Jeff Tedford Details Health Issues
January 14th, 2015
“I loved those players,” Tedford said.
Yes, Joe was one of two reporters who collared former Tampa Bay offensive coordinator Jeff Tedford today at East-West Shrine Game practice in St. Petersburg this morning.
Obviously, Tedford discussed his exit from the Bucs, but Tedford also went into great detail about what exactly went wrong healthwise, and how medications and other physical complications prevented him from jumping back into the pool again full-time.
“Part of it is you have to balance your medications,” Tedford said. “I was on like eight different medications. And they can mess with you a little bit. They were giving me a lot things for certain things and I was reacting a certain way with things. I was tired all the time. It was a situation where I had to get those medications balanced out then I started feeling better.
“The process was: getting [the prescriptions] balanced, getting back to where you need to be, then wean off of them again. That was towards the end with about five weeks left [in the season]. I was off of them and I felt and felt I was 100 percent.”
Tedford then discussed when his health issues began to kick in, the morning of the preseason game against the Bills in Buffalo.
“The morning of [the Buffalo preseason] game, in my hotel room I blacked out and didn’t tell anybody about it. I just went ahead and coached the game. I didn’t feel good in the locker room before the game. I went ahead and coached the game. And after the game I felt terrible again.
“Usually, when I get on the plane and take an iPad and I watch the game, and I grade it and all of that. I went right to sleep. I felt like there was something wrong. And I had the armshakes and stuff. So I knew where was something going on. The next morning I am going to grade the tape and I felt [bad], and I went to Lovie [Smith] and said, ‘I think I have a health thing going on here. So that’s when they took me over [to the hospital] immediately and admitted me and found that I had blockages and they had to do stents, and there was a debate whether they were going to do bypass [surgery] or stents. Luckily, it was just stents.
“Two or three weeks later my stress test was OK on the treadmill but I still had these other things going on. So they did more tests and found I had another issue that didn’t go well with a cardiac event. So you have to be careful with this. I felt bad through the season. I loved those players. They were great. The coaching staff was great to work with. But you know, health came first at that point. I was advised by a lot of people that, hey, you have to look after your health. That is kind of what happened.
“And I agree with Lovie, it would have been difficult going back into the room and coordinate. So we decided at that point if we don’t have a direction about where we are going next year, we should probably part ways.”
Joe will have more from Tedford later. To hear the full interview, click the arrow below. Audio courtesy of Joe’s friends at WDAE-AM 620.
January 14th, 2015 at 5:08 pm
MRSA, no OC… what will doom us before next year? I would think lead poisioning or cyber attacks bring us down in 2015
January 14th, 2015 at 5:14 pm
Guy is lucky to be alive! If you black out and full ill, don’t wait a day or so to go to the hospital. He could have easily died on plane or in sleep. I’m glad he is doing a better and what might have been.
January 14th, 2015 at 5:22 pm
“MRSA, no OC… what will doom us before next year? “…Lovie
January 14th, 2015 at 5:23 pm
This is a perfect example why we, as uneducated fans, shouldn’t jump to conclusion. This includes myself, as I jumped to the conclusion that he quit on the team. When I heard that Lovie didn’t want him back, I then jumped to the conclusion that Lovie is a complete idiot (cue 99% of you to tell me that is the truth regardless). However, after learning a bit more, nobody quit and nobody was stupid (at least not in this case). Tedford had a much more serious condition than I realized, and if you are Lovie, why would you want him to come back and risk him getting sick again or even dying on you in a lost season?
But of course, most of you will probably just take this opportunity to blast Lovie and/or Tedford, because that’s just what you do.
January 14th, 2015 at 5:26 pm
Wish Tedford the best but this all worked out forcthe best for us forcthe long run. I’d rather suffer thru one 2-14 season than 3 6-10 seasons.
January 14th, 2015 at 5:29 pm
Once Again – great job Joe. This Tedford interview helps to provide some closure I think. Many – myself included felt jilted by Tedford and that he had somehow let us down. But as you maintained pretty much the whole time – there really was nothing nefarious about this from either side. Tedford had a major health issue that had to be dealt with and it took almost 3 months to get it completely handled – so at that point (sitting at 2-9) – it was best for the Bucs to just move on and change the focus from winning games to evaluating and looking forward to what will come by securing the #1 pick and a potential franchise QB.
