TAMPA, Fla. – Well, here they are, along with the quarterback they rode on in, Tom Brady and the upset specials, on sport’s grandest stage, COVID notwithstanding.
Who are those masked men?
Ageless Bucs head coach Bruce Arians and his faithful sidekick (and boss), Bucs general manager Jason Licht, who lived to talk about it – to help build it a Super Bowl team. Two of the great football comeback stories under one big top. Now they are in the center ring. Neither would be here without the other.
“Jason is the main reason I came back in coaching,” said Arians, who with a win in Super Bowl LV would, at 68, pass Bill Belichick to become the oldest head coach to win a Super Bowl. He worked with Licht in Arizona, where Arians was a twice voted Coach of the Year and Licht was director of player personnel and vice president of player personnel. “I knew how good of an evaluator he was and having worked with him — we shared the same vision.”
“… I knew that with B.A. we had a rare coach,” Licht said last week.
In a lot of ways, these two have beaten the odds to be on the brink of a championship. Arians seemed poised for the retirement recliner. Licht appeared bound for the unemployment line.
Let’s get one thing straight: Neither Arians nor Licht are anywhere near this Tampa Super Bowl without Brady. In some ways, it’s like hitting a home run after already getting to third base.
But they did it just the same.
This is Arians first Super Bowl as a head coach (he won two rings as a Steelers assistant). His is a study in patience. He didn’t become a professional head coach until he was made interim head coach in Indianapolis in 2012, when he was 59. His players liked him. His players have always liked him.
But everyone wondered about Arians when he took the Bucs job before the 2019 season. Would he make it through three years, and with Jameis Winston as his quarterback? Would his health fail him as it previously had, including cancer? He left Arizona to get his health back. He seemed destined for his lake house in Georgia and retirement. This Bucs job seemed like a one-way ticket to the emergency room. Would he even last a season?
Winston did his best to run Arians out of town with all those interceptions. Was the quarterback whisperer through? Then came Brady, loud and clear. And Arians still chewed on him, with the bark off. He never changed. He was critical of Brady. He didn’t hold back. It was B.A.
“I just answer questions honestly,” Arians said. “If somebody asks me why he threw an interception, I’ll tell them the truth. That is not calling him out, that is just answering a question honestly. I really don’t know any other way.”
We have gotten the full B.A. It includes that the man is color blind (two African American coordinators) and gender blind (two female assistant coaches). The full B.A. couldn’t make it through his first game out of retirement, as a TV analyst, without uttering a curse word – in his first on-air sentence. You had to smile.
You smiled again when you heard what Arians told his players before their playoff game in New Orleans against the Saints, who had swept the Bucs during the regular season. People questioned the team’s identity. Arians asked his players. Then he said, “We’re some motherf—ers who are gonna find a way to win the game.”
The next week, in the NFC title game, Arians went for it against the Packers, just before halftime, to hell with running out the clock, and Brady hit Scotty Miller for a back-breaking touchdown. No risk it, no biscuit at its very best.
“Everybody has a great affection for him, for the person he is,” Brady said of Arians. “There’s nobody that would ever say anything bad about BA. He’s just so endearing to everybody. And I think everyone wants to win for him.”
Jason Licht might have been an even longer shot than Arians to be here. How many football GMs make it to their third head coach? How many live to talk about a blown No. 1 draft pick spent on a quarterback? The Bucs went 27-53 in Licht’s first five seasons. I can still remember Licht appearing after Dirk Koetter, his second head coach, was sent packing. I had one question:
“Why do you get to stay?”
But Licht did get to stay, and he is grateful.
“I’m very humbled,” he said. “Once again, I use the word grateful. I’ve been through a lot with my staff [and] they’ve done an incredible job … Just for it to finally come together the way it did this year so far – it’s just a humbling experience. I’ve matured in my position over the last three [or] four years. I was able to learn from a lot of mistakes – and I had a lot – and I would always admit to those. … Listening to my staff more, more inclusiveness, and more teamwork, I think, has been the reason that it has come together and we’ve made better decisions in the last few years.”
There were enough mistakes, even beyond Winston, an extinction-level boo-boo all by itself. There were the costly, utterly disastrous free-agency signing, like pass rusher Michael Johnson and offensive tackle Anthony Collins. And, for comedy’s sake, there was Licht trading up in the 2016 draft to grab kicker Roberto Aguayo, who sank beneath the waves after a single season.
But Licht has rewarded the Glazers for their patience, and then some.
The seeds of his comeback were planted early, as it turned out. Receiver Mike Evans, a first-round pick in 2014, is on a trajectory for Canton and the Hall of Fame. Licht found Ali Marpet in the second round in in 2015, signed tight end Cameron Brate as an undrafted free agent in 2014, then receiver Chris Godwin in the third round in 2017.
Licht made a trade for edge rusher Jason Pierre-Paul. He was able to keep linebacker Lavonte David and signed former situational pass rusher Shaq Barrett, who in turn led the NFL in sacks in 2019.
In the first round in 2018, Licht drafted the run-stuffing Vita Vea. After Gerald McCoy walked, the Bucs brought in Ndamukong Suh, who delivered.
With Arians’ input, the Bucs 2019 draft was a jackpot. There is linebacker Devin White, a first-rounder, who with David might form the best LB tandem in football and who has 26 tackles, two fumble recoveries and an interception this postseason. There are defensive backs Sean Murphy-Bunting, who has three interceptions in the playoffs, and Mike Edwards, whose pick helped seal the playoff win over the Saints.
We haven’t mentioned Miller, a 2019 sixth-rounder, who is one of Brady’s favorites. Or what the Bucs did after Brady came aboard: luring his former Patriots playmate, tight end Rob Gronkowski, out of retirement, or signing LeSean McCoy and Leonard Fournette at running back to go with Ronald Jones, who Licht drafted and who came into his own this season.
And then there was the controversial decision to bring in trouble-ridden receiver Antonio Brown, not popular with Arians at the time. Brown was a big contributor when healthy.
“Can’t say enough about what Jason has done,” Arians said. “To me, he’s executive of the year just pulling off all that stuff that he did.”
But it all still came down to Brady, who wanted to work for the Bucs, for Arians and Licht. The Super Bowl, the home team in its hometown, became an idea that moment.
The Bucs went for it, all in, and here they are, the coach who refused to take a seat and the GM who refused to be shown the door. Now look.
“You can’t do anything special in life sitting on a fence,” Arians said.
What fun is that?
This is fun.
Tampa Bay’s home team is in the Super Bowl. Bruce Arians and Jason Licht’s team.
You know, the motherf—cukers.
This is fun.