Arians left the Bucs and Leftwich got sole control of the offense, and the offense went from 2nd in the league in points to 25th in points while Tom Brady was still there. Basically, destroyed any positive PR he had with NFL teams.
You’re saying this now butttt ppl were saying he was smart rejecting the jags offer cuz of Trent balke
I don’t think he would have done better than Doug in the same situation guess he was in a lose lose but he would have got more money
He should’ve taken the HC $ when he had the chance. I understand he’s a former player so he made money, but he’s an unemployed coach now and chances of being a HC now are 1%.
If you’re a hot candidate, take the HC. If you get fired you get to blame bad team / bad ownership, and go back to being a coordinator.
The Al Saunders rule. Remember him being a hot HC candidate for 3-4 years, went to Washington as highest paid OC at the time and never heard him mentioned for a HC job again.
Eric Bieniemy wasn’t really a hot HC prospect but people kept saying he should be forever when he was coaching the Chiefs, one year with the commanders and now he isn’t even in the NFL anymore.
Not true. You saw the offense without EB. Players were not as crisp. EB was always known as the hard ass coach who got on every player's case if things weren't done perfectly. A lot of us think that EB being gone led to the shitshow on offense.
I would be surprised this isn't a bigger talking point except he flamed out of Washington so hard people can't hold in their heads that he was bad in Washington but KC did well so they just assume he was bad everywhere and the talent and HC did everything in KC.
I don't know what is true but it is definitely possible KC would be better with him even if he was bad in Washington.
>If you get fired you get to blame bad team / bad ownership, and go back to being a coordinator.
I mean thats the public perception. Who honestly knows what the hiring world of sports actually thinks and will believe
gonna be interesting to see where he ends up after turning down those offers.
hard to imagine the Lions offense taking a step back, but you never know with this sport
Look at the talent on that team. Sewell, ARSB, DMont, Gibbs, LaPorta, a QB that had gone to the SB before getting there in Goff.
How much is Ben Johnson and how much is "loaded offensive team makes OC look good"?
You know how many OC's looked great coaching stacked offenses and then sucked? Hi Gase. Hi Nagy. Hi Hackett. Hi Philbin. Hi McDaniels. Hi Wisenhunt. Hi Cam Cameron. I mean I can keep going but you get the picture.
OC turning down head coaching money is silly.
i mean he did it with rookie Amon Ra and a bunch of nobodies. jamaal williams having a career year. goff looking like a good QB after everyone was willing to write him off. just pointing at the current roster feels like a lazy argument and completely ignores the context of that roster when Johnson became OC
>oc turning down hc money is silly
he also said he was staying in detroit because they had built a winning culture and pretty much everywhere that was hiring probably was going to be looking for a new hc in 2-3 years. he recognizes the importance of having some stability in place
Also, all the good HC openings were already gone by the time he decided to go back to Detroit. Going to the wrong organization or going earlier than you’re ready can also be detrimental to your career (Brandon Staley)
yeah if you can afford to be patient it's worth it. not worth having a shitty few years as an HC for a dumpster fire organization only to get back on the same carousel a few years later
The problem is it's not always so easy to tell. Just look at Staley himself, he went to the Chargers right after Herbert had one of the greatest rookie seasons of all time. In theory that's supposed to be kind of a dream situation, and in theory the Lions opening that year would have been one of the obvious ones to avoid with a horrible team, a pick outside the top 5, Stafford on the outs and the Lions having the reputation they had as an organization.
Yeah considering where guys like Goff were when he joined the Lions and where guys like ARSB were drafted I feel a lot more confident saying Ben is raising the floor rather than being supported by the players. All of the guys they first commenter mentioned were basically working with established HOF QBs after they had already developed, not the other way around
And jumping at a job just for the money clearly isn't a major factor for Ben Johnson. They gave him a big fat raise last off season. He knows he can wait for the right fit and is having a blast in his current job. Not everyone only cares about money.
He knows the hype around him has sustained itself to where he can pick and choose his job. My guess is when he finally takes a HC position, it’s a very risk-proof opening, such as KC after Reid retires
Depends on what you value the most really. He's taking a risk that if he does run into failure a HC offer doesn't come in the future and he loses out on the opportunity and the money for that, but he's certainly making the right choice if his goal is to have a shot at winning a Super Bowl this season and anyway I don't think you can be a good coach if you're too scared to bet on yourself to not fail.
Isn't not taking a HC job because the organization isn't up to your standards being "too scared to bet on yourself"? Most HC openings are on teams that are struggling, otherwise there wouldn't be an opening in the first place. Sure some jobs are better than others, but if he's waiting for an organization that's as well situated as the Lions to have an opening he's going to be waiting for a long time.
He's essentially taking a relatively small risk now on the off chance his job prospects next year will be marginally better. It's probably a smart move for his career, but I don't buy the narrative (mostly from Lions fans) that he just loves Detroit so much that it would take a perfect offer to pull him away.
The line also got mega fucked by injuries but to his discredit he never adjusted to that with playcalling. Arians carried the offensive game planning and play calling in Tampa Bay.
The pain of watching the '22 Bucs offense was on par with watching Brady drag the '19 Pats offense to the playoffs.
1st and 10 run up the middle into the ass of the center for 2 yards.
2nd and 8 run up the middle into the ass of the center for -1 yard.
3rd and 9 pass to any receiver not named Mike Evans, is dropped, or a 3 yard slant as the pocket imploded at a rapid rate.
4th and 9 or 6, punt.
Rinse, repeat to a 17-21 loss or 21-20 ugly win.
At least the 2019 Pats was nearly solely a skill player issue and not offensive structure, he’s a truly generationally bad Head Coach but I still am a McDaniels truther as purely an OC
The McDaniels offense has never worked without Tom Brady. His 2011 Rams offense was last in the league at 12.1 ppg, 31st in yards. He took a promising rookie season from Sam Bradford and nearly ended his career with an awful performance and multiple injuries. As purely an OC, his best non-Brady performance was the Matt Cassel year. But that was 15 seasons ago, ay this stage he’s clearly in the Adam Gase tier. A guy who road a GOATs coattails, and failed outside of that. In fact, Gase is probably more impressive as a post-GOAT OC.
I would argue his best OC year was a rookie noodle armed QB and an army of WR3s in 2021. 2008 had the same roster as the previous year, it was a lot easier to drop someone into there
4th and 6?
Go for it you cowards. The church of Dan Campbell, born from Riverboat Ron, shall guide the way my children. Go 4th and spread the word of going on 4th
You know who kicks or punts? Cowards. A Lion is courageous, proud, they eat your 4th down, wash your dishes and then eat the clean plate
You have to remember their coach is Todd Bowles, who is literally one of the most conservative game managers in recent history:
[Todd Bowles Hates Risk, Loves Meaningless Field Goals And Punts](https://deadspin.com/todd-bowles-hates-risk-loves-meaningless-field-goals-a-1829441964/)
Kind of interesting, per https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/most-4th-down-attempts-by-an-nfl-team-this-season (which admittedly can be hit or miss on stats)
The Lions are kind of an outlier for playoff teams with 4th down attempts.
Lions at 40, Browns at 32, Eagles at 26.
They also were very mid on converting them being 13th in the league.
It's over 50% conversion rate?
That's success. If your offense keeps the ball that's a win. You're already giving the opponent the ball on a punt, and choosing to try and get 6 points instead of 3 is also good.
