Byron Leftwich and Bruce Arians hope to change the NFL by changing buccaneers

Bruce Arians swears he did not plan it that way. When the former Cardinals head coach retired after the 2017 season, he did not think he'd be sidelined a year later, this time as a coach of the Buccaneers. For a potential job to take him back to the NFL, every detail had to be perfect, whether it 's about a familiar general manager and a talented quarterback or a professional. a short drive from his home in Georgia. In addition to these factors, a less discussed detail was also of paramount importance.

Ariens has been fiercely protective of cries during his career. He held this role as coordinator with the Browns, Steelers and Colts, whom he retained when he had the opportunity to coach Arizona with the lead in 2013. In 2017, he went so far as to state that he preferred to leave the entire training. that not call plays. "But when I came back," said Arians, "it was partly to be a better head coach, I had to give up on that. And there was only one person to whom I would like to give up.

Byron Leftwich was the Steelers quarterback in 2010 and 2011, while Arians was the team's offensive coordinator. He retired the following year and began his coaching career as a trainee for Arians in 2016. Even in his early days, Arians was quick to talk about his protégé's promising future. After spending a year as a low-level assistant, Leftwich was promoted to Cardinals QB coach in 2017 and he remained in that role the following season when Steve Wilks took over from Arians. Leftwich argues that there was no spoken arrangement regarding the fact that he would resume the offensive if Arians returned to the NFL, but he suggests that he had the slightest idea that this could be possible. "How can I say it …" Leftwich asks before taking a long break. "I knew that if the opportunity arose again, it would probably be the situation."

Many, including buccaneers' owners and several long-time Ariens assistants, were downed when the head coach handed the keys to Leftwich. But this is not the most noticeable part of the 39-year-old's rapid rise. In the fall, 15 teams will start the season with another offensive player than the one who won the title in early 2018. Among this group of coaches, Leftwich is the only one to be black. This problem goes even further: Leftwich enters this fall as the only caller to the offensive black game in the NFL. "The current trend seems to be that of QB coaches [who are] young, and to be honest with you, white, "says Buccaneers offensive line coach Harold Goodwin. "It's where we are right now in the NFL."

While league teams have been looking for their own versions of Sean McVay, many white coaches have held positions previously held by black predecessors. Wilks was fired after just one season in Arizona; He was replaced by Kliff Kingsbury, 40, who has no experience as an NFL coach and has a losing record in six seasons at Texas Tech. Longtime Bengals coach Marvin Lewis was ousted after a 6-10 record. He was replaced by Zac Taylor, a former Rams QB coach, 36, who has never called for full-time professional play. "Hire a guy who, first of all, never called plays, then ask him to be a head coach. and call plays, says Arians. "It's not an easy job. It has only been done five or six times. Everyone wants it now because Sean has succeeded.

Arians regards this movement as similar to that inspired by Bill Parcells in the early 1990s, when teams insisted above all on finding defensive head coaches. The hope – for the Arians and anyone who wants to see more minorities in NFL head coaching – is that Leftwich can flourish for Tampa Bay and inspire a global trend. Still, even if Leftwich manages to reduce Jameis Winston's turnover problems and make Bucs one of football's main offenses, the shortage of offensive black coaches in the league means that a generalized change will occur. slowly. "We do not have a lot of guys in the pipeline," says Goodwin. "We have to have guys in the pipeline so that they can move on to the next step."

For the moment, Goodwin is just happy that Leftwich is getting an opportunity he and many of his peers miss. He believes that the appointment of Leftwich could mark a small advance in the fight against an epidemic that the league has not yet overcome in its history. "Fortunately for Byron, he played at quarterback, he was coach and now he's coordinator," Goodwin said. "I hope that he will be able to change this trend a bit, have the opportunity to be a head coach and do a great job if he becomes one."

As his playing career drew to a close, Leftwich never thought he would start coaching. "BA would say," You'll be an infernal coach someday, "said Leftwich." As a player, you're not paying attention to that. "After retiring in 2012, Leftwich started a routine of nothing At one point, he reduced his handicap to eight, but while Leftwich was perfecting his golf game, Arians continued to try to convince him that he had a standing start at 7:47 am Monday to Friday. to go to Arizona to see what a future in training might look like. "I remember telling him," I want you to come down and see it, "said Leftwich. & # 39; & # 39; Come here for a few days and let me know what you think. & # 39; & # 39;

In the spring of 2016, Leftwich finally gave in during the OTAs, and when he arrived at the Cardinals' facilities, with his white boards filled with game drawings and scribbled ideas about protection systems and staff packages, he realized how much he missed the match. "You think, it's my world," said Leftwich. "It's my life." Since I was a child, that's what I saw. He joined the Arizona staff that summer, and less than a year later, Arians named him coach of the team's quarterbacks.

