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TAMPA BAY
After a shaky start with the Buccaneers, GM Jason Licht is on a roll. Jenna Laine ofESPN.com:
Brady and Arians deserve all the credit in the world for getting the Buccaneers to this point — the team’s second Super Bowl appearance in franchise history after a 13-year postseason drought. But neither would be here without Bucs general manager Jason Licht.
“Jason is the main reason I came back in coaching,” said Arians, a two-time AP NFL Coach of the Year, who had worked with Licht when he was director of player personnel and vice president of player personnel with the Arizona Cardinals from 2012 to 2013. “I knew how good of an evaluator he was and having worked with him — we shared the same vision.”
Pieces start falling into place
Licht has been the Bucs’ general manager since Jan. 21, 2014. Most first-time GMs don’t survive more than two head-coach firings. It was Licht’s recommendation to part ways with coach Lovie Smith, who was hired right before Licht in 2014, after two seasons, and elevate offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter, who delivered one 9-7 season in 2016, followed by two 5-11 seasons. He was gone after the 2018 season.
By then, Jameis Winston, the quarterback Licht selected with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 draft, was struggling with turnovers, and Licht’s decision to trade up into the second round of the 2016 draft to select Roberto Aguayo had gone up in flames as the kicker was gone after one season. There also had been numerous failed free-agent signings on massive multiyear deals like defensive end Michael Johnson (five years, $43.75 million) and offensive tackle Anthony Collins (five years, $30 million).
With a 27-53 record in his first five seasons, Licht was on the hot seat.
The Glazer family, which owns the Bucs, has never shown much patience. Former general manager Mark Dominik was fired after going 28-52 in five seasons, along with coach Greg Schiano, who lasted only two seasons. Schiano’s predecessor, Raheem Morris, lasted three.
But Licht had some successes, too. He hit it out of the park in selecting wide receiver Mike Evans with the seventh overall pick in 2014, Marpet in the second round of 2015 and wide receiver Chris Godwin in the third round in 2017. He found a hidden gem in tight end Cameron Brate, an undrafted free agent out of Harvard, in 2014.
Licht also pulled off a trade with the New York Giants to land linebacker Jason Pierre-Paul for a third-round pick by swapping fourth-round picks. Ownership believed in the core group that had been built with those players, and praised Licht’s ability to re-sign Evans, Brate and Lavonte David, and still maintain a healthy salary cap. So Licht got to stay.
He rewarded that faith by landing arguably the NFL’s top head-coaching candidate that year in Arians, and things began to fall into place, piece by piece. With former Jets head coach Todd Bowles coming in as defensive coordinator, the Buccaneers overhauled their passive zone 4-3 defense into an attacking-style 3-4, one-gap scheme with little player turnover. One of their key additions, outside linebacker Shaquil Barrett, who had been little more than a situational pass-rusher with the Denver Broncos, surged with a league-leading 19.5 sacks in 2019.
“I was able to learn from a lot of mistakes — and I had a lot — and I would always admit to those,” Licht said. “Listening to my staff more, more inclusiveness and more teamwork, I think, has been the reason that it has come together and we’ve made better decisions in the last few years.”
When Arians came in he got heavily involved in draft evaluations and Licht deferred to him in certain areas. Licht’s lack of an ego was key, sources close to the situation said. Disagreements happened, but the results were constructive because Licht and Arians believed in the same things and respected one another. And at the end of the day, the coaches have to have players with whom they can work.
“[Arians] is just such a unique guy and we have such a unique, strong bond,” Licht said. “We get along well and we even argue well to get the result that we want and make the decisions that we’ve made. It’s been awesome.”
2019 draft class paying dividends
The growth of the 2019 draft class in two seasons is proof of that synergy between Licht and Arians. Inside linebacker Devin White, the Bucs’ fifth overall draft pick that year, has delivered a postseason performance so strong, some have argued he should be Defensive Player of the Year with 26 tackles, two fumble recoveries, an interception and a pass breakup in two games. (White missed the wild-card game at Washington because of the coronavirus.)
Cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting, the Bucs’ second-round pick in 2019, has had three picks in three postseason games, joining Hall of Famers Aeneas Williams and Ed Reed, along with Jason Sehorn, as the only players in the Super Bowl era with an interception in their first three career playoff games.
Safety Mike Edwards, their third-round pick, intercepted Drew Brees in the fourth quarter to help seal their 30-20 win in the divisional playoffs at New Orleans. The day White and Murphy-Bunting took the field for the first time, as part of the Bucs’ rookie transition program, White put his arm around Murphy-Bunting and said, “We’re home, brother. We home. ‘Bout to win a lot of games in here.” Murphy-Bunting responded, “You don’t even know.”
And wide receiver Scotty Miller, the Bucs’ sixth-round draft pick, might have had just two catches in that NFC Championship Game, but his jaw-dropping 39-yard touchdown reception with eight seconds before halftime, after converting on fourth down, might go down as one of the biggest in franchise history.
“In order to have this much success you need the young guys to step up, and those guys really have,” Marpet said. “They’ve really done a nice job and they’ve taken it very seriously. They’ve led from the front as young guys, which is really important.”
‘No risk it, no biscuit’: Wooing Brady to Tampa
Most important to the construction of this roster was solidifying the quarterback situation. Parting ways with Winston after five seasons wasn’t easy, but when else would the Buccaneers have a shot at Brady in what would likely be his only free-agency period? Quarterbacks coach Clyde Christensen went to Arians and told him he believed they had something.
So when Arians was asked at the NFL combine if he could have his pick at QB, there was no hesitation.
“Tom Brady,” he said, echoing a philosophy he shared with Licht from their days with the Cardinals: “No risk it, no biscuit.”
“You can’t hit a home run unless you’re going to swing for one,” Arians said. “You can’t do anything special in life sitting on a fence. The question back then was, ‘If there was a quarterback that was a free agent, who would you want?’ Of course, it was Tom Brady, not thinking he’d become a free agent. Once he did, it was a pursuit that we wanted to make and [we] knew he had some interest. That’s how you live life. Do you sit and live in a closet trying to be safe, [or are] you going to have some fun?”
Brady liked what he saw and surprised the Bucs by making them a pitch. The Bucs were willing to give him a lot of say in terms of personnel and playcalling and he was free to coach up the younger players as he saw fit.
“I love the opportunity that presented itself here, which is ultimately why I chose here,” Brady said. “I really love the coaching staff, I loved the players that they had. I looked at those players and thought, ‘Wow, these are really great players. This would be a good opportunity for me.’
“I went through a process of decisions and thinking about everything that really mattered to me in some way [and] one form or another. Obviously, a lot of family considerations. My son [Jack] lives in New York and I didn’t want to be too far from him. It just ended up being a great fit and as it’s played out, I’ve just thought, ‘Wow, this has really been a magical year.'”
Completing the puzzle
But the puzzle wasn’t complete with Brady alone. Licht traded a fourth-round draft pick with the New England Patriots — another team he had worked for in 2002 and then from 2009 to 2011 — to acquire tight end Rob Gronkowski, who was coming out of retirement to join Brady, and a seventh-round pick. Licht signed running back LeSean McCoy to give Brady a veteran running back to throw to.
He brought in former fourth overall draft pick Leonard Fournette after he’d been cut by the Jacksonville Jaguars. The week after defensive tackle Vita Vea went down with a broken ankle in Week 5, Licht worked out a deal with the New York Jets, sending a sixth-round draft pick for veteran Steve McLendon and a seventh-round selection. Thanks to McLendon, the Bucs were able to maintain their ranking as the top run defense in the league and Vea has since come off injured reserve.
Licht also made the controversial decision to bring in wide receiver Antonio Brown, whom Brady had been advocating for but Arians believed wasn’t a fit and was “too much diva,” not to mention his off-the-field issues, which included a no contest plea to a felony burglary charge last year after an incident with a delivery driver. Brown also was accused of sexual assault by two women, with one of them filing a civil suit with a trial that has been postponed a year because of the coronavirus.