Hopefully one day you will be able to similarly interview Josh Freeman and get us some more info/insight/closure as to what the hell actually happened in his situation. From his viewpoint at least….
January 14th, 2015 at 5:31 pm
@HawaiianBuc
Spot on! This applies to 85% of the commenters here.
Thank you!
January 14th, 2015 at 5:53 pm
Great reporting Joe, this just proves that Lovie and Tedford decided to go different way on the offense and the HC “won” out, pun intended.
January 14th, 2015 at 5:55 pm
Further proof Lovie knew he had the information to start with. Why did he not bring in a real OC to replace him if it was that bad?
January 14th, 2015 at 6:27 pm
@BucFan20,
It’s next to impossible to change an OC once the season has begun, at least one who runs a completely different system. Tedford allegedly had a very unique system, so how would get another coach to come in and continue that same system? You can’t, so they would have to start all over again. Since that would be the case, what is training camp for? What are OTA’s for? They are for installing the system, which now would have to be done basically once the regular season started. Think about the logistics of that and tell me how it could work. Now if the new coach tried to use Tedford’s system (which would be impossible), how could he even call plays? They aren’t even his plays! It simply wouldn’t be possible, and we were screwed from the moment we lost Tedford. He could have possibly brought in a consultant, but I highly doubt it would have made much difference. It comes down to play calling at a certain point, and we didn’t have anyone that could call plays, so we were stuck with the ONLY guy on the staff who had coached with Tedford previously.
January 14th, 2015 at 7:17 pm
Hawaiian is killing it. Not to mention, there aren’t a ton of “real” OC’s just sitting around waiting for a phone call after the season starts.
January 14th, 2015 at 8:48 pm
Tedford was fortunate for sure; he had all the signs of the “Big One” about to put him 6 feet under as the widow maker was definitely knocking on his door. As far as the OC position goes; yeah the loss of Tedford did turn what should have been a 6-10 season into a 2-14 one but in the long run it may be best; Bucs do have the #1 overall instead of picking 8th or so. The Bucs also seem to have done well in getting a real OC for 2015 in Dirk Koetter and hopefully the worst thing that can happen is that the Bucs O does such a great turnaround next season that Koetter becomes a big interview target for the 2016 head coaching vacancies. Of interest to note is that the other OC names thrown about as potential candidates in Tampa are now getting snagged up: Roman to Rex Ryan’s Bills and now perhaps Trestman going to Oakland to work under Jack del Rio. Looks like the Bucs were ahead of the curve in the OC race but we did think that last season in the head coaching hunt when the Glazers snagged up Lovie before Detroit got him in for an interview so time will tell but I am of the philosophy that the Bucs are ROCK BOTTOM right now, they really have no direction to go but up and hopefully up will mean actually being competitive and not merely outdueling the Falcons for the basement of the NFC South in a race to 4-12 like 2013…….
January 14th, 2015 at 8:54 pm
Joe
Really impressed with this piece of journalism. Nice work indeed.
January 14th, 2015 at 9:02 pm
HawaiianBuc Says
“This is a perfect example why we, as uneducated fans, shouldn’t jump to conclusion.”
Well said, buddy.
January 15th, 2015 at 12:12 am
Thanks for the kind words guys.
January 15th, 2015 at 1:28 am
This has cleared up a lot for us. Thans for sticking with this Joe. Sometimes closure is what is needed. I definitely felt a little slighted by Tedford. However, when you see the extent of his condition, all parties made the right call.
January 15th, 2015 at 2:55 am
Good journalism work Joe and way to sum up the OC situation @HawaiianBuc
January 15th, 2015 at 3:34 pm
Lovie the Liar strikes again. Nothing would delight me more than to have the NFL strip the pick from the Bucs on their disregard for the integrity of the game and intentionally tanking
January 15th, 2015 at 4:31 pm
” Nothing would delight me more than to have the NFL strip the pick from the Bucs on their disregard for the integrity of the game and intentionally tanking”
——-
SMDH. Literally the stupidest comment maybe in the history of stupid comments.