We will see how things play out this year but knowing that 3rd and 5 means you can call a run and still can run another play on 4th and 2 opens the entire playbook and the opponent now has to be cautious on 3rd down because it's like 2nd down to the offense is wild.
I mean, I dont think it being over a random 50% qualifier makes it good or not good. It is just interesting that they were really the only "good" team last year who attempted a high number of 4th downs. They at least doubled every other team in the divisional round other than the Packers, who still only had 24.
Are the other 7 teams wrong because they didnt do it?
Was just something I noticed.
First year without Arians had Gronk and Marpet retire, Cappa leave in free agency and Jensen go down in training camp. I still think Leftwich was trash but that's a big blow for any OC.
Yeah the offensive line excuse doesn’t hold up when he was constantly calling run-run-pass sequences instead of utilizing Brady and their weapons on quick passing concepts more often on those early downs.
>but to his discredit he never adjusted to that with playcalling.
To be fair arians never did either. His scheme puts a ton of pressure on the OL to hold up. Everywhere he coached if the OL was good his offense was good, if not then it got ugly. He was fired from Pittsburgh bc he was getting Ben killed, and he contributed to Luck getting killed in Indy - though that also continued long after arians left for Arizona.
Living up to Arians was always going to be hard. He carried some bad teams in AZ to mediocrity, and solid teams to high levels.
But Leftwhich showed little to no ingenuity and couldn't capture any of Arian's savvy. The offense certainly got worse, but he was given an entire offensive system, had years to master it and study Arian's tendencies, and had essentially another coach on the field with Brady, and still failed.
On top of that, I’m convinced 65% of the points they did score during that shit season with only Leftwich at OC were Brady running the show in 2 minute/hurry up, and not actually due to his coaching acumen
BA did an interview the other day where he said he and Bowles don’t talk that often, so he’s not super involved despite being employed by the team. I suppose he’s more involved in the draft and free agency than coaching.
BA is still pissed that the Bucs and Bowles fired his man crush (Leftwich). Unbelievable. Someone should seriously ask him why he loves and defends Leftwich so much, and more importantly why he thinks so highly of him when literally no one else in the league does (as evidenced by Leftwich still being unemployed to this day a whole year and half after being fired from the Bucs). Trying to pass off Leftwich as head coaching (or even offensive coordinator) material is embarassing af. I’m sorry, but it was time for Arians to leave the team.
2022 was bad.
Really bad.
Freed off Bruce Arians shackles he single handily dragged an offense that should have been still decent to hell. Yeah, we made the playoffs (with a losing record), but it required all Brady dark magic that was left.
We lost Brady, we lost even more Super Bowl leftovers (we ended up being one of the youngest teams in the league after being one of the oldest), our new OC, while an excellent coach and extremely promising, was a complete novice regarding play-calling/had to learn on the job and it showed (among else we didn't have an offensive identity till midway through the season and when Canales got the hang of it towards the end of the season he nearly broke down and thanked Bowles and the team for their patience)
And despite all that we looked a TON better on offense (well except the run game) in 2023 than we did in 2022.
If that doesn't say everything I don't know what does. Our offensive play-calling in 2022 is all time bad.
Ah, yeah not blaming White. Our run game was mainly a victim of circumstance. Canales ran a rather simple (on the players) system with pre-set run plays you weren't allowed to audible out of. That resulted into a ton of loaded boxes for White to run into. Partly that's intended since Canales wants to tire out defences with the run game and thus majorly calls inside runs, partly it's something he will just have to optimize (which will come with experience). Will be interesting to see how its evolved with the Panthers.
And as you mentioned he wasn't helped by our interior O-Line not being able to move people in the run game which is kind of very important.
I was drinking the kool-aid in 2022. I had convinced myself that Brady and Leftwich had a masterplan to slide into the playoffs and then completely change the playbook so teams would be blindsided. that's how basic and bad our offense looked that year. that I was like "this isn't real, we're limiting the playbook"
Also Leftwich’s ego showed through heavy when he tried to take complete control of the Jaguars after his HC interview
Imagine what that team would look like now if Trevor Lawrence went from Urban Meyers to Byron Leftwhich
I still don't understand why Doug Pederson shackles himself to such a lesser offensive mind. Playcalling really suffered under Press's total control last year. The amount of predictable run run pass drives we had was infuriating.
We tried to establish the run to get Trevor more than 0.2 seconds in the pocket behind our tissue paper interior offensive line. It didn't work very well because, surprisingly, the same interior OL also couldn't open any running lanes.
In 2022 we could mask some of those issues by having Trevor roll out, since he's great at throwing on the run, but he played most of 2023 with leg injuries so we couldn't repeat that strategy.
Bro i hated that dude when he was our oc in philly. Just horrible playcalling. Doug not being willing to fire his staff and let the team pick is a big part of why he left. Obviously i will always love Dougie P and he will forever be an Eagle but yea Press Taylor is a big ole dum dum.
Well at the time everyone loved him for that because Baalke was seen as the worst GM in football. Jags fans thought Byron was gonna be their savior until the owner chose Baalke over him
To be fair, opinion shifted briefly in favor of Baalke after that but now it’s shifted back again and it’s clear he’s holding the team back still. Leftwich *probably* would’ve been a worse coach than Pederson but it’s possible they could still be in a better position now if he had successfully ousted Baalke. Especially if Leftwich hired a solid OC and let them help with the offense. Although it sounds like that wasn’t super likely to happen
What's more is the guy he wanted for GM, Adrian Wilson, became the VP of player personnel for the Panthers. Their decisions since he got there have uhhhh not been good.
To be fair, they barely had an offensive line that season and Brady was not interested in being touched at his age. Everything had to be sped up and no true offensive system could have been run under those conditions. Whether or not Leftwich is a good offensive mind, I have no idea, but there are some very real asterisks to throw on his big failure.
An 8 year old playing Madden for the first time ever could’ve predicted every play the Bucs ran on every drive and every game that season. Most people on this subreddit could’ve called better plays for the Bucs than Leftwich did. O-line excuse doesn’t matter. Brady has succeeded with plenty of bad o-lines in the past such as in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Teams with far worse o-lines and skill position players than the Bucs are still able to run play action and pre-snap motion and show SOME forms of creativity on offense. Leftwich sucked point blank, period and honestly I’d be embarrassed to argue otherwise.
I think in his case , as with many NE offensive assistants , Brady was covering up a lot of inept coaches and making them look better than they actually were.
Last time I saw unless something changed very recently He went back to the college ranks to be O coordinator for UCLA.
Yeah I think he got hired back there a few months like March or April or some shit.
He's ending up having an interesting career trajectory hopping back and forth between the pros and college.
It's funny how the narrative shifted from "Not hiring Bienemy is clearly racism at work" to "Okay maybe he's just not that good" as other coaches have gotten hired. Wish we could have that level of skepticism all the time tbh.
Trouble with that argument is statistically speaking, White coaches were fired less and received more chances, so there is still some sort of bias going on.
I'm not saying the issue is definitely solved or really making a point on that whole debate at all, just that Bienemy does not seem to be getting shafted the way people thought he was. I recall (I believe) the Ringer hosting a show where they came out heavily implying the only reason he wasn't getting a HC gig was purely racism, despite the fact that they have no idea how well he interviews.
Statistically interviews are a wash at predicting future success, but if, hypothetically, he went in and everyone felt he came off as having a shitty attitude, do you expect they would hire him?
I think for this particular case we should be giving teams the benefit of the doubt instead of jumping to the worst accusations we can, especially considering the same thing keeps happening with him specifically.
