A new era begins in Tampa with the hiring of Bruce Arians
One of the worst kept secrets in Tampa became a reality yesterday as the Buccaneers announced the hiring of Bruce Arians to become the Bucs 12th coach in franchise history. Arians will be formally introduced at 230 PM news conference on Thursday afternoon.
So after a year removed from coaching what drew Arians to come back to coach the game? In an interview with Rich Eisen, Arians says he missed the arena and as the season went along that pull became stronger and stronger.
The Bucs also interviewed Chiefs OC Eric Bieniemy, Vikings DC George Edwards, and Cowboys DB coach Kris Richard.
All three will make good head coaches at some point in their career. But they have no NFL head coaching experience. You have to believe that as the interview process played out head, coaching experience became an important criteria that Licht wanted in his HC.
Also the clock is ticking. Jason Licht cannot afford another rebuilding process. The Bucs need to win and win now or Licht will be out of a job at the end of the 2019 season.
In 2012 the Arizona Cardinals were 5-11 and in Arians first year, he took the Cardinals to an 10-6 record and narrowly missed the playoffs.
Arians is 58-33-1 as a HC in the NFL and his win percentage is better than that of Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden.
If you like aggressive football on both sides of the ball you will love Bruce Arians. Conservative is not a word in the Arians playbook. Arians has voiced his disgust many times when teams just go conservative and run the ball to end a game.
After saying that he would only come out of retirement for the Cleveland HC Job, what caused Arians to change his mind?
In an interview with Rich Eisen, Arians says he missed the arena and as the season went along that pull became stronger and stronger.
Arians also talked with Joe Madden. Yes that Joe Madden the ex-Tampa Bay Rays manager who still has an offseason home in Tampa. He talked with Arians about the great things that the Tampa Bay area has to offer and what a great place it is to live here.
Jason Licht and Jameis Winston. Arians in the interview with Eisen said trust with a GM is a huge factor for him and he felt that Licht and him have that trust in their relationship.
it is safe to say that Arians doesn’t come to Tampa without his franchise QB in place in Jameis Winston. Arians says that Winston has unbelievable potential and is just going to get better and better. “The whole thing is going to be built around him. (Winston) I think he can win it all. He has the intelligence, the toughness and obviously the arm ability to lead a team. Now we've got to put the right pieces around him."
So it looks as if Winston will be here for the long haul as long as Arians is the HC in Tampa.
Arians was signed to a 4 yr contract with a team option for a 5th year.
