Bruce Arians came out of retirement to become the Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach in 2019 after spending five seasons as the Arizona Cardinals' head coach from 2013-2017. During his first season with the Buccaneers, there wasn't a ton of success, but following the 2019 season, Arians and the Bucs went to work and were able to grab the biggest fish in the sea in Tom Brady to help lead the charge.
The gamble of bringing Brady into the Bucs' organization paid off as the team went on to win their second Lombardi Trophy in the first season with Arians and Brady paired up together. They went into the 2021 season as defending Super Bowl Champions but unfortunately did not get the same result as the prior year.
Following the 2021 season, Arians made the shocking decision to retire as the Buccaneers' head coach, naming then-defensive coordinator Todd Bowles as his successor.
As mentioned, the decision to retire was a shocking one and left many Buccaneers' fans wondering why he would retire at this point. Of course, Arians gave his reasons multiple times, but still, for some reason, it never really sat right.
In an interview on The Rock Stops Here podcast with Rock Riley, Arians once again looked to set the record straight on his decision to retire when he did.
“For me, it was time; health had a little bit to do with it,” Arians said.
“I tore my Achilles, you know, that year before. Standing on the sidelines was getting harder with some issues just being out there for four hours standing. I just thought it was time, and I didn’t like Todd [Bowles] and Byron [Leftwich] getting passed over that year. You know, I thought they both deserved to be head coaches. You know, so a lot of things went into that decision. When we did it, it was just I think perfect timing for all of us.”
Arians pointing towards his health as a factor in his retirement is different from his original reasoning as he mentioned that he felt the best he had for some time when initially speaking about his retirement. Add in the fact that he was slightly agitated at the fact that his coordinators weren't getting a fair shot at becoming head coaches and it seemingly just made sense for him to walk away into the sunset in Tampa Bay based on where things were.
Todd Bowles will now enter his third season as the Buccaneers head coach and will look to build off of a successful second season that saw the Bucs win the NFC South and make the playoffs.
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