“It’s Not Even Close, To Be Honest With You”
August 17th, 2021
Byron Leftwich
Lots of clichés flowing from offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich today after practice.
But Leftwich did get off his well-oiled cliché game a little bit more than usual.
He came out swinging saying, “it’s not even close, to be honest with you,” when talking about the Bucs offense compared to where it was last season at this time.
And that growth means change, Leftwich said. “Now we’re on the next level of coaching. I stressed to the guys that we can’t be coaching the same things in this camp, and we’re not.”
Leftwich said the offense will still attack this season but will be very focused on efficiency while still in “attack mode.”
“The offense is based on the quarterback,” Leftwich added, a belief he’s emphasized many times before.
Interestingly, Leftwich again dismissed the Bucs adding more motion to their offense. “We’re not doing all this motion stuff. I don’t know where you all get that from,” he pleaded.
Joe’s not sure why Leftwich doesn’t like motion talk considering Bucco Bruce Arians has talked about it to media.
The offensive coordinator added that he loves the maturation of Leonard Fournette and energy and leadership of Antonio Brown.
Leftwich called the Bucs offense (and every offense) “player-driven” and said fans should see more of that this season.
August 17th, 2021 at 1:37 pm
BL is over rated IMO.
Had we not abandoned his scheme for Brady we would have never sniffed the SB.
Not saying he is a slug, but I’d bet money on a 12 year old in a Madden game against him.
August 17th, 2021 at 1:40 pm
The Bucs have the most talented roster in the NFL, but I do think BL needs to be a bit more unpredictable this year with his play calling. I am sure TB12 can change the play at the line of scrimmage whenever he wants though.
August 17th, 2021 at 1:51 pm
I don’t think anybody will be able to keep up with the Bucs’ offense this season, even if they were popping @Medicated Pete’s pills with a 12 oz. Baja Blast. I’ll take them over anybody else this season.
August 17th, 2021 at 2:02 pm
Y’all armchair coaches and gm’s never get enough huh.
August 17th, 2021 at 2:03 pm
No motion.
Run up the gut in 1st and 2nd down.
Brilliant.
August 17th, 2021 at 2:22 pm
BL doesn’t want to give his game plans away. He wants to keep defensive coordinators guessing about what they’ll see. That is why he was so adamant. He doesn’t want to talk about it.
August 17th, 2021 at 2:34 pm
Oh lord we still have posters saying we scrapped our offense for brady’s when both brady and the head coach has come out and said countless times quite the opposite ie brady just had to learn the offense etc. Go ahead and continue to be clueless and spout uninformed, uneducated and just plain ignorant takes at this point. If that helps you sleep better at night by all means. I will live in reality and continue watching BA and BL coach this offensive team to higher heights.
August 17th, 2021 at 3:08 pm
Well, I saw the first or second game Brady played. Seemed like every single play was a pass play and they got nowhere. I remember hardly believing the lousy play call. Much later (I think it was the other Bay) Brady got three interceptions and the defense saw to it that the other team did not even get one point out of them. BL has not proven himself to me, yet. If indeed, Brady and he are both on the same page now, I hope it’s one with a big W at the top of it.
August 17th, 2021 at 3:09 pm
Bangs head against the 🧱
August 17th, 2021 at 3:13 pm
@ webster (proper name BTW)….anyone who watched the games saw the dramatic changes in play calling late last year. It was night and day.
you should stick to sitcoms
August 17th, 2021 at 3:16 pm
“I stressed to the guys that we can’t be coaching the same things in this camp, and we’re not.” Well, I certainly hope he doesn’t deviate too much from last year’s approach. I understand that opponents adjust to what you do, so you have to change it up a little. I also know that this offense won a SB, and by all accounts it really hadn’t achieved its full potential. Keep it real BL!
August 17th, 2021 at 3:39 pm
The anaslyses show that Bucs in motion = success. Sometimes Leftwich worries me.
August 17th, 2021 at 3:50 pm
BL has forgotten more about football than I’ll ever know but I know you should run, “all this motion stuff”.
It makes the defense tip their hand to some of their “coverage stuff”.
Then, TB12 can read the defense and do his “goat stuff”.
August 17th, 2021 at 3:51 pm
some of yall are clueless….lol…
the man won a SB with “Run up the gut in 1st and 2nd down.” and his “predictable” play calling…lol…
BL is 100% correct…we have to be on another level this year and that IMO means execution….this year we should execute to perfection…ANYONE knows the offense…protections…routes…anyone knows how anyone plays…
thats why BL dismisses this motion BS…lol…if we execute the way we should and the way he’s coaching the offense, defenses wont be able to stop us….everyone can win their 1 on 1 battles b/c we have a QB that knows where to go with the ball quickly….
