Bruce Arians doesn’t want the Buccaneers offense to look like what Tom Brady has done for most of his career.
Tom Brady has always been more than a slant-throwing or screen-throwing quarterback. The past year with the Buccaneers also unequivocally proved that he is not a system player, but even then. Some coaches would want to adapt their system to their quarterback. Bruce Arians isn’t this type of coach.
Arians has stuck to one system and one system only for the majority of his career. This offensive scheme has helped certain quarterbacks reach career highs once they get through the initial growing pains, but this isn’t always easy.
Jameis Winston led the league in passing yards in year one when Arians came to Tampa, and it would have been fun to see how would have evolved in his second year. Who can blame the Bucs for moving on, though? Tom Brady was a free agent, after all.
While many fans lamented the fact that the offense would have to change dramatically to fit Brady’s skillsets, it didn’t. Instead, Brady adapted to Arians’ system better than any other quarterback in history while leading the NFL in intended air yards. What happened to the slants and the screens?
Everyone knows Brady is more than comfortable throwing the ball to running backs. James White had several massive seasons as a pass-catcher in New England, but this incorrectly created the narrative that Brady could only flourish in an offense built around “easy” throws.
Instead, Tom Brady won the Super Bowl without a consistent running back to serve a role in the passing game. While the Bucs did add Giovani Bernard in free agency to give Brady a better third-down back, Tampa didn’t really use him in their first game.
Some fans believed the Bucs should use Bernard more after the other Buccaneer backs struggled in the passing game, but Bruce Arians has a different plan in a quote Tweeted by Greg Auman.
"We don't like to throw to backs if we don't need to," Bruce Arians says of struggles with backs and catching, saying they're intended to be dumpoffs if other options aren't open.
— Greg Auman (@gregauman) September 10, 2021
It may not be what most fans wanted to see, but Arians is absolutely right here. Why would you want a running back to have the ball in their hand when you have Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, and Antonio Brown?
The Buccaneers have the best pass-catching room in the NFL right now, and it certainly isn’t because of the running backs.
Brady hasn’t seemed out of place for one second despite the lack of a viable pass-catching running back, and the offense still looked excellent passing the ball the other night. There is no reason to start changing the system now.
Keep getting the ball to receivers; Brady can easily thrive while pushing the ball down the field and reinventing his offensive image.
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