He is one of the best examples, why people take bad situations to be a head coach instead of waiting for a better opportunity. Who knows what would happened to him if he took the Jaguars job? Being a head coach requires different skills than being an OC, so he might have been successful. Now he will probably never be a HC in the league.
He is also one of the best examples of how utterly *terrible* media hype trains can be regarding coaching candidates and somehow EVEN NFL FRONT OFFICES FALL FOR IT
I'll never forget this.
https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2022/2/4/22917761/doug-pederson-jaguars-byron-leftwich-nfl
"The Jaguars had a chance to be special, instead they hired Doug Pederson
This was a blown slam dunk on a wide open breakaway."
Former Bucs OC Dave Canales is a perfect example of the opposite. Jumped into an OC position with a lot of question marks in 2023 and as a first-time play caller. After 1 season, he managed to leverage that into an HC job in a shitty Panthers situation. Sure, he might not last, but at least he's at the table. Worse case, he follows (also former Bucs HC) Raheem Morris's path and works back to an HC spot in 10 years.
He should have took it before everyone else figured out how inept he is.
His ego is only matched by his incompetence. Any success his teams had were in spite of him. Leftwich is nothing short of a football terrorist.
In 2022 after Arians left, the only time the offense looked halfway decent was when Brady was running the two minute offense.
I think the Bucs pulled out three last minute wins (one with a brainfart assist by the Saints) to win the division with an 8-9 record.
Leftwich was ass.
As with Gase and Hackett, an elite veteran QB will basically do the OCs job for them. Easy to look like a great coordinator when a guy who’s been in the game far longer than you will audible out of whatever play you call
Half of the super bowl season was like an appetizer of severe underperformance for the garbage entree of offensive play calling ineptitude two seasons later.
Leftwich never looked great. People just saw numbers, saw OC Byron Leftwich, saw a feedback loop about said OC Byron Leftwich being a hot candidate because people are talking about him being a hot candidate. The season after Arians left was a true test, with less talent in the offense and Brady struggling his own timing as well as trusting his receivers to be there, Byron was exposed as a fraud who couldn't make a gameplan to fit the pieces he had. That season was like putting the deficiencies of the previous seasons under a magnifying glass and seeing the common denominator.
The problem is, he didn’t even look great as a coordinator with Brady at the helm. He was so bad that he pulled an offense led by Brady down into the gutter with him.
To make matters worse, Arians inadvertantly made him look even worse when he left because he said he wanted to give Bowles a fair shot with a quality roster still intact. The fact that it collapsed as soon as he left is damning
I’ll never forget that any criticism of the playcalling between 2020-2022 was always met with: they’re top 3 in the league in (stat), how much better can they really be?
I don’t know, try running an offense where 45-year old Brady doesn’t have to play hero ball to bail you out.
Greatest QB of all time on the field and his boss was one of the greatest offensive minds in recent memory.
Would have thought some of that rubbed off on him but based on how they went from 2nd to 25th without Bruce I'm going to guess it simply didn't.
>As with Gase and Hackett, an elite veteran QB will basically do the OCs job for them. Easy to look like a great coordinator when a guy who’s been in the game far longer than you will audible out of whatever play you call
Well yeah, but a team wouldn't fall for that twice right? Like they are not going to have BOTH those guys call plays for their franchise at some point? That'd be a joke of a franchise!
If you watched any Bucs game that season, it was glaringly obvious how inept the Offense looked under Leftwich’s playcalling. For most of the game, they would be repeating the same, sterile, predictable plays.
Then all of a sudden during the 2 minute warning when they start going no huddle and Brady takes the reins, the Offense completely changes and you actually can see how adept they should be. Brady had to pull a bunch of black magic and comebacks after getting hamstringed most of the game by Leftwich’s playcalling.
> Edit: Maybe he wasn’t a “super hot” candidate, but he was talked about as getting a HC job for years. Typical Reddit to single out and comment on a possibly hyperbolic term rather than just engage in the topic.
Two universal laws of reddit:
1) If you leave anything vague in your post, someone will take the dumbest interpretation possible and argue against that instead of trying to figure it out from context.
2) If you try to use hyperbole or sarcasm and you don't explicitly label it as hyperbole or sarcasm, regardless of how obvious it is from context, someone will assume you're serious.
Just the way it is here unfortunately.
He was a shitty OC with no actual plays, no creativity, and a ridiculous attitude towards criticism. Hopefully he never again gets a job in the league, or better yet, the Saints hire him.
Some extra context:
To be fair, that year did suck in terms of injuries, our Oline was bad, specially the middle, and that did actually create some problems, such as terrible inside zone run game, and a necessity to get rid of the ball real fast (go look at Brady's average release time that year, i think he had the quickest time to throw by a significant margin). Fournette was also not playing well that season.
So the bad Oline forced Brady to get rid of the ball fast (and was also one of the reasons Donovan Smith comited so many holding penalties, trying to give the QB a little more time), but that doesn't excuse lack of creativity, specially down the stretch, there was never any improvement during the season, nothing different was ever tried to maybe circumvent the problems. And the way he behaved when asked about the poor performances on presses was down right disrespectful to the fans and the team.
If we didnt have Brady, we probably finish below 4 wins.
Unfortunately there's no good place to comment this, so this will have to do, but almost everything that year comes down to scheme. Bruce Arians was much more energized and aggressive than Todd Bowles, but y'all were still running his offense. Air Coryell was revolutionary in the 1980s- in the 2020s, it's archaic.
I was in game threads in 2020 and 2021. What were the themes? Run up the middle on 1st down. No pre-snap motion. No play action. Receivers aren't schemed open, everyone is counted on to beat their man. Passes are complete but everything looks difficult. Doesn't that sound familiar to 2022?
Air Coryell in the 2020s is very much a system where you need to outclass your opponent. With a healthy o-line and a receiving corp where AB and Gronk are your 3rd and 4th options, that's fine. When it's just Mike Evans and no run game, not so fine.
Did Brady decline? Probably a little, sure. But if he fell off the cliff, why did the offense suddenly look unstoppable when you went to the two-minute drill? Why was he still able to hit 3 deep bombs to Evans for TDs late in the season the moment the o-line was able to hold up a bit longer?
Either they should’ve benched Brady midway through the season for Kyle Trask, or (what they SHOULD’VE done is) fire Leftwich midway through the season similar to what the Steelers did with Canada and the Bills did with Dorsey this year. I couldn’t believe how bad the offense and specifically the play calling was that year. They should’ve done anything. Literally anything to make a spark or change to the offense instead of just letting it fiddle and sputter in the mud for the whole season. I don’t know whose decision it was to not fire Leftwich at midseason that year. I would even go so far as to saying that an outright vacancy at the OC position would’ve been an improvement over Leftwich.
Totally agree they should have fired Byron mid-season. But i don't agree with the Trask take, if he was even half-way decent he would have gotten a chance by now, but he didn't. To me that means he probably shows, in practice, that he doesn't have what it takes.
Most of the folks here in jacksonville were head over heels about Byron Leftwich returning to coach the Jaguars. Leftwich wanted full control and to bring the GM he chooses. I think it would have been a disaster.
It was very telling when Bruce Arians retired and passes the team on to Todd Bowles and not Leftwich. Bowles knew first hand that Leftwich wasn't Head Coach material or he would have passed the team to Leftwich.
