The Tampa Bay Buccaneers held their first scrimmage against the Tennessee Titans on August 18th, and Bruce Arians was once again not pleased with the offense. After calling out the receivers for drops, Arians was asked if Brady was included in the criticism. Not even Brady was spared from Arians’ frustration as the Buccaneers coach noted the quarterback did not look “very sharp.”
“I didn’t think he was very sharp,” Arians noted, per Buccaneers official website. “Our third-down percentage I think was really poor in that one. We took some shots downfield on first down [and] guys were open. He made some really good throws that were dropped, too. We’ll grade the tape, but I didn’t come off the field saying he wowed everybody.”
Arians previously announced Brady and the starters will not play against the Titans in their actual preseason matchup on August 21st. The Bucs’ plan is to have Brady take reps against the Titans in the scrimmages leading up to the contest.
“Oh yeah, all our starters [get work in Titans scrimmage]. All our starters, especially the offensive line, tight ends, those people hitting and doing all those things you don’t really get a lot of in practice,” Arians responded.
Brady on Bucs Training Camp to Date: ‘It’s Not Like We’re Firing on All Cylinders Out There’
Arians is not one to hold back his opinion, even if it is directed at one of the greatest NFL players of all time. When Brady first joined Tampa Bay, there was some speculation that the quarterback was at odds with his new coach given some of Arians’ blunt criticism of the quarterback’s play. Brady was also critical of the team’s performance admitting the 2021 roster “has done nothing.”
“I think we’re right in the middle of it,” Brady explained, via the Bucs website. “It’s one thing to make predictions about it, it’s another thing to go do it and I think our team has got to go do it. It’s a new team, it’s a new year, new challenges. This team at the end of the day has done nothing. We haven’t had a regular-season practice yet, so we’ve still got quite a ways to go before we get to that first game and then we’ll see kind of how we’ve done. Definitely, it’s not like we’re firing on all cylinders out there.”
Arians Called out the Receivers: ‘Catch It. S***, Ain’t No Excuse.’
Arians may have described Brady as not looking “sharp”, but he saved his most-pointed criticism for the receivers who struggled with drops against the Titans. The Buccaneers coach admitted the receivers did not do Brady any favors on “perfectly thrown balls.”
“They dropped it,” Arians said. “Catch it. S***, [there] ain’t no excuse. They’re perfectly thrown balls – you catch the d*** thing.”
ESPN’s Jenna Laine confirmed it was not the finest practice for the Buccaneers receivers.
“I’ve seen drops so far from Mike Evans, OJ Howard, Ronald Jones…Jaelon Darden’s had two…,” Laine tweeted.
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Bucs Coach Bruce Arians Calls out Unsharp Tom Brady