Rare Head-Coach Grooming For Bryon Leftwich, Todd Bowles
October 28th, 2021
Head trainer. Head Coach.
Bucco Bruce Arians is always trumpeting his coordinators as top NFL head coaching candidates. But what gives them a leg up on others?
Arians hit the SiriusXM NFL Radio airwaves this week and explained that one way to know whether a coordinator can be a strong head coach is to see the level of respect players have for him from the other side of the football. For example, how does the defense react to offensive coordinator Bryon Leftwich?
Leftwich and Todd Bowles routinely address the entire Buccaneers team, Arians explained, and that’s one way Arians knows how ready both are to be head coaches right now. He sees the command, and they also have that experience working with a whole roster.
Of course, Bowles already was Jets head coach for four seasons.
Impressive tactic by Arians, and Joe didn’t recall hearing this one previously.
Arians also reiterated that Leftwich is very independent and Arians does not attend offensive meetings.
October 28th, 2021 at 3:24 pm
Someone please take the MASTERMIND from us.
TB can hold down the fort.
🤣
October 28th, 2021 at 4:02 pm
DoooshLaRue Says:
October 28th, 2021 at 3:24 pm
Someone thplease take the MASTERMIND from us.
TB can hold downe fort.
Assume TB is Tom Brady, not Todd Bowles…..& MASTERMIND (Sarcasm) is Byron
October 28th, 2021 at 4:24 pm
It would be sad to see the Bucs lose Todd Bowles, or Byron Leftwich.
Both are good Coordinators, and have made a huge difference for the Bucs.
I don’t care what anyone says, otherwise.
October 28th, 2021 at 4:38 pm
We need to enjoy this year and hopefully watch the Bucs bring back another Lombardi Trophy. I doubt this organization is going to look the same next year. Several key players will be gone. Leftwich and/or Bowles will be gone. I’m pretty sure Arians will stay around for at least 1 more year, as long as Brady is here, but things are going to look different next year. So, we better enjoy the euphoria while it lasts.
October 28th, 2021 at 4:45 pm
It’s amazing to watch how some in the fan base fall for the “goober” routine. Sure, Arians rides around on a golf cart. He delegates more than most other head coaches. He does a I’m just happy to hang around here” schtick.
But look at the organization. No doubt that he has input — maybe final say — on draft and personnel moves. No doubt that he has the players’ respect. No doubt that he drops an earful on anyone who messes up. The harmony and focus of the whole organization tells of his people skill.
The whole “I don’t sit in meetings” line looks like throwing a bone to the press. Does anybody believe that Arians has no input on actual game plans? Or that if a subordinate got out of line that there wouldn’t be instant and blunt accountability?
I thought not.
October 28th, 2021 at 4:48 pm
Lou,
We have the MASTERMIND!
Nuff said.
October 28th, 2021 at 5:03 pm
Theres no way we are keeping both our coordinators long term. We are losing 1 and the other will hopefully be promised Bruces job for when he retires.
Bryon Leftwich is my 1st choice to be our future HC. Its very simple, we are built to win on offense and he has run a top passing offense in the league the last 3 years(yes, before Brady) in a passing league. His passing offense is also a top scoring offense so its not empty yards like the offense before it………No way I wanna be changing this offense. Cant lose what we got.
I dont wanna change what we are doing on defense either but all our moves should be made to preserve a truely elite offense.
October 28th, 2021 at 5:42 pm
JimmyJack … Interesting rationale, and it makes excellent sense. Our offense right now is truly elite … with Brady at the helm. Despite all of the hoopla about him playing til 50 however, I still can’t see him staying past next year. Same with BA as head coach.
Most recognize that there’ll have to be some major personnel changes next year, not just because of salary CAP limitations but also because of ages of some of our players. And 2023 will be more of the same, especially if we win another Super Bowl this year or next (history hasn’t typically been generous to keeping SB rosters intact).
Based on the age of the players on offense vs defense, I’ll take the opposite approach: Todd Bowles will get promoted to HC, most of the staff will remain, and BA will move up to be President of Football Operations. Our team focus will gradually shift to DEFENSE as opposed to offense, although we’ll certainly continue to strive to have a BALANCED TEAM (with both sides ideally being good enough to end up in the Top-10 annually). I can see us re-signing all or most of our ‘youngsters’ on defense for the long-term (Vea, Shaq, JTS, White, Davis, SMB, Dean, Winfield, Whitehead & Edwards) plus a number of others who are still relatively young (like RNR), then drafting some replacements or signing FAs to replace Suh, JPP, Gholston & yes, McLendon (pretty much our DLine).
