Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians had a relatively solid Sunday afternoon, as his team jumped out to a 31-0 lead over the Philadelphia Eagles in the wild-card playoff game the Buccaneers won 31-15. However, Arians went viral during the contest when he smacked safety Andrew Adams on the helmet because he thought Adams was going to draw a penalty for pulling Philadelphia players off a pile:
Bruce Arians is NOT happy pic.twitter.com/H5Goxcee7S
— PFF (@PFF) January 16, 2022
I asked Bruce Arians why he briefly swiped his hand at Andrew Adams’ helmet after the Eagles’ muffed punt. Adams was trying to pull Eagles players off the pile, which could be a penalty. “Yeah, that was it,” Arians said.
— Rick Stroud (@NFLSTROUD) January 16, 2022
Arians, the defending Super Bowl champion coach, was asked during Monday's media availability if he regretted his actions in that instance.
"No, and I’ve seen enough dumb," Arians responded, per Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. "You can’t pull guys out of a pile. We just got a big play, great field position, and he’s trying to pull a guy out of a pile, and I was trying to knock him off of that guy so he didn’t get a penalty."
According to Florio, neither the NFL nor the NFL Players Association have publicly commented about Arians striking one of his players, which is understandably frowned upon even though this particular incident was relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things. One wonders if the union will ultimately request that Arians offer at least a forced apology at some point later in the week.
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