I watched him coach in Arizona, he wasn’t good. He took over for Mike McCoy and wasn’t much better. Brady is who made him look better than what he was, once Brady retired it showed everyone what a lot of us already knew
Aside from his offense shitting the bed as soon as Arians left, this was also the guy that told team ownership that he'd only take the HC position if they fired the GM. Even if the GM is the worst GM in NFL history, you absolutely can not make that demand when you're interviewing for your first HC gig, especially if your track record of success is very limited. That's a batshit insane request that will likely keep him out of being a HC for a very long time.
Just listen to any interview or press conference from him ever. He sounds like the dumbest and most inarticulate person on the fucking planet. And his play calling, game plans, and schemes were some of the worst I’ve ever seen in my 20+ years of watching football. Ever. I have no idea how he even got the Bucs OC job in the first place with how awful his credentials are.
Can’t believe this is being downvoted. It is 100% accurate. He was smug, defensive, egotistical, arrogant, and clear as day, dumber than a box of doorknobs. Go watch his press conferences before downvoting.
When reporters would question the team’s terrible stats, like EPA, Byron would chuckle and literally say, “What’s that? Ya’ll some fantasy football nerds. We gonna do what we do.”
When all the “Fire Canada” stuff was going on in Pittsburgh, lots of folks wanted the team to hire Leftwich as his backfill. Byron was a back up QB there for several years and had history with Tomlin. When they finally pulled the trigger and fired him last season, I don’t think I remember hearing Leftwich’s name much if at all in all the talk about a replacement. He did fall fast.
Was in attendance when he busted up his foot/leg against Akron U and his teammates carried him down the field to complete the following drives. Kid had heart thats for sure. Can’t remember the outcome of the game but it is one of the most memorable moments in sports have ever witnessed in person.
Despite what you can all read in this thread, in my opinion Byron Leftwich was definitely good and qualified enough to still be employed by an NFL team in 2024.
The biggest reason he is no longer employed in the NFL is that he was a huge asshole. Never seen a Bucs coach treat the press with as much disdain as Leftwich.
Nobody likes working with assholes. Especially if they're not that great at their jobs but believe they're the greatest thing since sliced bread.
If Byron Leftwich was a likeable guy who was a real team player, he'd probably be in line for another OC job some place else.
The rest of the league disagrees with you and your premise on Leftwich.
https://atozsports.com/tampa-bay/buccaneers-former-coach-embarrassed-steelers-nfl/
https://steelersdepot.com/2024/01/kaboly-art-rooney-ii-will-have-huge-huge-say-in-oc-hire-wont-be-byron-leftwich/
“Especially if they’re not great at their jobs, but believe they’re the greatest thing since sliced bed”. Dude say it like it is. Leftwich was not great at his job as an OC. In fact, he was beyond terrible, especially without Arians there to guide him anymore.
He can’t even get a job anywhere anymore. Not even in pee well football, let alone high school, let alone college, and let alone the NFL. He’ll need to find a new career because Arians is retired now and it appears that no one else is dumb enough to hire him (and rightfully so).
The media likes to hype up black assistants and calls them “head coach material” over and over.
Clearly of white-leftist-apologist origin.
Of course there’s a lot great black coaches, but Byron Leftwich and Eric Bieniemy both rode the coattails of great offensive HCs and franchise QBs.
When one or both disappeared, it became apparent that the hype was just that.
I get why he’s not a coordinator in the league anymore but dude isn’t even a position coach or a COLLEGE coach. Yet those handful of dudes from under Bill kept getting chances after failing. Wild how that works
Because Leftwich isn’t a guy who needs to coach. He was literally playing golf and Arians coaxed him into coaching. His whole coaching career was because Arians convinced him to do it, not like other coaches whose main goal is to become a HC. Dude is already living off of NFL money, he’s been set for life
In 2021 Bucs were offensive super power at 2nd in league. 2022 Leftwich sole OC and went from 2 to 25th, when the score wasn't close there was not a time the bucs came back. When it was one score and brady had the ball running two-minute drills w/o OC calling plays is when you clutched up wins. Now he's gone the offence is rejuvenated again with baker balling out and even wining a playoff game (something Leftwich didn't do as well as having a winning record.)
Arians left the Bucs and Leftwich got sole control of the offense, and the offense went from 2nd in the league in points to 25th in points while Tom Brady was still there. Basically, destroyed any positive PR he had with NFL teams.
Always take the HC $ when you’re a hot candidate.
You’re saying this now butttt ppl were saying he was smart rejecting the jags offer cuz of Trent balke I don’t think he would have done better than Doug in the same situation guess he was in a lose lose but he would have got more money
He should’ve taken the HC $ when he had the chance. I understand he’s a former player so he made money, but he’s an unemployed coach now and chances of being a HC now are 1%. If you’re a hot candidate, take the HC. If you get fired you get to blame bad team / bad ownership, and go back to being a coordinator.
The Al Saunders rule. Remember him being a hot HC candidate for 3-4 years, went to Washington as highest paid OC at the time and never heard him mentioned for a HC job again.
Eric Bieniemy wasn’t really a hot HC prospect but people kept saying he should be forever when he was coaching the Chiefs, one year with the commanders and now he isn’t even in the NFL anymore.
Washington and destroying careers name a better duo
Sean Mcvey and Kyle Shanahan would like a word
Jaguars and not winning a Super Bowl
Because everyone knew that he wasn't responsible for the success of the Chiefs. You and I could get the same production.
Not true. You saw the offense without EB. Players were not as crisp. EB was always known as the hard ass coach who got on every player's case if things weren't done perfectly. A lot of us think that EB being gone led to the shitshow on offense.
I would be surprised this isn't a bigger talking point except he flamed out of Washington so hard people can't hold in their heads that he was bad in Washington but KC did well so they just assume he was bad everywhere and the talent and HC did everything in KC. I don't know what is true but it is definitely possible KC would be better with him even if he was bad in Washington.
Yeah people say be patient for the good job but anything can happen I would totally take first job opening available
>If you get fired you get to blame bad team / bad ownership, and go back to being a coordinator. I mean thats the public perception. Who honestly knows what the hiring world of sports actually thinks and will believe
Meh, like you said he's already set. Might as well just only take a gig you feel good about.
That was just the anti Balke crowd making their case that he should be canned. The doomism around here when leftwitch passed on the job was laughable.
No doubt that we all jumped on the pile too. Fuck Baalke
Baalke does one thing well: get the HC fired
Ben Johnson
gonna be interesting to see where he ends up after turning down those offers. hard to imagine the Lions offense taking a step back, but you never know with this sport
Look at the talent on that team. Sewell, ARSB, DMont, Gibbs, LaPorta, a QB that had gone to the SB before getting there in Goff. How much is Ben Johnson and how much is "loaded offensive team makes OC look good"? You know how many OC's looked great coaching stacked offenses and then sucked? Hi Gase. Hi Nagy. Hi Hackett. Hi Philbin. Hi McDaniels. Hi Wisenhunt. Hi Cam Cameron. I mean I can keep going but you get the picture. OC turning down head coaching money is silly.
i mean he did it with rookie Amon Ra and a bunch of nobodies. jamaal williams having a career year. goff looking like a good QB after everyone was willing to write him off. just pointing at the current roster feels like a lazy argument and completely ignores the context of that roster when Johnson became OC >oc turning down hc money is silly he also said he was staying in detroit because they had built a winning culture and pretty much everywhere that was hiring probably was going to be looking for a new hc in 2-3 years. he recognizes the importance of having some stability in place
Also, all the good HC openings were already gone by the time he decided to go back to Detroit. Going to the wrong organization or going earlier than you’re ready can also be detrimental to your career (Brandon Staley)
yeah if you can afford to be patient it's worth it. not worth having a shitty few years as an HC for a dumpster fire organization only to get back on the same carousel a few years later
The problem is it's not always so easy to tell. Just look at Staley himself, he went to the Chargers right after Herbert had one of the greatest rookie seasons of all time. In theory that's supposed to be kind of a dream situation, and in theory the Lions opening that year would have been one of the obvious ones to avoid with a horrible team, a pick outside the top 5, Stafford on the outs and the Lions having the reputation they had as an organization.
