What If Arians Gets Sick?
August 6th, 2020
Succession plan.
Earlier this summer when asked about playing a season in the middle of a pandemic, Bucs coach Bucco Bruce Arians quipped that everybody will get sick.
Fast-forward to last week and Arians said if everyone follows the safety protocols, no one getting inside One Buc Palace will be sick.
Why did Arians have such an abrupt about-face?
Because Arians said he saw the protocols the NFL laid down on testing, social distancing, etc. at One Buc Palace.
(For example, when Arians addresses the team, he does it in the Glazer Shed, which has enough room for 80 guys to spread out in bleachers built to seat 3,000 people. For the entire team/building to hear him, Arians uses a mic and a public address system along with a projection video screen.)
Arians has a reason to be concerned (though he sure wears a happy face behind his red mask.). Arians is 67 and had cancer. Those are two major risk factors for victims of “The Sickness.”
Bucs fans are hoping for special year, one in which no Bucs player becomes ill. A player can be replaced easily for a short period of time (think normal football bumps and bruises). But what about Arians or one of his assistants?
“When we came back in July or late June, we put those protocols in place – who would take my place, who would take Todd [Bowles’] place, who would take Byron [Leftwich’s] place, who would take Keith [Armstrong’s] place,” Arians said in a Zoom conference call yesterday.
“We have enough young coaches now in the system that if the receivers coach gets sick, the assistant receivers coach takes over. We’re very fortunate to have that big of a staff and have guys I trust to do it.”
Arians did not mention who his replacement would be if he got sick. So the following is strictly speculation. No one has told Joe anything off the record.
It’s strictly Joe guessing.
* If Arians gets sick, he likely would be replaced by Bowles.
* If Bowles was out, Kacy Rodgers would step in. (He was Bowles’ defensive coordinator with the Jets).
* If Leftwich gets sick, run game coordinator Harold Goodwin would possibly take over as offensive coordinator with Arians likely calling plays. Goodwin was Arians’ offensive coordinator in Arizona for four years.
Again, this is Joe spitballing while looking down the coaching food chain.
August 6th, 2020 at 5:55 am
Nice article – felt like a bit of an inside look (speculation I know) at what we are quietly thinking is a possibility.
August 6th, 2020 at 8:13 am
I think Clyde would be in the mix for OC more than Goodwin if Leftwich goes down. Bowles makes all the sense in the world to succeed Arians whether its this year due to the virus or when BA retires.
August 6th, 2020 at 8:39 am
What if Arians, Bowles, Rodgers and Goodwin get sick?
August 6th, 2020 at 10:43 am
What if Arians, Bowles, Rodgers and Goodwin get sick?
Willie Taggart is available.
August 6th, 2020 at 10:55 am
Just another benefit of having a large coaching staff. It’s time for some of you to come clean and admit, your early criticisms of a large coaching staff were a lack of open mindedness and puffery….I’m looking at you Ira.
The Buccaneers website has Goodwin listed as Assistant Head Coach and is second man on the Totem Pole.
In BA I Trust!
August 6th, 2020 at 11:19 am
It occurs to me that at this point an NFL camp is far safer for BA than his neighborhood Publix and absolutely safer than his favorite eatery.
The most fundamental and frequent method of transmission is person to person through the air…hence the masks. Surfaces perhaps could be an issue but they are getting disinfected frequently.
So where is BA more likely to bump into Covid? In a place where people are tested very frequently if not daily? Or in his neighborhood supermarket, eatery or other indoor activity.
If they are testing guys when they arrive each day with the quick result tests before letting them in they would keep a screened population.
If the tests are mere swabs or saliva collection and they feared a low accuracy rate on the tests they could simply do them two at a time.
If nobody has the virus coming through the door where will it come from. Doesnt’ mean we won’t lose players and coaches but we should lose them at the gate.
August 6th, 2020 at 11:37 am
Don’t care so much about Arians (not saying I would want anybody to get sick) than Brady and Godwin and Evans getting sick.
In case you didn’t know it is not ppl in their 80s and 90s getting sick and dying.
August 6th, 2020 at 11:38 am
*not only