Taking that approach (IF it happens), our defense will need a bigger share of the salary CAP pie than it’s now getting (with the result that the offense would get a smaller share out of necessity). But in the event that you’re correct, I’ll be prepared to change my handle to ‘Offense Rules’. Only time will tell.
October 28th, 2021 at 6:10 pm
Back to back SB will be the only thing that keeps this team intact and bring TB12 back. A three peat will put all 22 in the HOF.
October 28th, 2021 at 6:44 pm
Defense Rules you are describing the nightmare scenario I want to avoid.
I like your plan to have a gradual shift to become a defensive team……..but Im sorry thats just not realistic in the NFL. Coaches are given small windows in the league………If they wanna build a defensive team they need to do it quick and show results in year 1 or 2. Basically the way I see it you are wanting a complete rebuild. I realize you said gradual but thats just not how it works.
The way I see it we can keep right on rolling after Bruce by adressing one position. QB……….And I dont see Bruce retiring with Brady. Once Tom leaves we are lkely going to have to use an inexperienced QB because of CAP. I dont think Bruce will stick his successor with an inexperiencedd QB. I see him going one more year to help set up his replacement with a good situation at QB……..the following year we can be in a better CAP situation to trade for or sign a proven Vet if we need to.
October 28th, 2021 at 7:08 pm
BA is beautiful, who here has a boss that will let you solicit a new job while under his employ? How about do you freaking jobs and get by New Orleans. Take the mic from BA please!
October 28th, 2021 at 7:34 pm
JimmyJack … ‘Nightmare scenario’? LMAO. Your nightmare scenario is happening right now. All the defensive pieces are in-place, except for 3-4 of the DLine replacements (via draft or FA … or both). IF we bring in the right guys to replace Suh & JPP (probably next year?), AND re-sign our key youngsters on defense, I think this defense could rival our defense from the early-2000’s. The more they play together, the better they’re becoming. Pass rush is still the key though.
Bucs’ offense is a different animal IMO. When Brady retires, my guess is that Gronk & AB will leave also. Re-signing Godwin is iffy-at-best because he’ll command probably $20 mil-Plus per year. If we end up going with a rookie QB when Brady retires (and we probably will go with Trask for 1 season at least), we’d have to retain a strong OLine to protect him or he’d end up getting zapped like we did to Chicago’s QB. All that costs $$$ … lots & lots of $$$.
October 28th, 2021 at 7:41 pm
id rather lose byron than bowles if it comes down to it.
October 28th, 2021 at 7:49 pm
Teams will be reluctant to take Brady’ s offensive coaches. No one is successful as a head coach and even a OC. Daniel has been in the hot seat at the Patriots now.
October 28th, 2021 at 8:07 pm
On the contrary, McDaniels is doing an unbelievable job with Jones. Most productive QB out of this year’s draft. If McDaniels was Bucs OC this team would walk into the SB. BL would be nothing without Brady and BA would be retired because no one would pay him to do nothing unless he worked under the new government administration.
October 28th, 2021 at 8:17 pm
Defense Rules. Maybe i mistook your point. It sounded to me like you were calling for the team to take on a defensive mindset and primarily built to win on defense.
Thats not the scenario we have right now. The way i see it they been building up the offense since Licht got here in 2014. And we are seeing it play out that we are winning games primarily with offense, yards and points.
If you want to change that dynamic thats a drastic change. I call that a total rebuild. Thats just the way I see it………My hope would be if Todd were named HC he would not plan for big sweeping changes and the way we are built. Which would mean a lot of quality coaching and developement on defense and making it work with younger players……..While we keep all the star power on offense.
October 28th, 2021 at 8:27 pm
List sure our coachs do nothing. They are nothing but a hinderance to our players. Just in the way. We won the Super Bowl to spite god awful coaching. Good Lord you sound like an ass.
Meanwhile they put together a top passing offense and scoring offense before Brady got here. Explain that? Our redzone offense was terrible before Byron got here too. Player developement is another area where you can identify quality coaching if you were trying.