Arians changed his mind when the Bucs’ receiving corps was severely depleted by injuries. They agreed to take him on, but explained to Brown that if he made one mistake, he was gone. Despite missing the NFC title game because of a knee injury, he has been a key contributor.
“Just building the roster the way he has and being able to get Tom, Gronk and Leonard and still be really cap-friendly with this roster that we have …” Arians said. “Can’t say enough about what Jason has done. To me, he’s executive of the year just pulling off all that stuff that he did.”
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Victory has many fathers, and in the eyes of Terez Paylor of YahooSports.com, second-year OC Byron Leftwich has earned a promotion:
On Monday morning, Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians responded to a question about his diverse coaching staff by going out of his way to reiterate his anger about how the NFL’s latest hiring cycle shook out — particularly the way his trusted offensive coordinator, Byron Leftwich, was excluded from the process.
“I was very, very pissed that Byron didn’t at least get an interview this year for the job that he’s done,” Arians told reporters via a Super Bowl conference call. “I think I get way too much credit and so does Tom Brady for the job that Byron has done.”
The 41-year-old Leftwich, Arians correctly noted, was everything that was supposed to be en vogue in today’s NFL for head coaching spots. A former quarterback, a play caller.
But instead he got nada, not even a sniff from the seven teams seeking new head coaches this offseason. It was just the latest example of the way the NFL has struggled to fix its diversity problem in the head coaching ranks, despite its recent efforts to do so through a fortified Rooney Rule.
“I think hopefully next year, you know, people will see that he took Jameis Winston and broke every single record here, scoring and passing, and now Tom has broken both,” Arians said. “He’s done a fantastic job.”
But while the final product is easy to love, with Brady having his most prolific passing season in years and Tampa Bay finishing with the league’s fifth-ranked offense in terms of DVOA, the Bucs’ path to Super Bowl LV vs. the Chiefs has not been easy, with Brady and Leftwich being forced to navigate some rough spots along the way, especially in late November.
Yet they got through it, thanks to excellent, honest communication and occasionally hard coaching, which Brady accepted due to the respect Leftwich commanded, a telltale sign of his overall upside as a coach that those who know him can’t stop raving about.
“I think Byron’s done an incredible job and he’s a great guy and we have a great relationship,” Brady said. “I’ve known him for a long time, we’re about the same age and played against him. I’ve always had a lot of respect for him, and now that we’re working together, it’s been great. He’s got a great work ethic, great football IQ.”
Byron Leftwich, Tom Brady relationship grew during rough stretch
It took a little while for the Bucs’ offense to find its current form. A season-opening loss to New Orleans revealed cracks in its foundation, and while Tampa Bay bounced back to win its next three games, Arians knew the team still had a long way to go.
“We scratched out a game or two,” Arians said. “But we had no clue what we were doing.”
Things got a little bit better in October, when the Bucs ran off another three-game winning streak to push their record to 6-2.
But a miserable November — capped by a 27-24 home loss to the Chiefs in Week 12, their third defeat in four games — cast serious doubt on the Bucs’ title chances and inspired multiple think pieces about what the hell was going on in Tampa, which dropped to 7-5 with the defeat.
Not only was Brady struggling to hit the deep ball — he was 0-for-19 on his attempts from Weeks 8-11 — he’d also had seven interceptions from Weeks 9-12, his worst four-game span since 2011.
In retrospect, however, the bye week that followed was a turning point, as it allowed the coaching staff and offensive players to catch their breath and regroup.
“That was huge for us, just to kind of sit back and self-scout a little bit, just kind of take everything in, listen to Tom, have Tom listen to us, listen to Byron and B.A,” Bucs assistant head coach and run game coordinator Harold Goodwin said. “And it’s been great ever since.”
Since the bye week, the Bucs haven’t lost a game, averaging 34 points in their last seven contests. And while Arians noted Tampa Bay also started to get healthy after the bye, Brady also attributes some of their recent refinement to the fact he and Leftwich simply have a greater understanding of what works for Brady in this offense.
