There's a mutual admiration society in Tampa Bay between head coach Bruce Arians and quarterback Tom Brady.
Arians seems to pay Brady a new compliment every day in the two weeks leading up to Super Bowl LV during media availability held over Zoom. Brady really laid it on thick Thursday while talking about Arians.
“I think from the moment I really met him -- and obviously I had known about B.A. over the course of a lot of years," Brady said via video conference call. "He’s a coach who has been in the league awhile. But he came and commentated I think one or two of our games when he was doing that. I got to meet him and speak to him really during free agency and then the whole pandemic and so forth is still on-going, it’s very difficult to develop a real relationship because we’re just — didn’t have the opportunity through OTAs and so forth to communicate. But, we did speak on Zoom with the captains at one point, we got a couple rounds of golf in which I think was a lot of fun. Just to understand his personality and understand his background. I had seen his Football Life, I had seen a lot of other things that have been broadcast and so forth.
“He’s a great man. He’s a great leader. He’s a great person. He’s a great friend. He’s very loyal. He’s just got a great way of communicating effectively with everybody around here. Everybody has a great affection for him for the person that he is. There’s nobody that would ever say a bad thing about B.A., he’s just so endearing to everybody and I think everyone wants to win for him. I think that is what you want to do for a coach — you want to get out there and you want to win for him. He puts a lot into it, expects a lot out of it. (He has) high expectations for us every day of practice. Just really excited for him to be recognized the way that he is. I know he’s a two-time coach of the year, but just done an amazing job this year with the team and really adverse situations and just — love playing for him.”
Brady always was complimentary of New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, as well, but there weren't many casual golf outings between the two. Brady really did go from the ultimate disciplinarian head coach in Belichick to a full-on players' coach in Arians. And Brady has proven that he can thrive under either structure. Brady and the Bucs take on the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV next Sunday.
It's amazing to think that just a few short months ago we were talking about Arians throwing Brady under the bus after costly mistakes in games.