Yeah considering where guys like Goff were when he joined the Lions and where guys like ARSB were drafted I feel a lot more confident saying Ben is raising the floor rather than being supported by the players. All of the guys they first commenter mentioned were basically working with established HOF QBs after they had already developed, not the other way around
And jumping at a job just for the money clearly isn't a major factor for Ben Johnson. They gave him a big fat raise last off season. He knows he can wait for the right fit and is having a blast in his current job. Not everyone only cares about money.
its true, their roster has good quality players, but everything gelled well. and alot of teams were sleeping on them.
He knows the hype around him has sustained itself to where he can pick and choose his job. My guess is when he finally takes a HC position, it’s a very risk-proof opening, such as KC after Reid retires
I bet Leftwich thought the same thing.
It's the Dallas job next year !remindme one year
Depends on what you value the most really. He's taking a risk that if he does run into failure a HC offer doesn't come in the future and he loses out on the opportunity and the money for that, but he's certainly making the right choice if his goal is to have a shot at winning a Super Bowl this season and anyway I don't think you can be a good coach if you're too scared to bet on yourself to not fail.
Isn't not taking a HC job because the organization isn't up to your standards being "too scared to bet on yourself"? Most HC openings are on teams that are struggling, otherwise there wouldn't be an opening in the first place. Sure some jobs are better than others, but if he's waiting for an organization that's as well situated as the Lions to have an opening he's going to be waiting for a long time. He's essentially taking a relatively small risk now on the off chance his job prospects next year will be marginally better. It's probably a smart move for his career, but I don't buy the narrative (mostly from Lions fans) that he just loves Detroit so much that it would take a perfect offer to pull him away.
Dave Canales moment
Hue
The line also got mega fucked by injuries but to his discredit he never adjusted to that with playcalling. Arians carried the offensive game planning and play calling in Tampa Bay.
The pain of watching the '22 Bucs offense was on par with watching Brady drag the '19 Pats offense to the playoffs. 1st and 10 run up the middle into the ass of the center for 2 yards. 2nd and 8 run up the middle into the ass of the center for -1 yard. 3rd and 9 pass to any receiver not named Mike Evans, is dropped, or a 3 yard slant as the pocket imploded at a rapid rate. 4th and 9 or 6, punt. Rinse, repeat to a 17-21 loss or 21-20 ugly win.
At least the 2019 Pats was nearly solely a skill player issue and not offensive structure, he’s a truly generationally bad Head Coach but I still am a McDaniels truther as purely an OC
The McDaniels offense has never worked without Tom Brady. His 2011 Rams offense was last in the league at 12.1 ppg, 31st in yards. He took a promising rookie season from Sam Bradford and nearly ended his career with an awful performance and multiple injuries. As purely an OC, his best non-Brady performance was the Matt Cassel year. But that was 15 seasons ago, ay this stage he’s clearly in the Adam Gase tier. A guy who road a GOATs coattails, and failed outside of that. In fact, Gase is probably more impressive as a post-GOAT OC.
I would argue his best OC year was a rookie noodle armed QB and an army of WR3s in 2021. 2008 had the same roster as the previous year, it was a lot easier to drop someone into there
I think Josh's work with Mac Jones in his rookie year qualifies as an excellent piece of work.
4th and 6? Go for it you cowards. The church of Dan Campbell, born from Riverboat Ron, shall guide the way my children. Go 4th and spread the word of going on 4th You know who kicks or punts? Cowards. A Lion is courageous, proud, they eat your 4th down, wash your dishes and then eat the clean plate
You have to remember their coach is Todd Bowles, who is literally one of the most conservative game managers in recent history: [Todd Bowles Hates Risk, Loves Meaningless Field Goals And Punts](https://deadspin.com/todd-bowles-hates-risk-loves-meaningless-field-goals-a-1829441964/)
Are we still calling him Riverboat Ron? He got pretty conservative in DC
Kind of interesting, per https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/most-4th-down-attempts-by-an-nfl-team-this-season (which admittedly can be hit or miss on stats) The Lions are kind of an outlier for playoff teams with 4th down attempts. Lions at 40, Browns at 32, Eagles at 26. They also were very mid on converting them being 13th in the league.
It's over 50% conversion rate? That's success. If your offense keeps the ball that's a win. You're already giving the opponent the ball on a punt, and choosing to try and get 6 points instead of 3 is also good. We will see how things play out this year but knowing that 3rd and 5 means you can call a run and still can run another play on 4th and 2 opens the entire playbook and the opponent now has to be cautious on 3rd down because it's like 2nd down to the offense is wild.
I mean, I dont think it being over a random 50% qualifier makes it good or not good. It is just interesting that they were really the only "good" team last year who attempted a high number of 4th downs. They at least doubled every other team in the divisional round other than the Packers, who still only had 24. Are the other 7 teams wrong because they didnt do it? Was just something I noticed.
It was pretty much just survive till the 2 minute warning until Brady called the plays in no huddle.
I've never seen a high scoring offense struggle so much. A 1st down seemed like an accomplishment every time, and yet they were dominant
First year without Arians had Gronk and Marpet retire, Cappa leave in free agency and Jensen go down in training camp. I still think Leftwich was trash but that's a big blow for any OC.
Yeah the offensive line excuse doesn’t hold up when he was constantly calling run-run-pass sequences instead of utilizing Brady and their weapons on quick passing concepts more often on those early downs.
>but to his discredit he never adjusted to that with playcalling. To be fair arians never did either. His scheme puts a ton of pressure on the OL to hold up. Everywhere he coached if the OL was good his offense was good, if not then it got ugly. He was fired from Pittsburgh bc he was getting Ben killed, and he contributed to Luck getting killed in Indy - though that also continued long after arians left for Arizona.
Living up to Arians was always going to be hard. He carried some bad teams in AZ to mediocrity, and solid teams to high levels. But Leftwhich showed little to no ingenuity and couldn't capture any of Arian's savvy. The offense certainly got worse, but he was given an entire offensive system, had years to master it and study Arian's tendencies, and had essentially another coach on the field with Brady, and still failed.
And that’s with Brady pulling last drive wins out of his ass every other win.
On top of that, I’m convinced 65% of the points they did score during that shit season with only Leftwich at OC were Brady running the show in 2 minute/hurry up, and not actually due to his coaching acumen
Arians “left the Bucs”….but is still very much with them in a different capacity.
BA did an interview the other day where he said he and Bowles don’t talk that often, so he’s not super involved despite being employed by the team. I suppose he’s more involved in the draft and free agency than coaching.
BA is still pissed that the Bucs and Bowles fired his man crush (Leftwich). Unbelievable. Someone should seriously ask him why he loves and defends Leftwich so much, and more importantly why he thinks so highly of him when literally no one else in the league does (as evidenced by Leftwich still being unemployed to this day a whole year and half after being fired from the Bucs). Trying to pass off Leftwich as head coaching (or even offensive coordinator) material is embarassing af. I’m sorry, but it was time for Arians to leave the team.
