Arians Steps Aside For Todd Bowles In Tampa
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have a new sheriff in town, and his name is Todd Bowles. Bucs Nation was stunned earlier this week when Coach Bruce Arians announced that he would be stepping aside as head coach to take a new position as an advisor to GM Jason Licht.
Defensive coordinator Todd Bowles takes over as head coach signing a five-year contract. Current Buccaneer defensive coaches Larry Foote and Kacy Rodgers will take over the defense as co-defensive coordinators.
Arians finishes his Buccaneer coaching career with a 31-18 record and the highest win percentage in Buccaneer’s history at .633. That is a better win percentage than Hall of Famer Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden.
The speculation has already begun. It began with Tom Brady’s retirement; there may have been some issues between Bruce Arians and Tom Brady that forced the retirement of Arians. The answer has been and is an unequivocal no!
Certain media members like to throw crap out there and see what gets traction and will get clicks on their articles. When they sense a bit of momentum with their clickbait headlines, they only throw out more garbage articles and clickbait headlines.
I will never buy into or degrade myself by doing that kind of journalism. There is a difference between opinion and clickbait. These stories about the Brady and Arians rift have no merit.
Arians addressed those rumors at the press conference on Thursday. “I have no clue where it comes from. Somebody’s got to write a story every day about something. Tom and I have a great relationship. Arians said he and Brady kept in touch via text even during Brady’s short-lived retirement.
Arians, also speaking to the LA Times, said, “I had conflicts with every player I coached because I cussed them all out, including him. Great relationship off the field.”
With the NFL draft approaching and mini-camps right around the corner, Tom Brady returning for his 23rd season, the roster is set up for another Super Bowl run. Why step down now?
Arians addressed that with the media.
“I wanted to ensure when I walked away that Todd Bowles would have the best opportunity to succeed. So many head coaches come into situations where they are set up for failure, and I didn’t want that for Todd. Tom’s decision to come back, along with Jason and his staff doing another great job of keeping the core of this team intact during free agency, confirmed for me that it was the right time to pass the torch to Todd. I began conversations with Jason and the Glazer family a few weeks ago about a possible succession plan. Their understanding and support mean the world to me. Todd is a great football coach, and I know he will do excellent things here with the Buccaneers.”
With the Bucs able to keep the coaching staff together and the majority of the players from the Super Bowl-winning team back for another run, the time was right for succession.
Todd Bowles was horrible in his first run as a head coach. He went 26-41 as coach of the New York Jets from 2015-to 2018.
Some great NFL coaches were horrible their first go-round as an NFL coach.
Bill Belichick was 30-34 as the head coach in Cleveland before winning six Super Bowls in New England. Pete Carroll went 6-10 with the Jets. Marv Levy was 31-42 in Kansas City and went on to a Hall of Fame career in Buffalo. Mike Shanahan was fired after going 8-12 with the Raiders, then won two Super Bowls in Denver.
If you apply those lessons learned in the first years of NFL coaching, you can have a successful NFL coaching career.
Bowles had this takeaway from his first NFL head coaching experience. “I think as a first-time head coach; you go into it with some measure of invincibility. Like, ‘This team is bad, but I can coach them better.’ And you think that’s all there is to it. But then there’s layers and layers on top that you never really noticed. Once you’re in the situation, you’re in too deep.”
“And then you get a chance to step back, and you see a lot of things that you would do differently and understand which hat you wear for which situation. I think I learned a great deal about that.”
Bowles becomes the fourth African -American head coach with the Buccaneers behind Tony Dungy, Lovie Smith, and Raheem Morris.