Buccaneers HC Todd Bowles Has a Strict Pre-Game Candy Bar Superstition

Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles has a game-day routine. It involves chocolate, a specific seat on the team bus, and an assistant named Sarah who knows that forgetting the candy bar is bad luck on the level of a black cat crossing the road.

Bowles joined The Rich Eisen Show, and Rich's opener was about the hoodie. New for 2026? Bowles laughed. He said it was a 2024 hoodie. One of his comfortable ones. He wears it around his office all the time.

That opened the door to the actual question. Is Bowles superstitious?

"I am very superstitious on certain things," Bowles said.

He walked Rich through the routine without much prompting. On game day, he has to have either a Nestle Crunch or a Kit Kat before kickoff. Non-negotiable. The night before a game, he has to have Chips Ahoy cookies in the evening, or something in that family.

Then the seating arrangement.

Bowles always sits in the right side, first seat of the team bus. The only time he moves is when ownership is on the bus. If the Glazers are riding along, he gives up his spot.

"They don't need to know," Bowles said with a laugh when Rich asked whether the Glazer family was aware of the seating system.

The superstitions extend to his coaches. Bowles makes sure his staff sits in the same spots they've sat in every week. If somebody changes their seat or moves and the Buccaneers lose, Bowles will blame them.

Rich, charmed, kept pulling the thread. Was there a candy-bar designee? A person whose job it is to make sure the head coach gets his chocolate before kickoff?

There is. Her name is Sarah. She's Bowles's assistant. She brings the candy bar to him every game.

"If she doesn't have it," Bowles said, "she knows that's bad luck. It's like a black cat crossing the road."

It's happened once or twice in Bowles's tenure. Rich asked what the protocol is when Sarah comes up empty. Bowles has a clean answer. If Tampa Bay wins anyway, he just goes with it and skips the candy bar the following week. If they lose, he blames Sarah.

Rich, whose job is to talk to football people about football, found himself fully off-script. He admitted he had no idea this conversation was going to head into chocolate-and-bus-seat territory. He said he had no clue Bowles was a superstitious man at all, let alone one who eats like a five-year-old.

Bowles took the joke in stride.

Rich noted that Bowles must love Halloween.

"Yeah," Bowles said. "I always look forward to it."

The segment was short, but it pulled back the curtain on something fans rarely see. Head coaches at the highest level of the sport carry the same private rituals as anyone else. Some just happen to involve a Nestle Crunch and a non-negotiable seat assignment.

For a coach known publicly for his calm demeanor and defensive mind, the private routine is its own kind of preparation. Sarah keeps the candy stocked. The right side of the bus stays open. The coaches sit where they sat last week. And the Buccaneers play.