In discussing the challenges black coaches face around the NFL, Leftwich quickly points out that his trajectory is different from most others. It has never worked as a background and has never been forgotten for the benefit of a less experienced white colleague. In four years, he went from trainee to offensive coordinator. "I've been given an opportunity that some have never had," says Leftwich. "I think it has always been a question of opportunity."

Goodwin is one of those coaches who waited a long time before his shot was finally played. He was in his 10th season as an NFL coach when Arians hired him as offensive coordinator for the Cardinals in 2013. "There has always been a barrier," said Goodwin. "I suppose there has been a barrier since the beginning of time. In football, we only face a situation where there are not many minorities in a position of strength. "

In the first three seasons of Goodwin as coordinator of the Cardinals, Arizona teamed up at 34-14 with two appearances in the playoffs and one game for the NFC title. These results prompted three teams to propose head coach interviews, but it quickly became apparent that two had been orchestrated only to comply with the NFL's Rooney rule, which requires franchisees to interview an outside minority candidate. its organization for any vacancy. "Every time you enter the room and the owner does not sit at the table, you know it's a sham," says Goodwin. The league has recently put in place a rule that ownership of the mandate must be present for all principal coach interviews if it is present for one of them, but Goodwin does not consider this progress. "Mr. Rooney enforced this rule a long time ago and we still have the same conversation," he says. "When will we have a huge change?"

In addition to the lack of legitimate interest, some other obstacles emerged during interviews with Goodwin. A team informed him that she wanted to keep the two coordinators who were already on the staff, a request that prompted Goodwin to ask what he was doing in this room. "Why do we have a head coach interview if you want to keep both coordinators, who are associated with what you've done in the past?", Says Goodwin. Another team rejected his list of potential assistants as a simple compilation of his friends. Several members of this group have since been promoted to positions suggested by Goodwin.

The most common chorus, however, was that the teams were concerned about the players' lack of experience. This is the detail that Goodwin now views as the most hypocritical, given the recent wave of NFL recruitment. He mentions in particular the case of Taylor, who went directly from the coach of the Rams quarterbacks to the head coach of the Bengals. "I was told that I did not call the plays, so my interviews with the head coaches were a conclusion," says Goodwin. "What do you see in that? We would like to say a lot. But the owners do what they want. Period."

In the spirit of Goodwin and others, offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy was the most blatant sighting in the search for the team's head coach this season. In his first year as a coordinator in Kansas City, Bieniemy helped create an attack that scored the highest score in the NFL with 35.3 points per game. At the time of the interviews, however, Bieniemy met the same criticisms as Goodwin: he does not call plays. Goodwin thinks that Arians had this in mind when he gave up the role of playmaker this year; he understood that this was the only way to accelerate Leftwich's progress. "Byron being a minority, what Eric is experiencing, the only way for him to become a head coach and let BA expand his tree is to let Byron call him," says Goodwin.

Like Leftwich, Goodwin understands that the situation of the Arians in Tampa is unique. The challenge now, he says, is to find the following Leftwich, and this can only happen if some trends around the league are reversed.

Of the 15 players who played at the NFL this season, only four did not serve as QB coaches at any level. In 2019, only two black QB coaches will be employed by NFL teams: Marcus Brady of the Colts and Jim Caldwell of the Dolphins. The lack of black quarters in the NFL is a typical reason often cited for this shortage, but Leftwich does not adhere to this theory: none of this year's new players have been called quarterbacks in the NFL; Beyond that, of the 32 NFL coaches this season, 12, more than a third of the league, have never played this role at the university or at the pros. "This argument makes no sense when the hires never played at the shift," says Leftwich. "I played the quarterback. I know who played the quarterback. I know the history of the NFL. And that's not always true.

Having experience as a quarterback may not be a requirement to become an NFL gaming player, but having the experience of coaching them seems to become one. This awareness motivated the Black College League and Hall of Fame to hold the first Quarterback Coaching summit in June in Atlanta, where minority coaches and leaders from different levels of football came together to share their ideas. In spite of what statistics say, Ariens argues that there are ways to integrate more minorities into the coaching offensive pipeline. Of the five Bucs entrants to the Bill Walsh Minority Coaching Scholarship this season, four have been named to the offensive staff. "It's about hiring young guys to fill that position, be it QB in college, receivers in the pros – guys who see the game," he says.

