“You Go To Win The B!tch”
April 7th, 2019
Loud and dirty, but caring.
Joe has decided to document highlights of Bucs coach Bucco Bruce Arians captured when he coached Arizona during the inaugural season of “All or Nothing,” a “Hard Knocks”-like miniseries by NFL Films that follows a pro or college team throughout a season and is exclusive to Amazon. Some highlights Joe hopes will help fans learn what to expect from the 12th coach in franchise history. This series of posts will appear periodically until the days leading up to the draft later this month.
It’s the first team meeting of 2015 training camp and Bruce Arians has wandered through the auditorium-like room preparing his speech. His Cardinals are expected to be one of the better teams in the NFL. Expectations are large and there truly is but one goal.
Arians, who has a creative if not vulgar vocabulary, decides to lay it on thick. Saltier the better so the words sink in.
“Every year in the NFL, it’s a new team,” Arians begins. “As far as goals go, we have one: Putting a f*cking ring on our finger. Not a Super Bowl. A Super Bowl ring. You go to win the b!tch.”
Arians may be in his 60s but he has the fire of a twentysomething. That is likely what led to his health problems in Arizona, which almost drove him out of football and was enough of a roadblock to getting the Bucs job that the team made him take a thorough physical at a hospital before he was hired.
Power Player
Signs point to Arians having his hands involved in personnel with the Bucs. He sure seemed to in Arizona.
In the first episode of “All or Nothing,” after Arians first addressed the team, it flips back to the Cardinals’ draft war room three months prior. There, the team was all set to select Nebraska running back Ameer Abdullah in the second round and had him on the phone when Abdullah told the Cardinals the Lions were trying to call through to reach him.
The Lions picked three spots before the Cardinals. To the horror of Cardinals general manager Steve Keim, the Lions selected Abdullah.
Suddenly Arians took over. While Keim sweated and fretted and facepalmed over losing Abdullah and decided to draft Markus Golden instead, Arians started to make a forceful pitch with Cardinals president Michael Bidwill that a running back out of Northern Iowa should be drafted by the Cardinals in the next round.
His name was “David Johnson.” After lobbying for Johnson and explaining to Bidwill how good of a pass-catcher Johnson was, Bidwill was sold and Keim agreed. It is unknown if Arians had control of the roster with the Cardinals. It sure appeared that he had a lot to say about it, at least in the draft war room.
While Keim froze after the Lions nabbed Abdullah, Arians kept his cool and knew who the Cardinals should acquire as a fallback option. Turns out Johnson has had a much better career (so far) than Abdullah.
Arians threw his weight around in the Cardinals’ war room but wasn’t overbearing or obnoxious. He made sure people in the room knew who he wanted and why.
It is unclear how much Arians has control of the Bucs’ roster but just judging by “All or Nothing” clips, he’s going to have a significant say in its makeup.
Smokin’ “Smoke”
The “All or Nothing” scene jumps back to Arians’ first talk to the team as training camp begins. And Arians’ colorful vocabulary begins to bloom.
“My pet peeve: Two days in a row I come to work and some motherf*cker is in my spot,” Arians said. “One was a Jeep with Washington plates today. And yesterday it was a Jeep with Texas plates that was in my spot.
“If there is a sign on a parking place anywhere in this facility don’t park in the b!tch or I will tow your @ss.”
Then, Arians began to explain to the newbies his coaching style. Arians confessed he gives it to players dirty and loud. But he wants each and every player to succeed and if he didn’t care about them, he wouldn’t waste two seconds trying to coach them up.
“Last thing: You new guys, a lot of times when I’m talking to you it is ugly,” Arians said. “But I ain’t talking about you personally. I’m talking about your football. If your football sucks, I’m going to tell you your football sucks. I like you as a guy, alright?
“‘Smoke’ [wide receiver John Brown] thought his middle name was ‘motherf*cker’ last year, alright?” Arians said. The NFL Films camera then panned to Brown in the seats who was smiling ear-to-ear while nodding his head. Been there, done that.
Arians continued about Brown, “But then he got to be ‘Smoke’ cause he started doing his sh!t right.”
And that is just a taste of what it to come, both for the Cardinals in the Amazon-exclusive series, and for what should be a shock to the system for Bucs players.
It wasn’t long ago that a Bucs head coach dared to scold a special teams star for using a foul word as the team prepared for battle.
Arians? His language will peel the paint off the locker room walls at the Den of Depression.
He’s back! Departed Bucs linebacker Cameron Lynch joins Bucs legend Derrick Brooks for this Part II edition of TAMPA TWO presented by Caldeco Air Conditioning & Heating, a presentation of The Identity Tampa Bay and JoeBucsFan.com.
April 7th, 2019 at 12:45 am
In BA, I trust! Identity, here we come!
April 7th, 2019 at 1:03 am
☝🏾Mmm hmm..
