“Tom Brady Was The Missing Ingredient” Tampa Bay Buccaneers Head Coach Bruce Arians Reveals How COVID-19 Almost Impacted Him Coaching

Bruce Arians can now add Super Bowl champion to his list of accolades. However, Arians was nearly convinced to opt out this season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bruce Arians says his wife Christine along with other relatives wanted him to seriously consider opting out this season since he is high risk for COVID. “Some people said, ‘Dad, you need to opt out this year,’ and I was like, `’No way. I’ll risk it. It’s going to be a magical year.’ ” from r/nfl

Arians’ family wasn’t wrong for feeling the coach should have opted out. Bruce Arians is 68 years old, and he falls directly into the category of people who are most at-risk of contracting the virus and have the worst symptoms. However, Arians simply couldn’t after the Buccaneers went and got then-6 time Super Bowl Champion Tom Brady.

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Bruce Arians Develops A Special Connection With Tom Brady

Arians and Brady worked on assembling the perfect Super Bowl contending team from day one. Right from the get-go, the goal was always to hoist the Lombardi trophy, nothing less.

“I told Tom, ‘If you come here, we’ll win the Super Bowl. You’re the missing ingredient. We’re a very talented team, but they just don’t know it’ ”

As Arians was pitching to Brady, he quickly realized that Brady had done his research on the Bucs. He knew all the players and was excited to get to work quickly. Right away, he told Coach Arians that future hall-of-fame tight end Rob Gronkowski might be willing to come out of retirement.

Gronk went on to catch two touchdowns in the Super Bowl. Arians never denied Brady what he wanted, from personnel decisions to rest days, the coach knew just how to appeal to his star quarterback.

“Early on, I’d say, ‘Hey, are you taking a day off?’ And he’d say, ‘This will be the last day I ever take off.’ But after a while it was like, ‘Do you mind if I take off Wednesday?’ ”

After a rocky start to the season, many questioned the chemistry between Arians and Brady as the head coach seemed to be throwing Brady under the bus multiple times. However, they quickly got a grasp of each other, as they won their final eight game en-route to a Super Bowl win.

Additionally, Arians knew that developing this connection would be the key to winning the Super Bowl. After all, this Bucs team definitely didn’t lack talent. In the end, Arians became the oldest head coach to win a Super Bowl, and everything did go magically as he predicted.

Arians Add Super Bowl Champion To His Résumé

Arians is no doubt an accomplished coach. He was the AP NFL Coach of the Year twice, in 2012 and 2014. To add on, he also won two Super Bowls as an assistant coach with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2005 and 2008.

However, winning as a head coach is just that much sweeter. This was HIS team. A team that many doubted over the course of the year, but ultimately it was Arians standing at the podium.

Arians also assembled one of the most diverse coaching teams the league has ever seen.

This just further goes to show that Arians is extremely open-minded and ready to go with whatever will get his team to the ultimate accomplishment.

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