Bucs OC Byron Leftwich talks top challenge awaiting Tom Brady
When former NFL quarterback Byron Leftwich joined Bruce Arians' Tampa Bay Buccaneers staff in 2019, the 40-year-old offensive coordinator probably didn't think he'd coach a starting signal-caller who was also his elder.
That's precisely the situation that awaits Leftwich, though, after the Bucs signed six-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady earlier this offseason.
Brady turns 43 in August.
From the 2000 NFL Draft through January 2020, the New England Patriots were Brady's lone NFL employer and his only pro football home. As Kyle Wood of the Tampa Bay Times tweeted, Leftwich discussed this while speaking with reporters during a Tuesday conference call.
“I think the greatest challenge is this: He’s been somewhere for 20 years. You guys know, some of you may have worked at the same job for 20 years. And you’ve done something for 20 years in one spot and there’s change, it’s automatically different. It doesn’t matter if it’s for better or for worse, it’s just different. And I try to communicate with him. I want him to just talk football. I know you’ve been saying things a certain way for so long. So when we communicate, we're able to just talk football, because realistically, we're all kind of running the same plays. It's when we call them, how we teach them and how we're trying to attack them that's different. So it’s not a play that he hasn’t heard of. It’s not a play that he hasn’t ran. Now we just got to figure out what he does well and make sure we run a lot more of those plays on Sunday than not.”
Tampa Bay won't ask Brady to carry a lifeless offense to a championship game at any point in the foreseeable future. The Buccaneers brought his former teammate in New England — tight end Rob Gronkowski, who spent the 2019 campaign retired — to Tampa. Mike Evans and Chris Godwin both possess superstar talents. O.J. Howard and Cameron Brate will take pressure off Gronkowski assuming the Bucs keep all those tight ends on the roster after the preseason ends.
Nevertheless, Brady wearing Tampa Bay colors still looks weird ahead of the summer months.
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