The head coach changed in Tampa Bay. The incumbent offensive coordinator insists that his side of the ball won’t.
Via JoeBucsFan.com, Byron Leftwich was asked by reporters on Tuesday whether former coach/current consultant Bruce Arians would still have input in offensive game planning. Leftwich insisted that Arians will have none, because he previously had none.
“Probably not from an offensive game plan standpoint, and I don’t think that’s new,” Leftwich said. “I remember last year you guys talking about ‘red line.’ That’s never happened. I don’t know where that came from. That is not what he’s ever done, I think. The good thing with B.A. and him knowing me, I would struggle with that. I would struggle myself with that. And nobody was telling B.A. what to call, either. So he understands that. So that type of stuff, it will be the same as 2019. I guess I [was] an offensive coordinator with an offensive minded head coach, so guys think [the head coach is leading the offense]. But it was never nothing even close to that from the time I walked in, in 2019 with Jameis, it’s been me full-go. I’m just no-risk-it, no-biscuit, too. . . . Nothing will change. Everything should be status quo.”
If that’s true, there’s an obvious question to ask. If Arians had no involvement at all with the offense, what did he do? Was he an overseer who simply silently observed, without ever sharing any input or reaction? Was he just the guy who showed up on game days to call timeouts and decide whether to go for it on fourth down, whether to go for two?
He was good at those aspects of the job. However, that can’t be all he did, can it?
That’s the risk of trying too hard to make it look like Arians wasn’t barnstorming in to make changes to the game plans designed by Leftwich and Brady. If that’s really the case, it would have been fair to pose a pointed question to Arians regarding what he’s actually doing from Sunday to Sunday.
