement to kick off February, the Buccaneers offense is due for a complete reconstruction and Canales will be the foreman. He ventures from the Seahawks, who boasted the No. 9 scoring offense in the NFL, to the Bucs, who were ranked 25th in scoring. Working alongside Bowles, he'll be paired again with a defensive-minded head coach as he had been for more than a decade with Carroll.
The next biggest quandary for the Bucs will be determining their starting quarterback for 2023. Currently, the only Tampa Bay quarterback on its roster for 2023 is 2021 draft pick Kyle Trask, who has played in just one game in two seasons.
It was a given that the Tampa Bay would feature a new look in 2023, and Bowles has found the coordinator to bring that into view.