BL is our next HC!!…
GO BUCS!!!!
August 17th, 2021 at 3:53 pm
If Leftwich wasn’t so predictable in his playcalling, I think most people would be thinking this offense might break all the NFL offense records — in particular with the extra game.
But Leftwich is really predictable, and if Arians wasn’t yelling at him constantly to open things up, he’d just run it up the middle on every play and run a 3 yards and a cloud of dust offense. So that puts the Bucs constantly in 3rd and 9 situations, like on the opening drive on Saturday when it was 2 runs in a row and then 3rd and 9… Was the same thing with Brady that he did with Winston, the players constantly having to get out of jams by caused by the play calling.
Some tips Leftwich…
Stop being so predictable on 1st down, in particular early in games.
Stop bringing in everyone to a tight bunch formation on all your runs.
That doesn’t mean you run less – the pass/run mix I think is fine, it’s just the order of plays. Mix it up more, you can call the same plays, just don’t always do it in the same order. If we just got that growth out of Leftwich this offense will break every NFL offensive passing and scoring record.
August 17th, 2021 at 3:56 pm
No doubt we will see more motion and play action and quick screens. BL is chesting his cards here.
We cant be carbon copy of postseason last year. Every team has been breaking down tape. Disguises and surprises IMO.
We have the players and QB to take whatever a defense will give and still score points.
Sorry Joe. Ira’s got a point on Gio here, not every completion can be 40 yards downfield.
August 17th, 2021 at 4:00 pm
It makes the defense tip their hand to some of their “coverage stuff”.
c’mon man…name a defense Brady, BL or BA havent seen yet….
this isnt a “gimmick” offense designed around window dressing…an average or bad DC might fall for motions but a good DC wont tip his hand with that BS(i.e. Bowles)…
this offense is an attacking offense built around play makers and a GOAT QB…
execute the play..thats all we need….
GO BUCS!!!!
August 17th, 2021 at 4:14 pm
First off lefttwit doesn’t control the offense. Anyone with a functional brain knows who does. They should lead the league in rushing. The goat is a playaction quarterback. teams he hasn’t taken to the superbowl had one Achilles heel, guess what it was.
The passing game will come, and Brady may well throw for 6k yards. But, we all know that the o line played over there skies. For Christ sake you played road playoff games without any fans!!!! In a normal year the superdome whould be deafening. You got lucky, you caught tremendous breaks. That’s part of winning also. No shame in admitting it. It doesn’t tarnish the trophy. No more than deflate gate or spygate does. Just don’t count chickens
August 17th, 2021 at 4:30 pm
Unreal. THE O starts averaging over 30 points a game, still hasn’t even gelled completely to play their best according to Brady and BL, but you got idiots on here like DOOSH and ROBERT
Proclaiming BL sucks and doesn’t know what he’s doing.
It used to be irritating but now some of the football ignorance I see in these posts is just laughable
August 17th, 2021 at 4:36 pm
Arguing whose offense it is is a moot point. As far as terminology goes – it is the BA offense. As to the actual plays – they all have the same plays; just call the ones that suit TB most of the time.
And I hope they stick with more motion and play action or else they will start like they did last year.
August 17th, 2021 at 4:47 pm
Players mature, coaches mature & teams mature. We saw a bunch of that last year & (hopefully) that’s where we pick up this year. On offense, our OLine was a good example. Took awhile for it to gel, but once it did, hey we were off to the races. On defense, our Secondary was another good example. Took awhile for them to gel to, but once they did everything started coming together.
Coaching was the same way IMO. It took about 12 games for BL & Brady to get on the same page, for whatever reason. But once they did, things started to click. Hopefully that’s the point that we pick up at this year (not a foregone conclusion yet BTW since we haven’t played any games yet). Byron has ‘grown’ quite a bit over this past year IMO, but it’s still one game at a time, for coaches as well as players. We’ll see how much he learned being OC for the SB champs soon enough.
August 17th, 2021 at 5:12 pm
They better incorporate some of “all that motion stuff” if they want to get back to a Super Bowl.