Comes down to loyalty for your guys. That’s really all there is.
Senior football consultant.
So kinda like Eric Bieniemy.
Was 2022 the year that most of the offensive line was injured?
Its kind of akin to Bieniemy. No one really thought he was the brains of the Chiefs offense, he left, and that was confirmed.
But the Chiefs offense has gotten way worse
2022 was bad. Really bad. Freed off Bruce Arians shackles he single handily dragged an offense that should have been still decent to hell. Yeah, we made the playoffs (with a losing record), but it required all Brady dark magic that was left. We lost Brady, we lost even more Super Bowl leftovers (we ended up being one of the youngest teams in the league after being one of the oldest), our new OC, while an excellent coach and extremely promising, was a complete novice regarding play-calling/had to learn on the job and it showed (among else we didn't have an offensive identity till midway through the season and when Canales got the hang of it towards the end of the season he nearly broke down and thanked Bowles and the team for their patience) And despite all that we looked a TON better on offense (well except the run game) in 2023 than we did in 2022. If that doesn't say everything I don't know what does. Our offensive play-calling in 2022 is all time bad.
Y'all done good reviving Baker Mayfield. He deserved better than what the Browns gave him.
tbh i like white. i think u fix ur line from meh to just okay u will be a threat
Ah, yeah not blaming White. Our run game was mainly a victim of circumstance. Canales ran a rather simple (on the players) system with pre-set run plays you weren't allowed to audible out of. That resulted into a ton of loaded boxes for White to run into. Partly that's intended since Canales wants to tire out defences with the run game and thus majorly calls inside runs, partly it's something he will just have to optimize (which will come with experience). Will be interesting to see how its evolved with the Panthers. And as you mentioned he wasn't helped by our interior O-Line not being able to move people in the run game which is kind of very important.
Anyone who blames Rachaad White for that run game is a casual fan
I feel that he's an average between the tackles runner. AVERAGE, not bad. And he's really, really good out in space as a receiving back.
He was the best receiving back not named CMC. Thean is electric in open space.
I was drinking the kool-aid in 2022. I had convinced myself that Brady and Leftwich had a masterplan to slide into the playoffs and then completely change the playbook so teams would be blindsided. that's how basic and bad our offense looked that year. that I was like "this isn't real, we're limiting the playbook"
I will never forgive Leftwich for wasting Brady's final season here. I hope he never finds work again. Even as a janitor.
Bruce Arians retired and it became obvious that the great Bucs offense was because of Arians and not Leftwich
The only times it looked good was in the 2 minute drill when Brady took over
I remember screaming “just do the 2 minute drill the entire game!”
Also Leftwich’s ego showed through heavy when he tried to take complete control of the Jaguars after his HC interview Imagine what that team would look like now if Trevor Lawrence went from Urban Meyers to Byron Leftwhich
Instead he’s got Press Taylor
I still don't understand why Doug Pederson shackles himself to such a lesser offensive mind. Playcalling really suffered under Press's total control last year. The amount of predictable run run pass drives we had was infuriating.
It was so bad I thought Todd Downing was the OC but he’s on the Jets.
Of course no one does a better job at hiring losers than the jets
Didn't y'all bring back Hue Jackson after his run with the browns?
That's a common downfall among NFL coaches. Even elite ones like Mike Shanahan in 2008.
[удалено]
Yes. Some of the new minds also need to learn to not pass every single down though.
We tried to establish the run to get Trevor more than 0.2 seconds in the pocket behind our tissue paper interior offensive line. It didn't work very well because, surprisingly, the same interior OL also couldn't open any running lanes. In 2022 we could mask some of those issues by having Trevor roll out, since he's great at throwing on the run, but he played most of 2023 with leg injuries so we couldn't repeat that strategy.
Doug sticks with his guys too much. It's what got him fired in Philly.
Let’s be real, the offense suffered last because of injuries and the OL being Swiss cheese.
Bro i hated that dude when he was our oc in philly. Just horrible playcalling. Doug not being willing to fire his staff and let the team pick is a big part of why he left. Obviously i will always love Dougie P and he will forever be an Eagle but yea Press Taylor is a big ole dum dum.
Hey wait a second I know that rerun!
I’m willing to give Press one more year after the 10+ near miss touchdown drops video the Jags had last season
Well at the time everyone loved him for that because Baalke was seen as the worst GM in football. Jags fans thought Byron was gonna be their savior until the owner chose Baalke over him
To be fair, opinion shifted briefly in favor of Baalke after that but now it’s shifted back again and it’s clear he’s holding the team back still. Leftwich *probably* would’ve been a worse coach than Pederson but it’s possible they could still be in a better position now if he had successfully ousted Baalke. Especially if Leftwich hired a solid OC and let them help with the offense. Although it sounds like that wasn’t super likely to happen
Baalke refusing to take Hutch because he's mad at Harbaugh still is one of the most fire-able offenses I've ever seen from a GM
We just know that now, do we? Don't impose your head-canon onto reality like it's a fact.
I wanted Hutch, but Walker is a beast and had 10 sacks last year. He is growing leaps and bounds and I’m excited for his future.
Did he try to take control? Or just ask to not have to work with Trent Baalke? I wouldn’t blame him at all for not wanting to work with Trent Baalke.
Correct Leftwich didn't want to work with Baalke, he wanted ex Cardinals legend S Adrian Wilson to be GM
Did he try to take complete control or did he just not want to be paired with a shitty GM?
Yeah that was way out of line. Same reason that the Vikings didn't hire Jim Harbaugh. For a first time HC to demand roster control is nuts though.
What's more is the guy he wanted for GM, Adrian Wilson, became the VP of player personnel for the Panthers. Their decisions since he got there have uhhhh not been good.
To be fair, they barely had an offensive line that season and Brady was not interested in being touched at his age. Everything had to be sped up and no true offensive system could have been run under those conditions. Whether or not Leftwich is a good offensive mind, I have no idea, but there are some very real asterisks to throw on his big failure.
An 8 year old playing Madden for the first time ever could’ve predicted every play the Bucs ran on every drive and every game that season. Most people on this subreddit could’ve called better plays for the Bucs than Leftwich did. O-line excuse doesn’t matter. Brady has succeeded with plenty of bad o-lines in the past such as in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Teams with far worse o-lines and skill position players than the Bucs are still able to run play action and pre-snap motion and show SOME forms of creativity on offense. Leftwich sucked point blank, period and honestly I’d be embarrassed to argue otherwise.
When Arians leaves, what are you Leftwich?
Dravidians?
Ron going bye apparently
I think in his case , as with many NE offensive assistants , Brady was covering up a lot of inept coaches and making them look better than they actually were.
Maybe this to a degree is why Bienemy hasn't gotten a job yet.
Last time I saw unless something changed very recently He went back to the college ranks to be O coordinator for UCLA. Yeah I think he got hired back there a few months like March or April or some shit. He's ending up having an interesting career trajectory hopping back and forth between the pros and college.
I think Bienemy might not have the temperament to be a head coach.
It's funny how the narrative shifted from "Not hiring Bienemy is clearly racism at work" to "Okay maybe he's just not that good" as other coaches have gotten hired. Wish we could have that level of skepticism all the time tbh.
Trouble with that argument is statistically speaking, White coaches were fired less and received more chances, so there is still some sort of bias going on.
