Todd Bowles’ poor tactical management in the playoffs is becoming an annual tradition.

The Buccaneers coach made some strange decisions with his timeouts that didn’t help his team’s chances in Sunday night’s 23-20 home loss to the Commanders in the wild card round.

Bowles wasted crucial time at the end of the game before calling two timeouts, including a delay due to what he called a “personnel issue.”

He also wasted time on the Buccaneers’ final drive of the first half.

Bowles’ decisions ultimately didn’t doom the Buccaneers, as they scored a touchdown in the final first half and Washington could have bled out the clock despite timeouts on the final drive, but Bowles didn’t put his team in the best position to kill to be successful by letting the clock run.

That sequence followed last year’s questionable strategy in the divisional round when he didn’t use timeouts after a loss to the Lions.

The first delay came after Austin Ekeler caught an 18-yard pass on the first play after the two-minute warning, giving the Commanders a first down at the Buccaneers’ 27-yard line.

Logan Hall tackled Ekeler with about 1:51 left, but the Buccaneers didn’t use their first timeout until 1:41 left.

Bowles seemed to indicate – his response did not specify which play it was – that his defense had trouble fielding after that play, which led to the delay.

“Before the last game we wanted to call a timeout, wanted to see where they were trying to call a timeout, and we had a personnel issue,” Bowles said, “so we took it later than normal.”

Ekeler then ran for eight yards on the next play, but Bowles did not call a timeout, instead opting to call a timeout after his defense stuffed Ekeler on third down.

“It’s only one yard for a first down, so we had to let it play and keep it there,” Bowles said.

The Commanders then almost tied the game when Jayden Daniels ran four yards for a first down on the next play and hit the turf with about 48 seconds left.

Bowles didn’t take his final timeout until there were 40 seconds left.

In the first half, Bowles left about 13 seconds off the clock after Mike Evans led the Buccaneers into the red zone down 10-3 with less than a minute left in the second quarter.

Evans scored a touchdown later on the drive, but losing that time gave Tampa Bay less time to score the game-winning score.

“Proud of the way they fought,” Bowles said. “Of course it was a disappointment, we don’t want the season to end like that. We don’t want any pointing fingers. We had our chances to win that ballgame, but obviously it wasn’t good enough.”