Report Says Tom Brady Was Sick of the Way Bruce Arians 'Undermined' His Game Plans and Their 'Relationship Was Souring'
Don Montague. Shutterstock Images.Just under a month since his post-GOAT coaching career officially got underway, Bruce Arians talked to the York Daily Record about dealing with a torn Achilles all season at the age of 69 and what his future holds:
"I tried retirement and it didn't work out too good. I'm having a good time. It's easy for me with my coordinators coming back. Why not coach?
"I don’t really know anything else. And the building of relationships, the new guys coming in …," he stopped himself in mid-sentence. "I never thought I'd coach Tom Brady, and if I was still retired I never would have won a Super Bowl (as a head coach). Coming out of the tunnel every Sunday is awesome. … I think football keeps you healthy. I think getting back to the game was the best medicine for me."
Which is an interesting way of looking at it. Given the fact that Arians hasn't been involved in the Bucs offense since about three games into Brady's first season with the team. That is when Tampa's scheme became instantly recognizable as the Erhardt-Perkins offense Brady perfected in New England, with its motions to identify coverages, pre-snap reads, quick decisions and protection calls. As opposed to Arians preferred method of going through progressions after the snap as the play develops. You know, that one that has Ben Roethlisberger looking like he survived the Korean War before his 40th birthday. And the results were immediate. Brady enjoyed the same success there as he did in Foxboro for 20 years.
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I've been saying ever since then - too many times for me to count - that ever since Brady's power move to simply ignore the Tampa playbook and run what he wants to run, Arians became a figurehead. Like the Queen of England, who no longer makes decisions, but still by tradition has to meet with the Prime Minister to be briefed on the affairs of state.
But based on what former Patriots, Cardinals and Chargers offensive lineman turned radio host is reporting, that arrangement didn't go as smoothly as it does at Buckingham Palace:
Did Old Balls do it again or did Old Balls do it again? This is what I said immediately after Brady's retirement was leaked to Adam Schefter and Jeff Darlington, and Arians denied knowing anything about it:
I'm just speculating here, but it's not unreasonable to think he's walking away because he's had it with playing for this organization and this coach. Otherwise, Arians and Bucs ownership would've gotten the same heartfelt sitdown that the Patriots brain trust got.
Maybe it was the fact that Brady gifted all his talents to this man, and won him a ring he was otherwise never going to earn in a million seasons. And not just his arm talent. As I've said repeatedly, you can go back and watch Brady's first month of games in Tampa and just see the moment he said Arians' offensive system is trash, started running the one he perfected in New England, and got a championship to show for it.
And the thanks he got was being publicly scapegoated by his coach every time things didn't go well.
And now based on Ohrnberger's report, which I give total credibility to since it confirms all my speculation, it was worse than an Elizabeth II situation. I doubt Queenie Liz thinks she had the authority to go around striking down laws and imposing her own. She might be an elitist snob and insulated from the real world, but she can read the fucking Magna Carta. Arians seemed to remain under the delusion that he was in charge of the offensive attack his team was running.
And while Brady was willing to invest the time it took to familiarize Byron Leftwich with it, he didn't have time to explain it to the man who kept blaming him for every interception and every loss. So he had no patience for the guy to show up after he and Leftwich were done coming up with a game plan, pull out a red pen and start correcting their work like a school teacher. He would've just preferred that Ol' Busy Whiskers just stand off to the side with that weird shoulder harness and listen to his Smooth Jazz playlist like a normal 69-year-old with nothing to do.
All this makes me even more convinced of the possibility that Brady didn't retire from the NFL, just from the TBB. And that the speculation he'd love to swing a deal to San Francisco, make another few runs at his eighth ring, and retire in the town he grew up in are more credible than ever. Don't be at all surprised if Arians gets stuck having to go back to running his own offense in 2022, and that he retires before Brady officially does. Stay tuned.