April 7th, 2019 at 1:25 am
Wow. Kinda like when Gruden came into town.
April 7th, 2019 at 1:32 am
We’ll see how long it takes the local media to sour on him like they did the last disciplinarian.
April 7th, 2019 at 1:35 am
Didn’t Schiano do the same thing? Wonder if the highly intelligent TB radio station will run BA out of town too.
April 7th, 2019 at 5:12 am
bad language usually shows no class and doesn’t mean squat !! only wins** Matter
April 7th, 2019 at 5:13 am
I get tickled by BA’s approach, but in the final analysis, I’d bet that it’s all just the persona that Coach learned early-on & that he has ‘perfected’ over the years. Motivation via ‘reward & punishment old style’ … Don Corleone at his finest. Chances are we’ve all worked for a least one leader like that. Works with some, while others fold under the pressure (I don’t really think BA cares about the latter … the tougher the player, the better he performs). Gut feel is that this is gonna be a ‘memorable year’ regardless of the W-L record.
And for any JBFers still doubting who’s in charge, doubt no longer. Licht-weight isn’t tough enough to stand up to BA.
April 7th, 2019 at 5:16 am
McKay 2.0 …… only saltier.
I love it!!
April 7th, 2019 at 5:39 am
It’s about MF time we got a real coach!!!!
April 7th, 2019 at 5:50 am
He’ll no Schiano didn’t do the same thing BA doesn’t have all those dumb arse rules that have nothing to do with football and BA is actually a good coach. Don’t understand the hard on for Schiano he was a sorry coach. People love coaches who win on one side of the ball and the defense wasn’t all that good overall anyway
April 7th, 2019 at 6:10 am
Finally a guiding light for Jason. This is one GM that needs someone that he respects to prevent him from reaching in the all important early rounds of the draft. Ditto for free agent signings if we ever get enough cap space to a first tier free agent.
April 7th, 2019 at 6:27 am
Good job Joe!!!
April 7th, 2019 at 7:01 am
His style is proven to be effective….and, he will all but select the draft picks….or better yet, if they are defensive players Bowles will pick. Jason will simply say “Good Pick, Todd”.
April 7th, 2019 at 7:53 am
I’m interested to see if players who didn’t fair well with previous couches play differently with BA, do we have poor players or system players. Several left Tampa who were great in the Tampa 2 but didn’t far well in another system and then we had others fair well where ever they were John Lynch…..
April 7th, 2019 at 8:00 am
I agree with Bob in Valrico 100% regarding BA’s influence on Licht moving forward….
In general, I personally like BA’s coaching style; it’s actually quite refreshing to have a ol’school guy like Bruce in this politically correct world we live in nowadays where people are afraid to say how they feel because they don’t wanna hurt anyone’s feelings…”Coach’em hard, Hug’em later”…
April 7th, 2019 at 8:03 am
That’s a flattering interpretation of BA in the war room when their 1st choice at running back got drafted out from under them. I’ve watched that episode twice recently and didn’t get the impression that it happened like that. With others making the choice on Abdullah and BA lobbying for D. Johnson right after the pick went south. I’ll have to watch it again, can’t believe I missed all that especially since it was want I was hoping to see.
April 7th, 2019 at 8:10 am
Haven’t been this excited since Chucky
April 7th, 2019 at 8:11 am
Only time will tell but seems like the team (mostly Defense) will be less likely to quit on Bruce like they did on Koetter when something bad would happen.
April 7th, 2019 at 8:45 am
“Lol!
Kobe has to shake his head and laugh
B!tch? Lol!
Didnt this clown just hire 2 female coaches
Not only the Bucs suk, we are hypocrites!”
Kobe Faker
April 7th, 2019 at 9:06 am
I don’t care what anyone says I’m still worried about Leftwich as OC.
April 7th, 2019 at 9:41 am
Nice piece Joe. Much better than another DJax or GMC article…
April 7th, 2019 at 10:01 am
Coaching is one of the most underrated things in the nfl. Any of you that have played sports know this because going back to youth league and up the ranks you have had some bad coaches that didn’t know what they were doing. And you could tell on game day. Then when you had a great coach who is a great motivator. You would run through a brick wall for him. You wouldn’t want to fail on any play and let them or your team down because you knew you would get your butt cheeed out in front of everyone. And most athletes respond better to this type of coaching. They are hard ass men not little babies who have been coddled to be great. When a team plays there butt off for a coach you can tell. They all play with swagger and want to be the guy that makes the play. That gets to go get the high five and praise from there coach. I think the intensity of the bucs just went from a 3 to a 10 with this hire. I even think this will help jameis as he will want to not make that bad play any more. He will take what he is given. Of course with any qb there are going to be some bad throws it happens with every qb. But I really think jameis will be around a 30td 10int type of player now.