Either Bruce Arians is trying a new tactic with Tom Brady … or he has a REALLY short memory.
On Wednesday, per Pro Football Talk, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach was perplexed about why anyone would have negative things to say about the Hall of Fame quarterback this season.
“I don’t know why anyone’s criticizing Tom,” he said, according to PFT. “What he did at the end of the half and to start the second half [against] Minnesota — very, very few teams can score 17 points in a matter of five or six minutes. If we finished the half with 17 points, I don’t [care] how we start. He’s not getting enough credit for what he’s doing.”
Uhhh, Bruce. You’ve spent a lot of time this season criticizing Tom Brady.
There was early in the season when he blamed Brady for interceptions against the Saints (he backtracked on one of them after, but still! Here’s what he said:
“He thought Mike was going down the middle – it was a different coverage – Mike read it right. He should have been across his face, but Tom overthrew it. The other one was a screen pass with an outlet called. He threw the outlet and it was a pick-six. Bad decision.”
There was also this comment:
#Bucs coach Bruce Arians on Tom Brady: "He looked like Tom Brady in practice all the time so it’s kind of unusual to see that in a ballgame because they didn’t do things that we didn’t get ready for. Everything they did we thought we were ready for.''
— Rick Stroud (@NFLSTROUD) September 14, 2020
There was this from last month after a loss to the Rams (via NBC Sports):
“We’ve got the guys open. We’ve just missed ’em,” Arians told reporters Tuesday.
” … Other than the deep ball, I think he’s getting confused a few times with coverage that might be causing some inaccurate balls, but I don’t see it at all in practice. We’re not missing the deep ball in practice, that’s for sure, so it’s just a matter of, on Sundays, hitting ’em.”
You get the point. Who’s criticizing Brady? It’s Arians! So maybe with the Bucs on a bye in Week 13, perhaps the coach took a step back and realized he needed to pivot with the way he spoke publicly about the QB.
Or maybe it’s just what he said in November (via Pro Football Talk): “It’s not criticism, it’s honesty.”
Uh, OK.
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