“You know, it’s just been a growing process for both of us and growing together,” Brady said. “When you work together for a long period of time, we begin to see the game very similar, so when he’s watching film he thinks, ‘Oh, this is what Tom would like,’ and vice versa.
“It’s taken some time to get there because we didn’t have a lot of the things that we normally have with football [like OTAs]. Over the last couple of months, we certainly executed a little bit better.”
But in some ways, the fact that Brady, whose accomplishments outnumber most coaches he’ll ever have, was able to acclimate himself to Tampa Bay this quickly is quite telling.
“What’s been the most amazing thing about this whole thing is the way he approaches it,” Leftwich said. “He came in and told me from Day 1, ‘Just coach me — let me know what you want.’ Obviously, we work together from the game plan standpoint. But he’s really a guy that says, ‘I’m going to go out and execute this play, regardless of what you call, at a high level.’”
Brady responds well to hard coaching of Leftwich, Bucs’ staff
One thing you have to understand about Brady is that despite his standing as pro football’s G.O.A.T., he knows the only way to get better is with honest critiques.
So while Brady has his own opinions, he does accept the Bucs’ hard coaching.
“[Bruce Arians’] philosophy is to coach them hard, which is a lot of curse words at times,” Goodwin said with a laugh. “We’re going to coach you hard no matter who you are, and Tom takes it and, you know, he comes out on the other end playing well. So it works for all of us.”
And Leftwich, despite being two years younger than Brady, admits he isn’t shy about coaching Brady hard, either.
“Oh yeah, he wants to be coached hard … he wants you to let him know when he’s not doing the right things,” Leftwich said. “And that’s the easy part for me, because you want to help, you want to put the player in the best position to have success.”
Brady said this dialogue has allowed him to understand a different way to attack defenses on Sundays than he became accustomed to after two decades in New England.
After years of bludgeoning teams with a strong run game and a precision short passing game as a Patriot, Brady has aired it out more this year in Leftwich’s and Arians’ vertical passing attack, throwing for the most yards (4,633) since 2015, the most touchdowns (40) since 2007 and the most 20-yard plus passing plays (63) since 2011.
“It’s been fun over the course of the year to learn a lot about different things, about different ways to handle different situations,” Brady said. “Ultimately, it’s about not always being in agreement, but being in alignment when you take the field. So you have to be 100 percent on the same page on game day, which we have been. And how we get to that point has been great conversation, great learning for me.”
But in this partnership, the growth isn’t just limited to Brady.
Leftwich has stuff to be NFL head coach sooner rather than later
For all Leftwich has done for the Bucs’ offense, he’s not only appreciative of the way Brady actively seeks coaching, but also of the way Arians (a noted offensive guru himself) has allowed him to run the offense as he sees fit.
“The best thing about it is that you grow,” Leftwich said. “He lets you grow and see it the way that you see it and do the things that you like to do from a schematic standpoint. So it’s just great to have one type of person like that. … I’ve got great offensive minds in the building every day that I can bounce stuff off if needed.”
And Leftwich, assistant coach Tom Moore said, has thrived in the role.
“Byron has really taken the bull by the horns … having played the position, now he’s involved and coaching it and calling it,” Moore said. “Byron does a tremendous job.”
Leftwich also boasts great leadership skills, Goodwin added, with his ability to get the best out of players in different ways standing out, along with his ability to communicate and present offensive concepts to the team in meetings.
With rave reviews like that, it’s no wonder Arians was so visibly frustrated Monday that Leftwich didn’t even get a call for a head coaching interview.
He certainly wasn’t alone.
“I’m still amazed based on the success he’s had in the last two years calling plays that he didn’t get any interviews — it’s unfortunate for him,” Goodwin said. “But hopefully that gets changed moving forward.”
There is a lot to like about Leftwich, but he’s quiet, has been an OC for two years, and is surrounded by some other respected minds like Arians, Moore, Goodwin and QB Coach Clyde Christensen. His 2019 with JAMEIS WINSTON was at best a mixed bag with a huge number of interceptions happening under his watch. The record with Brady is better. His time will come.
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