August 17th, 2021 at 6:26 pm
You all think this is just BL??? You forget he comes from the Bruce Arrogance school of coaching and that this is his offensive scheme not BL’s. Coming to this team it was well known and he’s said so at different times that he has very little use of TEs other than blocking, he has receivers to catch the ball. Rbs are a simple distraction from the running game, he likes to pass pass pass. It’s not called no riskit no biskit for no reason at all. He made barely any use of the TE in 2019 even though ATM had a good repoire with a good receiver in Cam Brate he ignored him. It was well known qbs throw lots of ints in their 1st season and ATM did that in epic proportions but most you all think they were all his fault but they weren’t, it’s the design of some of BAs plays that cause them, but he did exasperated the problem. He refused to adjust his offense no matter how many ints were thrown because he’s a I’ll pound that square peg into that round hole until it fits kind of person. You all can’t see he’s a stubborn individual? Why do you think Brady threw most of his ints in the first 10 games? Why did BA keep having Brady chucking the ball deep down field even though he wasn’t connecting on 75% of them. Against the Bears we were killing them on the ground but BA wanted to pass pass pass and then Brady forgot what down it was. Even though Brady was still learning the offense they were still putting big numbers against weaker defenses because of his greatness but he knew the way BA was forcing his scheme down his throat they weren’t going to make it where they wanted to go. The Aints and Bears exposed that. Plus all the penalties didn’t help either. People can deny it all they want, the offensive philosophy after the bye was night and day compared to before and don’t believe for a second BA had an epiphany all of a sudden, Brady had to force him to see it. Why do you think Bowles defense sucked 2019 and part of last year? Because he kept throwing all those useless blitzes that left our struggling corners on islands they couldn’t cover. Look what happened when he finally stopped. It’s that BA coaching tree.
August 17th, 2021 at 6:57 pm
Motion allows Godwin (and apparently Tyler) to run-block, which they both apparently do very well. I’m not sure you can have a wide receiver do that without it
August 17th, 2021 at 7:44 pm
Brady’s been doing the same thing for 20 years and has won half the Super Bowls in that time frame. What do they think they’re going to do that is going to be game altering to the point where it makes him better? Leftwich needs to sit back and enjoy the ride and try and learn a thing or two. He has a 44 year old QB that is unquestionably the greatest to ever do it, just let him do what he wants.
August 17th, 2021 at 8:04 pm
Not sure why but my long post for an hour ago still not showing.
Here is a shorter one.
This offense will continue to adapt all year because we have good coaching and good players.
Whether the Buc’s do more motion, more risk it, or more runs up the middle on 1st down, there are many ways to win in the NFL.
Good sound offensive concepts with smart coaching and smart quarterback play seems to work the best. I am suggesting that we have smart coaching and smart quarterback play.
This coaching staff will coach a better level of offensive efficiency without requiring Brady to deal with a bunch of motion plays.
August 17th, 2021 at 8:08 pm
In the early rounds of the 2019 playoffs the games were dominated by rushing statistics and everyone shouted for a run first offensive approach during those games.
Last year, we ran on 1st down only 24% of the time last year. The 2nd lowest in the NFL out of 32 teams. I would say that the Buc’s smartly avoided the 2019 playoff trend and did what worked for them.
Overall, we rushed on 38% of our plays last year. Those fans that suggested that we ran on 1st and 2nd down too much early in games is just absurd.
In 2019 of the 21,928 offensive plays run during that season (excluding spikes and kneels), 11% of them included motion at the snap. In 2019, New England was under the 11% league average.
So to me, it follows that if we are running an offense that Tom Brady is comfortable with, it does not include a lot of motion plays.
August 17th, 2021 at 8:37 pm
Some of you need to be honest about your implicit bias. Hard to believe Coach Leftwich could be responsible for teaching and coaching Brady on HIS system… Much easier for you to believe Brady is some master strategist carrying a clueless coach to a Super Bowl. The facts are players play (even great ones), and coaches plan strategy and devise game plans [That last phrase not only was not necessary, it’s kindling for a flamewar and subsequent locking the comments on this post. Surely you can find other sites on the internets to post inflammatory crap like that. Sorry. — Joe]
August 17th, 2021 at 9:36 pm
Maybe it’s just misdirection and he doesn’t want to let any little thing about scheme get out. I hope 🤞
August 17th, 2021 at 11:05 pm
I stopped watching Byron Leftwich press conference’s, a lot of the time he doesn’t make sense.
August 18th, 2021 at 5:11 am
Brady’s credibility is way up, and I hope that means more influence on things like the motion that helps him read defenses.
Orlovsky yesterday was praising Shanahan for using “all 53”–meaning he stresses the defense by running outside. If only BL was listening.
August 18th, 2021 at 5:43 am
DoooshLaRue Says:
August 17th, 2021 at 2:03 pm
No motion.
Run up the gut in 1st and 2nd down.
Brilliant.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Uh, Dooosh…You do realize that you’ve said over and over again that The Durable One is worthless, right? Yet you criticize BL for trying to run the ball? Talking out of both sides of your mouth AGAIN.