For Goodwin, the first step is to have bodies in these seats to grow them. As the next wave of coaches develops, he hopes the Leftwich climb can serve as a model.

For the first time in six seasons as a head coach, Arians has time in front of him. With the Cardinals, he oversaw every offensive meeting, directed the installation of his system and finalized the game plan for each week. But soon after the offensive staff of the Buccaneers summoned this season off for the first time, he realized that his constant presence was not necessary. Leftwich had it covered. These days, as Leftwich heads the room, Arians stays in his office to study the recordings of the opponents and work on the Bucs personnel decisions. "We think so much," says Arians about him and Leftwich. "He was in this QB room in Pittsburgh. He's in the room enough with me to know how I want him.

Leftwich had his first participation in the game with the Cardinals last season after the start of team 1-6 and the coordination of coordinator Mike McCoy. The results of the nine games Leftwich at the controls were not very pleasant: Arizona posted an average of 14.8 points per game and finished the season last in the ranking points (14.1). Arians says that this first performance did not put him on the promise of Leftwich. It only made him more optimistic. "I can not believe that he even scored points on the board, with all those recruits," Arians says.

The Cardinals were decimated by injuries in 2018, forcing them to rely on a group of young players, including a rookie quarterback. Trying to handle an offense with Arizona's exhausted list of players was a challenge, but Leftwich explained that the hardest part of the job was to qualify an offense that was not his. "You know what you're looking at, but that's how you say things," says Leftwich. "That's how you teach." After taking the reins, Leftwich adjusted the offending verbiage a little. But with a new game plan to create every week, he does not have time to make big changes. "I could not go wild, because these guys have been practicing this since training camp, from the OTAs," said Leftwich. "It's that feeling that you just want to scratch everything out and do it as you see it, but that would have been unfair to the players."

Leftwich is now back in a system that he knows both inside and out. As both a player and coach, he spent countless hours side by side with Arians to learn all the nuances and details of this scheme. He is able to speak his native tongue again. Leftwich called his new team in the Bucs playoff game against the Steelers earlier this month. Apart from a small suggestion to use more action-play, Arians says it would not have changed anything. "He played [quarterback] in this offense, says Ariens. "So he has the insight that no one else really has."

This familiarity with the system is one of the reasons that Leftwich is the ideal mentor for fourth-year quarterback Jameis Winston, but their connection is deeper. As one of the eight black NFL base players, Winston now plays for his only black interlocutor. Leftwich heard about Winston for the first time in 2013, when the Florida state quarterback racked up 356 yards with four touchdowns to Pitt during his college football debut. While Winston illuminated the Panthers at Heinz Field, Leftwich was bombarded with messages from his friends in the city. "My phone has exploded," says Leftwich. "Hey, did you see this kid playing for Florida State? Look at this kid, he reminds me of you. "

As Leftwich watched the second half of the match, he could already see the gifts that made Winston a talented smuggler. His appreciation only increased after studying the young quarterback's move to the NFL. Winston's problem is that his desire to create great games has often been the fall of the Bucs. He launched 14 interceptions in just 11 games last season and was beaten at one point by fellow Ryan Fitzpatrick. As QB enters the final year of its rookie contract, Leftwich's ability to sharpen Winston's decision-making process as a smuggler could determine the trajectory of the Bucs and his coaching future.

When asked about Winston's development, Leftwich says his quarterback is still young. And he says that they share a connection that no other quarter-player-calling tandem of the league has. "We are born African American," says Leftwich. "It really starts before the quarter even thinks to come in."

Whenever Leftwich talks about coach, he constantly talks about "teacher". It is easy to understand the obligation he has towards his players. He appreciates what it takes to get to the NFL and the pressure that guys face to reach the highest level of the sport. And although Leftwich knows his career will have a huge impact, he can not afford to look too far for the moment. "You can not waste your time thinking like that," says Leftwich. "I promise you, work requires attention, work becomes aware, work takes time, and you do not want to waste time worrying about things you can not control."

Leftwich may not be concentrating on the influence he exerts, but other Bucs staff members have given much thought. Arians has been defending minority and female coaches in the NFL since her first position in 2013 and hopes Leftwich will become her second black assistant to become NFL head coach (the first being Todd Bowles, Buccaneers defensive coordinator). Goodwin is just happy that someone has this chance and believes that Leftwich will make the most of it. "At least we can say, 'This is Byron's show,'" says Goodwin. "He calls him as he wants, without interaction with BA." When interviews take place next January, Byron should be at this table. "