Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles has refuted a report that claimed quarterback Tom Brady has been making changes to game plans without informing coaches before contests.
“No, we know what’s going on in the meeting and we know all the tweaks,” Bowles told reporters Monday following Sunday’s 35-7 loss at the San Francisco 49ers, per the Buccaneers’ official website. “The defensive guys meet by themselves as well. We have several position groups that meet by themselves as well to get on the same page together before a game. That’s nothing …That’s not new.”
In a piece published Sunday evening, NFL insider Michael Silver noted for the San Francisco Chronicle that Brady “runs a separate meeting with the Bucs’ skill players” the night before every game.
It’s during that meeting that the seven-time Super Bowl champion allegedly “goes over the game plan, makes tweaks to assignments and formations and provides a revised blueprint — one which first-year head coach Todd Bowles, offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich and the rest of the staff are left to discover in real time once the game begins.”
Silver’s story sounds similar to a report from February 2022 that said Bruce Arians would “take the red pen” to game plans formulated by Brady and Leftwich when Arians was serving as Tampa Bay head coach last season.
Arians stepped down from that role this past March, and the Buccaneers have thus far gone 6-7 under Bowles and Leftwich.
According to ESPN stats, the Buccaneers began Monday evening ranked 28th in the league in scoring and averaging just 17.2 points per game on the campaign.
Perhaps one can’t blame Brady if he truly is making “tweaks” to game plans less than 24 hours before matchups.
Tampa Bay, as a whole, will look to bounce back from Sunday’s embarrassing defeat when the first-place club hosts the 9-4 Cincinnati Bengals this Sunday.
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