The days of Bruce Arians the retired head coach is over. That’s after he and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have agreed to a deal that makes him the newest head coach of the franchise on Tuesday. But before the agreement was finalized and approved officially by the NFL’s office, the Buccaneers needed to satisfy a requirement set by the Cardinals for the latter to release the rights of Arians, per Adam Schefter of ESPN.
NFL initially told Buccaneers no compensation needed to hire Bruce Arians. But Cards made late argument to NFL that they held Arians’ rights. Rather than having a protracted dispute, Bucs sent a 6th-round pick to Arizona for Arians’ rights and a 7th-round pick, per source.
Now that the deal is done, the Buccaneers are hoping that Arians will be the one to right the ship in Tampa Bay. The Bucs are a long-struggling franchise, one that last made the playoffs in 2007. Since then, the franchise only finished two seasons with a winning record. The Bucs only had five wins in each of the last two campaigns, which prompted them to fire Dirk Koetter last December and look for a new savior.
Whether Arians will be the messiah for the Bucs remain to be seen, but there’s plenty of optimism right now in Tampa Bay, especially because he seems to be the perfect mentor for quarterback Jameis Winston. Arians and Winston go way back, as the former knew the latter way back when the signal-caller was in his youth in Alabama, per Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times.
Arians, a two-time AP NFL Coach of the Year winner, has a pro record of 49-30-1. He is also 1-2 in the playoffs.
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