Stupid fans like you kinda dont even deserve to watch one of the best offenses in history. You outta be sent into a time machine to the 90s where there was something real to complain about.
October 28th, 2021 at 8:51 pm
JimmyJack … I agree with you that right now we’re more offense-oriented than defense-oriented (like we were in 2002). But this Bucs’ defense is getting better & better, and we’ve turned into a fairly BALANCED team (last year #3 offense, #8 defense and this year #3 offense, #10 defense).
All I’m saying is that as we go forward, those roles/rankings may very well reverse as our defense develops even better chemistry and some of the key players on our offense depart (Brady, Gronk, AB, possibly Godwin, etc).
The key IMO is maintaining a reasonable BALANCE. That’s what I believe wins championships in today’s NFL. Might be offense-focused, might be defense-focused. That’s up to the powers-that-be and up to the talent that we can accumulate in the meantime (and of course how well they play).
October 28th, 2021 at 9:22 pm
Leftwich is one of the most overrated coaches I’ve ever seen. He has zero feel for the game, if Arians isn’t yelling at him forcing him to open things up he’d literally run up the middle on every single down. We’re a year and a half into this and Brady is still needing to save Leftwich from his awful playcalling. Whoever ends up hiring Leftwich, they’re going to think they’re getting the Arians offense, instead you’ll see Leftwich install the wishbone, because you win games by running up the middle for 1.7yards and a cloud of dust on every single play.
October 28th, 2021 at 9:30 pm
Defense Rules – We shall see the if the defense is getting better when we start playing better offenses. The last 3 games we’ve played perhaps the 3 worst QBs in football, before that in NE we played a rookie who completed like 80% of his passes, and before that Stafford sliced up the defense.
I’ll certainly take the last 4 games and the W’s that come with it, but I’d refrain from thinking because we beat-up on bad teams and worse QBs, that the defense is good again. The Saints game will be interesting since this is by far the best QB we’re facing since the Rams game, but the Saints have complete trash at WR, but we have complete trash at corner.
But look at the schedule, the next time we play a top-half of the NFL QB is maybe the Colts or Falcons game? You never really know exactly what you’ll get there. But then you got the Bills, at home, that game should be huge in figuring out where this defense is. Even if they give up 35 it doesn’t mean they’re awful, but if they give up 45, then yeah, I’m concerned. We shall see.
October 28th, 2021 at 9:52 pm
Rod Munch actually Byrons playcalling has been a great aid to Brady(I wont say save him out thats just dumb).
You can got back and look at our 2nd TD drive this week and Brady was not in rythm and off target. Byron pulls out some short quick plays to get Brady back on track and then boom, big play to Godwin to set up the TD.
Later in the game Brady hits an 0-6 patch and Byron does the same thing……..Gets Tom back on track and then dials up a big play to Mike down the sidelines.
You can go back over all our games and its a common theme with his playcalling……..Anytime Brady starts to get off rythm Byron has some easy stuff ready to go that reigns him back in. Usually its pressure thats gets Brady off target. I think the Chicago game was more about coverage throwing Brady off.
Contrary to what you say this shows Byron has excellent feel for the game..
October 28th, 2021 at 9:55 pm
And I dont know why you are talking about wishbone offense. That just sounds like nonsensical babbling from an ignoramus.
October 28th, 2021 at 11:16 pm
So grateful for Bruce and Bowles and BL…..
I mean, could you imagine if some of these couch potato quarterbacks who routinely bash them In these comment sections were in charge?
All those coaches would have been fired after five games last year.
Half the Buccaneers defense would’ve been cut.
The most prolific Buc offense in history wouldn’t exist.
October 28th, 2021 at 11:35 pm
JimmyJack Says:
You can got back and look at our 2nd TD drive
————
Correct, the 2nd drive, when we’re still running scripted plays.
Also, yes, the wishbone offense is an exaggeration, it’s there for effect, saying he’s ultra conservative and whoever gets him as head coach is going to be shocked at how bad his offense is going to be when Arians and Brady aren’t bailing him out.
October 29th, 2021 at 12:21 am
Leadership = BA
The CEO head coach.
When he retires from coaching make him President of Football Operations reporting to Licht. Or Brady 🙂