Bruce Arians has never been afraid to say what he wanted against anybody no matter who they are.
The former Buccaneers coach recently criticized Tom Brady’s play in a new interview, stating how the 45-year-old quarterback should shoulder some of the blame for Tampa Bay’s struggles in 2022. He also added that the coaching staff didn’t deserve to be the scapegoats.
“I don’t think it was fair to Byron,” Arians said of offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, according to JoeBucsFan.com. “Nobody is going to say that Brady was playing bad, but he was playing bad. We also had growing pains on a young offensive front and we weren’t running well. There comes a time as a play-caller when you’re losing yards running the ball and you say, ‘Forget this, I’m putting the ball in Tom’s hands.’”
Tampa Bay appeared to be flirting with disaster when it dropped to 3-5 on the season, but the crisis was averted the past two weeks as the Bucs rattled off two straight wins before their Week 11 bye and are in control of first place in the NFC South.
Arians is “really optimistic about the rest of the season” and even recently saw Brady smile at practice for the first time on the campaign.
The Bucs offense finally looked good against a very respectable Seattle Seahawks defense. Through 10 games this season, Brady has thrown 12 touchdowns against two interceptions. He threw 40 and 43 touchdowns, respectively, in his first two years with the Buccaneers.
Arians and Brady won the Super Bowl in February 2021 to cap off their first year together in Tampa.
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Things look to be going in the right direction, but the team will still need to string together some more wins before the rest of the league actually views them as an actual threat come January. That effort will begin in Week 12 when the Bucs visit the Cleveland Browns.
When you have Tom Brady at any age, you should always expect him to do great things. It’s in his blood.