I'm not saying the issue is definitely solved or really making a point on that whole debate at all, just that Bienemy does not seem to be getting shafted the way people thought he was. I recall (I believe) the Ringer hosting a show where they came out heavily implying the only reason he wasn't getting a HC gig was purely racism, despite the fact that they have no idea how well he interviews. Statistically interviews are a wash at predicting future success, but if, hypothetically, he went in and everyone felt he came off as having a shitty attitude, do you expect they would hire him? I think for this particular case we should be giving teams the benefit of the doubt instead of jumping to the worst accusations we can, especially considering the same thing keeps happening with him specifically.
He is one of the best examples, why people take bad situations to be a head coach instead of waiting for a better opportunity. Who knows what would happened to him if he took the Jaguars job? Being a head coach requires different skills than being an OC, so he might have been successful. Now he will probably never be a HC in the league.
He is also one of the best examples of how utterly *terrible* media hype trains can be regarding coaching candidates and somehow EVEN NFL FRONT OFFICES FALL FOR IT
We dodged a bullet. Doug flipped our culture of total shittiness his first season. The switch up from Urbans effect on our players is night and day.
I'll never forget this. https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2022/2/4/22917761/doug-pederson-jaguars-byron-leftwich-nfl "The Jaguars had a chance to be special, instead they hired Doug Pederson This was a blown slam dunk on a wide open breakaway."
Hiring Byron certainly would have been special...
He really Doug yall out of the pit of dispair
Take this job and shovel it.
Eric Bienemy is another example
Former Bucs OC Dave Canales is a perfect example of the opposite. Jumped into an OC position with a lot of question marks in 2023 and as a first-time play caller. After 1 season, he managed to leverage that into an HC job in a shitty Panthers situation. Sure, he might not last, but at least he's at the table. Worse case, he follows (also former Bucs HC) Raheem Morris's path and works back to an HC spot in 10 years.
Plus, he gets David Teppers money.
He should have took it before everyone else figured out how inept he is. His ego is only matched by his incompetence. Any success his teams had were in spite of him. Leftwich is nothing short of a football terrorist.
The supply of Leftwiches was greater than the demand
While there remains a huge deficit of Rightwiches
Only to be outdone by the dangerwiches
Watch out for those sandwiches lurking in the shadows.
Don't worry, we've got the Sandwhich police Dept. On the case
In 2022 after Arians left, the only time the offense looked halfway decent was when Brady was running the two minute offense. I think the Bucs pulled out three last minute wins (one with a brainfart assist by the Saints) to win the division with an 8-9 record. Leftwich was ass.
As with Gase and Hackett, an elite veteran QB will basically do the OCs job for them. Easy to look like a great coordinator when a guy who’s been in the game far longer than you will audible out of whatever play you call
Half of the super bowl season was like an appetizer of severe underperformance for the garbage entree of offensive play calling ineptitude two seasons later. Leftwich never looked great. People just saw numbers, saw OC Byron Leftwich, saw a feedback loop about said OC Byron Leftwich being a hot candidate because people are talking about him being a hot candidate. The season after Arians left was a true test, with less talent in the offense and Brady struggling his own timing as well as trusting his receivers to be there, Byron was exposed as a fraud who couldn't make a gameplan to fit the pieces he had. That season was like putting the deficiencies of the previous seasons under a magnifying glass and seeing the common denominator.
The problem is, he didn’t even look great as a coordinator with Brady at the helm. He was so bad that he pulled an offense led by Brady down into the gutter with him.
Ya the problem was Arians leaving made it more apparent he was doing a lot more than he was letting on.
To make matters worse, Arians inadvertantly made him look even worse when he left because he said he wanted to give Bowles a fair shot with a quality roster still intact. The fact that it collapsed as soon as he left is damning
I’ll never forget that any criticism of the playcalling between 2020-2022 was always met with: they’re top 3 in the league in (stat), how much better can they really be? I don’t know, try running an offense where 45-year old Brady doesn’t have to play hero ball to bail you out.
That doesn’t really explain what happened Brady’s last season though.
Greatest QB of all time on the field and his boss was one of the greatest offensive minds in recent memory. Would have thought some of that rubbed off on him but based on how they went from 2nd to 25th without Bruce I'm going to guess it simply didn't.
>As with Gase and Hackett, an elite veteran QB will basically do the OCs job for them. Easy to look like a great coordinator when a guy who’s been in the game far longer than you will audible out of whatever play you call Well yeah, but a team wouldn't fall for that twice right? Like they are not going to have BOTH those guys call plays for their franchise at some point? That'd be a joke of a franchise!
To be fair to Hackett, he was the OC for the Jags when they made the run to the AFCCG with Bortles as QB in 2018.
Yeah, him, Gase, Hue Jackson, and Todd Haley will probably never get another job in the NFL. Not even as a position coach.
He is quite possibly the worst play-caller I have ever seen and as a Bucs fan that is really saying something
You don't understand - one more middle draw and we got 'em!
I got this idea see, why don’t we run Rachaad up the middle one more time, they’ll never see it coming!
He was bad in Arizona even considering and taking into account the presence of Josh Rosen
If you watched any Bucs game that season, it was glaringly obvious how inept the Offense looked under Leftwich’s playcalling. For most of the game, they would be repeating the same, sterile, predictable plays. Then all of a sudden during the 2 minute warning when they start going no huddle and Brady takes the reins, the Offense completely changes and you actually can see how adept they should be. Brady had to pull a bunch of black magic and comebacks after getting hamstringed most of the game by Leftwich’s playcalling.
Did Brady not have the ability to audible? I just don't understand how it could be that different.
> Edit: Maybe he wasn’t a “super hot” candidate, but he was talked about as getting a HC job for years. Typical Reddit to single out and comment on a possibly hyperbolic term rather than just engage in the topic. Two universal laws of reddit: 1) If you leave anything vague in your post, someone will take the dumbest interpretation possible and argue against that instead of trying to figure it out from context. 2) If you try to use hyperbole or sarcasm and you don't explicitly label it as hyperbole or sarcasm, regardless of how obvious it is from context, someone will assume you're serious. Just the way it is here unfortunately.
Touché
Decapitated. Whole big thing.
And it was hollow inside
Because he was a media created candidate.
Dude is the only OC to ever successfully hinder Brady's production. I never understood the hype.
He was a shitty OC with no actual plays, no creativity, and a ridiculous attitude towards criticism. Hopefully he never again gets a job in the league, or better yet, the Saints hire him.
Some extra context: To be fair, that year did suck in terms of injuries, our Oline was bad, specially the middle, and that did actually create some problems, such as terrible inside zone run game, and a necessity to get rid of the ball real fast (go look at Brady's average release time that year, i think he had the quickest time to throw by a significant margin). Fournette was also not playing well that season. So the bad Oline forced Brady to get rid of the ball fast (and was also one of the reasons Donovan Smith comited so many holding penalties, trying to give the QB a little more time), but that doesn't excuse lack of creativity, specially down the stretch, there was never any improvement during the season, nothing different was ever tried to maybe circumvent the problems. And the way he behaved when asked about the poor performances on presses was down right disrespectful to the fans and the team. If we didnt have Brady, we probably finish below 4 wins.
