Jason Licht, in retrospect, says he should’ve seen it coming. During the Buccaneers GM’s recurring Friday meetings with his coach, Bruce Arians, the subject would come up more regularly. And then there was this dinner, about a month ago, right around combine time, when Tampa Bay still wasn’t sure what it was doing at quarterback.
The Bucs’ Plan A, of course, was holding out hope that Tom Brady would come back for a third year with the team, and 23rd in the NFL. But no one really knew. Which led Arians to consider everything.
“He’s got such loyalty to his assistants,” Licht said on Saturday morning. “He wanted to promote one of his assistants to head coach, in this case Todd [Bowles]—and he thinks the world, and we all do, of Byron [Leftwich]. And we’re all very confident Byron’s gonna be a head coach, maybe next year. But we started talking about that, If Tom doesn’t come back, he’d said, I’m not gonna leave you high and dry. I’m gonna help you weather this storm with whoever the quarterback’s gonna be.
