Ferris Bueller once quipped that life comes at you fast, and it's an adage that Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans are experiencing firsthand. Things are going so well right now that it's almost hard to believe that just two offseasons ago, there was a much different feeling around the team.
Tom Brady retired for good back in 2023, which feels like ages ago, given everything that's happened since. The Bucs found a franchise quarterback in Baker Mayfield, navigated a nasty salary cap situation, and enter Year 3 of the Post-Brady Era as four-time defending NFC South champions.
All of this seemed pretty hard to believe a few years ago, but the Bucs have pulled off the seemingly impossible task of sticking the landing after Brady's retirement. It hasn't been a smooth ride, though, as nothing about the last three years has been graceful. The sudden regime change when Bruce Arians stepped down was a precursor to the chaos that would unfold over the next few seasons, and we're still learning more about what exactly led to everything that went down.
Bruce Arians admits health problems led to him stepping down as Buccaneers head coach
Back in early 2022, Arians made the stunning announcement that he was going to be stepping down as head coach of the Buccaneers. The news of Arians stepping away came on the heels of Tom Brady changing his mind about retiring, which many took to believe as a concession to get Brady to return.
That wasn't the case, nor was what Arians said at the time of the announcement. At the time word was going around that Arians was handing the keys over the Todd Bowles due to health issues, something he denied in an official statement.
It turns out that wasn't exactly true.
Our pals over at JoeBucsFan picked up on some quotes from Arians during a recent interview with college basketball coach Mark Gottfried which are a complete change of tune.
“Health, it got very, very hard for me to stand on the sidelines [in 2021]; I tore my Achilles like the third week of the season — 90 percent of my Achilles,” Arians said, via JoeBucsFans. “So I had those damn high heels on and back pain. I mean, I had to have help get undressed after the games. And it got to the point I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can physically do this, I’ll do it for one more year.’
Arians downplaying his health issues at the time feels less like a lie and more like him being totally in character as a guy watching out for his own. Had the health issues been played up more it would have overshadowed Bowles getting the job.
Handing the keys to a successful franchise over to Bowles, and putting him in a position to succeed, is something Arians wasn't shy about.
“Because Tom [Brady] was going to retire, alright, I didn’t want to hand it over to somebody without a quarterback. So Tom decided to come back, I said, ‘Phew, perfect. You know, I can step back and give this thing to Todd knowing that he’s got a shot. He’s a better shot than he had in New York.’ It was time for him because one more year wasn’t going to do anything [for me] anyway. But physically, it got really, really hard. And I can’t imagine standing on the sideline for four hours now, you know, just with the bad back I have. That part you miss. When I was sitting on the bench during games, I knew it was time. I used to go over to talk to the quarterbacks just so I could sit down.”
It was a sudden change but one that has worked out well for the Bucs in the long run. While Tampa Bay has yet to return to the Super Bowl, the team has won three straight division titles under Bowles' leadership and the guidance of Jason Licht's front office has helped seamlessly usher in a new era.
Arians is still involved with the team as a special consultant, a role he's been in since stepping down as head coach. It's a testament to how tightly knit the entire organization is and a reminder of it's stability -- even if keeping things that way sometimes involves bending the truth a bit.
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