Getty Image / Douglas P. DeFelice
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are 3-3 on the season and 1-3 over their past 4 games. This comes after the Buccaneers were in the discussion of ‘Super Bowl contenders’ coming into the season with Tom Brady who only stayed retired for 40 days.
This 3-3 start for the Buccaneers ties the worst start of Tom Brady’s career. He also only has one game this season with a 100+ passer rating, the same number of games as Mitchell Trubisky and Jacoby Brisett…
So it would be easy for Buccaneers fans to point the finger at Brady for the team’s offensive woes but he IS the GOAT. And it seems like Tampa Bay’s faithful have found another culprit to blame: offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich. A quick perusal of Twitter shows that the vast majority of Tampa Bay is blaming Byron Leftwich for everything that’s wrong with the team right now, including Tom Brady’s shortcomings.
After another disappointing loss, Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans point to Byron Leftwich as the team’s problem and not Tom Brady
Byron Leftwich started trending on Twitter during the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ loss to the Steelers and Bucs fans have been sounding off overnight and into Monday. The predictable play calling has become a noticeable pattern:
Byron Leftwich cripples Tom Brady every week with his predictable playcalling, specifically on 1st down.
When will it end? pic.twitter.com/ErQhVIQC3l
— Spurs Legacy 🦦🎃 (@spurs_four) October 16, 2022
Leftwich actively calling plays that didn’t lean into Tampa’s strengths? That happened:
I simply cannot believe Byron Leftwich knew the Steelers would be out their entire starting secondary and still decided to give Leonard Fournette 21 rushes, his most since week 2.
Why?
— Ashlie👻 (@EMT_Ashlie) October 16, 2022
Fans are angry but that level of angry that leads to good jokes:
I hope Byron Leftwich pillows hot on both sides when he tries to sleep tonight AND he can’t get comfortable
— Ashlie👻 (@EMT_Ashlie) October 17, 2022
Many Buccaneers fans want Byron Leftwich fired:
Byron Leftwich is terrible at his job and should be fired ahead of next weeks game
— Andrew Cavallaro (@Acavallaro90) October 16, 2022
Todd Bowles and Byron Leftwich the two biggest frauds in the NFL. With a team of Super Bowl-talent players, you come out 6 straight weeks looking like garbage. What an absolute embarrassment.
HOPE THAT WASN’T TWO BORING FOR YOU DEVIN WHITE.
— Seth (@sds72959) October 16, 2022
Fire Byron Leftwich. Launch his ass into the sun
— Ashlie👻 (@EMT_Ashlie) October 16, 2022
Unfortunately for any Bucs fans who want to see their offensive coordinator fired, it’s almost certainly not going to happen. Leftwich was *this close* to landing a head coaching job with the Jacksonville Jaguars and is regarded as one of the league’s best…
I’m here to tell you right now:
Cry all you want, the Bucs are not about to fire Todd Bowles or Byron Leftwich.
— Rhett Matthew (@Rhettakus) October 16, 2022
For anyone out there wondering why Byron Leftwich didn’t wind up with the Jacksonville Jaguars, it supposedly all hinged around this moment in his interview process with the team.
Since I’m a born and raised Buccaneers fan I might as well give my two cents on this… Until I witness Tom Brady openly berating Byron as he did his offensive line, I’m not necessarily worried about Leftwich. Tom could and would override Leftwich if he felt the playcalling was extremely detrimental to the team. We haven’t reached that point, yet.