While everyone has an opinion about what is causing the discord in Tampa Bay, consider this an informed one.
Teddy Bruschi, former New England Patriot and Tom Brady’s teammate on three of those Super Bowl Champion teams, weighs in on what’s happening with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Bruce Arians Is Stubborn
Bruschi said that his Patriots teams would have loved to face off against the current Bucs offense.
He offers a lot of detail as to why.
“I think there is a combination of two things that is holding the Tampa Bay offense back and also Brady in terms of his success and one is Bruce Arians because the guy is just stubborn. Tom is in the middle of a team with a head coach that our old Patriots teams would love going up against team like this. They have the philosophy of we do what we do and we’re just going to do it, we’re better than you, we think our players are better so go ahead and do what you want I’m still going to throw my deep routes and all this and all of that. We would just adjust to it and take it away know that they still force it in there and we would pick it off. We would do something like that. Bruce Arians and that type of stubbornness.”
In other words, Bruschi doesn’t think that Arians and offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich are designing plays utilizing Tom Brady’s strengths.
It’s worth noting Arians has lousy luck with quarterbacks in the first year with his team/offense.
Bruce Arians was blessed with a lot of talented QBs to work with.
He got them all to throw a lot of INTs in their first year in his system. pic.twitter.com/E1zdd6pJiP
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) November 29, 2020
Running Backs Can’t Catch Short Passes
Bruschi also doesn’t think Brady is getting a lot of help when short passes are thrown specifically to the running backs.
“And the second thing is holding that offense back are the running backs. They can’t catch. … I mean as a quarterback, let me get my five, man. All I want is five. Catch it and fall forward and it’s 2nd-and-6 or it’s 2nd-and-7. You never know, you break a tackle and you’re moving the chains. That’s what they are not getting. To watch over and over, Fournette drop it. Jones drop it. You can see the look on Tom’s face, ‘Dude, you will never be James White.’ Something like that that. Those are the easy yards that you take that Tom just doesn’t have anymore so he’s got to push it down the field.”
This is not the first time Coach Bruce Arians has been under fire.
ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky
Orlovsky went off on Arians on Get Up after the Bucs lost to the Chiefs.
“The Buccaneers offensively are the walking definition of insanity — doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. … The lack of play-action pass is something I’ve talked about for six weeks with this offense. Tom Brady, by every measure right now, is the second-ranked play-action passing quarterback in the NFL. It keeps him clean. It helps their offensive line (with) protection. It creates some of the chunk passes. They ran it five times yesterday…Right now Bruce Arians is wasting Tom Brady. He got served on a silver platter the greatest quarterback to ever play, and all you had to do was use him the right way. He’s completely failing Tom, and I’ve got fear that it’s gonna bury this football team.”
Tony Romo pointed out similar issues while calling a Bucs game on CBS.
Tony Romo with some educational insights into the problems Tom Brady has with Bruce Arians offense – not enough pre-snap motion, no run game or play-action – none of the things that make it easier to play QB.
— Ed Werder (@WerderEdESPN) November 29, 2020
Will Arians, Leftwich, and Brady work together and figure it out?
Tampa Bay is 7-4 so it’s time to fix the problems to keep this team playoff bound.
NEXT: Arians: "Brady Has Been Calling Buccaneer's Offensive Plays"