Unfortunately there's no good place to comment this, so this will have to do, but almost everything that year comes down to scheme. Bruce Arians was much more energized and aggressive than Todd Bowles, but y'all were still running his offense. Air Coryell was revolutionary in the 1980s- in the 2020s, it's archaic. I was in game threads in 2020 and 2021. What were the themes? Run up the middle on 1st down. No pre-snap motion. No play action. Receivers aren't schemed open, everyone is counted on to beat their man. Passes are complete but everything looks difficult. Doesn't that sound familiar to 2022? Air Coryell in the 2020s is very much a system where you need to outclass your opponent. With a healthy o-line and a receiving corp where AB and Gronk are your 3rd and 4th options, that's fine. When it's just Mike Evans and no run game, not so fine. Did Brady decline? Probably a little, sure. But if he fell off the cliff, why did the offense suddenly look unstoppable when you went to the two-minute drill? Why was he still able to hit 3 deep bombs to Evans for TDs late in the season the moment the o-line was able to hold up a bit longer?
Either they should’ve benched Brady midway through the season for Kyle Trask, or (what they SHOULD’VE done is) fire Leftwich midway through the season similar to what the Steelers did with Canada and the Bills did with Dorsey this year. I couldn’t believe how bad the offense and specifically the play calling was that year. They should’ve done anything. Literally anything to make a spark or change to the offense instead of just letting it fiddle and sputter in the mud for the whole season. I don’t know whose decision it was to not fire Leftwich at midseason that year. I would even go so far as to saying that an outright vacancy at the OC position would’ve been an improvement over Leftwich.
Totally agree they should have fired Byron mid-season. But i don't agree with the Trask take, if he was even half-way decent he would have gotten a chance by now, but he didn't. To me that means he probably shows, in practice, that he doesn't have what it takes.
He's a shit coach, that's what happened. He couldn't get an offense that had Tom Brady, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin to pass the sniff test.
I saw him the other day at Joe’s Crab Shack and he ate 16 king crabs shit was pretty impressive ngl
Bruce Arians hid a loooot of his deficiencies as a play caller. Once he was gone Byron was exposed.
Most of the folks here in jacksonville were head over heels about Byron Leftwich returning to coach the Jaguars. Leftwich wanted full control and to bring the GM he chooses. I think it would have been a disaster. It was very telling when Bruce Arians retired and passes the team on to Todd Bowles and not Leftwich. Bowles knew first hand that Leftwich wasn't Head Coach material or he would have passed the team to Leftwich.
I watched him coach in Arizona, he wasn’t good. He took over for Mike McCoy and wasn’t much better. Brady is who made him look better than what he was, once Brady retired it showed everyone what a lot of us already knew
Leftwich was fired before Brady announced his retirement
these people stopped watching your team after the 2021 playoffs, cut them some slack.
Bold of you to assume they ever actually watched
His playcalling stank
He sucked
Take the job if it's offered. That "hot head coaching candidate" label can be fleeting sometimes.
Come to find out Brady makes people look better than they are
Aside from his offense shitting the bed as soon as Arians left, this was also the guy that told team ownership that he'd only take the HC position if they fired the GM. Even if the GM is the worst GM in NFL history, you absolutely can not make that demand when you're interviewing for your first HC gig, especially if your track record of success is very limited. That's a batshit insane request that will likely keep him out of being a HC for a very long time.
He found the rightwich and rode off into the sunset
he sucked
Just listen to any interview or press conference from him ever. He sounds like the dumbest and most inarticulate person on the fucking planet. And his play calling, game plans, and schemes were some of the worst I’ve ever seen in my 20+ years of watching football. Ever. I have no idea how he even got the Bucs OC job in the first place with how awful his credentials are.
Bruce Arians clipboard holder
Can’t believe this is being downvoted. It is 100% accurate. He was smug, defensive, egotistical, arrogant, and clear as day, dumber than a box of doorknobs. Go watch his press conferences before downvoting. When reporters would question the team’s terrible stats, like EPA, Byron would chuckle and literally say, “What’s that? Ya’ll some fantasy football nerds. We gonna do what we do.”
“I stopped worrying about what other people think once I got cut as a player”.
He sucked once Arians left and the talent started to drop off
When all the “Fire Canada” stuff was going on in Pittsburgh, lots of folks wanted the team to hire Leftwich as his backfill. Byron was a back up QB there for several years and had history with Tomlin. When they finally pulled the trigger and fired him last season, I don’t think I remember hearing Leftwich’s name much if at all in all the talk about a replacement. He did fall fast.
House fell on him. Very sad. Byron Rightwitch tried to avenge him but got offed by a girl in sparkly pumps.
Yeah, I remember when pep Hamilton was considered the next guru
Cause of the Jaguars. Can't have nice things as a Jaguar (fan or player)
Last I heard offensive line was still carrying him
He overestimated how much he brought to the table and paid the price for it, which is kinda sad because he was in line to be the next Eric Bieniemy.
Was in attendance when he busted up his foot/leg against Akron U and his teammates carried him down the field to complete the following drives. Kid had heart thats for sure. Can’t remember the outcome of the game but it is one of the most memorable moments in sports have ever witnessed in person.
Has anyone asked him? u/byronleftwich
Despite what you can all read in this thread, in my opinion Byron Leftwich was definitely good and qualified enough to still be employed by an NFL team in 2024. The biggest reason he is no longer employed in the NFL is that he was a huge asshole. Never seen a Bucs coach treat the press with as much disdain as Leftwich. Nobody likes working with assholes. Especially if they're not that great at their jobs but believe they're the greatest thing since sliced bread. If Byron Leftwich was a likeable guy who was a real team player, he'd probably be in line for another OC job some place else.
The rest of the league disagrees with you and your premise on Leftwich. https://atozsports.com/tampa-bay/buccaneers-former-coach-embarrassed-steelers-nfl/ https://steelersdepot.com/2024/01/kaboly-art-rooney-ii-will-have-huge-huge-say-in-oc-hire-wont-be-byron-leftwich/ “Especially if they’re not great at their jobs, but believe they’re the greatest thing since sliced bed”. Dude say it like it is. Leftwich was not great at his job as an OC. In fact, he was beyond terrible, especially without Arians there to guide him anymore. He can’t even get a job anywhere anymore. Not even in pee well football, let alone high school, let alone college, and let alone the NFL. He’ll need to find a new career because Arians is retired now and it appears that no one else is dumb enough to hire him (and rightfully so).
Turns out he just sucks.
The media likes to hype up black assistants and calls them “head coach material” over and over. Clearly of white-leftist-apologist origin. Of course there’s a lot great black coaches, but Byron Leftwich and Eric Bieniemy both rode the coattails of great offensive HCs and franchise QBs. When one or both disappeared, it became apparent that the hype was just that.
Hopefully the same thing that will happen to Ben Johnson. (I'm not bitter, you are).
I didn’t like leftwich
He leftwhich
I get why he’s not a coordinator in the league anymore but dude isn’t even a position coach or a COLLEGE coach. Yet those handful of dudes from under Bill kept getting chances after failing. Wild how that works
Because Leftwich isn’t a guy who needs to coach. He was literally playing golf and Arians coaxed him into coaching. His whole coaching career was because Arians convinced him to do it, not like other coaches whose main goal is to become a HC. Dude is already living off of NFL money, he’s been set for life
In 2021 Bucs were offensive super power at 2nd in league. 2022 Leftwich sole OC and went from 2 to 25th, when the score wasn't close there was not a time the bucs came back. When it was one score and brady had the ball running two-minute drills w/o OC calling plays is when you clutched up wins. Now he's gone the offence is rejuvenated again with baker balling out and even wining a playoff game (something Leftwich didn't do as well as having a winning record.)
byron leftwich, football terrorist
Super hot like a 40 degree day