Tom Brady has endured a lot of change since coming to Tampa Bay; change that slowed his transition into the Bucs offense early during the 2020 season. But according to his former head coach, the ex-Patriots quarterback is operating in the same offense he ran in New England. Speaking with the media on Wednesday, Belichick said the Bucs system mirrors what the Patriots offense was during Brady’s tenure.

“Oh, totally,” Belichick said when asked if the Bucs offense bears Brady’s imprint. “100 percent. It’s the offense he’s run his whole career, as it evolved here. The running game is the running game. The running game is different. But the passing game is the passing game. It’s pretty similar. I mean you could call almost every play, from the flare control to the protection to the, you know. Very similar to the way we do it.”

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick – Photo by: USA Today

Considering Belichick is not always the most transparent interview, this response is shockingly candid. Also, I’m not sure it’s entirely correct. The Bucs concepts haven’t changed from Brady’s arrival as much as the process of operating those concepts has. Tampa Bay has increased motion and play-action, and has different responses to pressure. But the concepts themselves still draw heavily from Arians’ background.

“It’s not the same, and it’s not completely different either,” said Pewter Report film guru Paul Atwal. “The Patriots ran a billion things through the years, so what the Bucs do now is in some way covered throughout those years. The thing that’s important to understand is that no one is really unique. Every team runs the same concepts, they just run them at different frequencies with different personnel and formations.

“The Bucs are way more vertical than the Patriots. The closest thing in New England was 2017. I would say 2007, but I only watched that on TV, not with coaches’ tape. So I don’t know for sure. But again, it’s not like these more vertical plays are unique to Tampa Bay. They used the same stuff in New England, just less often. New England also used more play-action, handled blitzes differently and used more tempo on offense.”

Few human beings on planet earth have more knowledge of the Patriots offense and Tom Brady than USA Today’s Mark Schofield. Schofield is a former college quarterback, who has been a Patriots fan his whole life. Now an X’s & O’s writer who studies quarterback and offenses around the league for The NFL Wire, Schofield agrees with Atwal.

“There are Brady elements to the offense for sure, but it’s not a one-to-one thing,” Schofield said. “There are some concepts that you can trace to his time in New England, but others which are wholly rooted in the Arians system.”

Common Arians’ staple plays like ‘989’ or ‘Go’ are still heavily run in Tampa Bay. That passing concept exists in New England of course, but would hardly be considered a feature aspect of their offense. Because of the more vertical nature of the Bucs offense, concepts like 989, or slight variations like this 969 (9 = go route, 6 = dig route) are building blocks for everything they do. That could hardly be described as the case in New England.

Brady’s touchdown pass to Antonio Brown in Week 1 came on a Go concept.

“989, that’s more of an Arians design,” Schofield said. “As are the number of Levels concepts (all in-breaking routes at different depths) that Brady is running, which he did not run a ton of in New England.”

New England has relied on concepts like Hoss Juke pretty heavily, while Tampa Bay runs it to a lesser extent. But, they do still run it. So does almost every team in the league. Here’s an example of the Bucs running Hoss Juke last week.

“Another difference is that New England was more ‘designer’,” Atwal said. “Josh McDaniels would have a couple of gadgety plays – end arounds, screens, whatever – that were game plan specific. Tampa Bay is more like, ‘here are our core concepts, it’s what we do best and we’re gonna run them every game. We don’t really care what you’re running because we know these concepts have answers within them to beat different coverages, and we also have the talent.’ New England was more flexible and would deviate more week-to-week. Again, none of this in absolutes, but you get the idea.”

I agree with Atwal on that point, although we’ve seen more creativity from Bucs offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich this season than ever before. He’s had more variance with the screen game, run a couple end arounds and even gotten Brady out of the pocket more than in the past. New England almost never did that, and now Leftwich has done it a couple times in three games.

I don’t think Leftwich is drawing from New England in his additions to the playbook, but he’s clearly evolving. He’s borrowed from other coaches concepts this season, which is a terrific sign. Leftwich/Arians clearly added a few Kyle Shanahan plays to the Bucs this season, including Shanahan’s popular Drift concept. The Bucs ran it against Atlanta for a healthy gain.

So are the Patriots and Bucs offenses the same? Not exactly, no. But there are plenty of similarities. In fact, many offenses have plenty of conceptual similarities. The biggest adjustments for Brady in the Tampa Bay offense were communication and terminology. That’s a massive hurdle when you have limited time to communicate and process before every snap. It took all season for a new language to become second nature to him.

But conceptually, Brady didn’t struggle with the staple plays and ideas of an Arians’ offense. That was never an issue. Also, the Bucs offense didn’t change their concepts to suit Brady last year. Sure, they focused on more responses to pressure with the quick screens and started emphasizing more in-breaking route combinations, but those were always elements of Arians offense. Anyone who thinks the Bucs changed their entire system to make it work with Brady is simply talking about stuff they don’t understand.

The same is true in 2021. The Bucs are running the offense they have always run, but it’s evolving and growing, as all 32 offenses around the league should. New England should know – few offenses changed and adapted to personnel the way it did for so many years. It would have been great to hear Belichick go into more detail about what he meant, but on a surface level, the 1:1 comparison is off enough to raise eyebrows.

Bucs head coach Bruce Arians and OC Byron Leftwich – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Belichick is obviously smart enough to know there are some core differences in the Patriots and Bucs’ offensive systems, so why did he say this? Arians bristled a little bit when asked about Belichick’s comments on Wednesday.

“I think they copied a lot of ours, so it’s probably the same,” Arians said. “Ask them which film they watch every week. They always picked ours up and watched it, so it’s the same stuff.”

Arians has been an offensive coordinator in the NFL since 2001, one year after Belichick became head coach in New England. He’s likely referring to those earlier years, or perhaps his years as offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh. The Patriots added more vertical concepts to their offense during those years (2007-2011), and Arians believes some of that came from his scheme.

To a degree, Arians is probably right. So is Belichick. That’s the reality of the NFL, is that every system borrows from each other at times. The important thing to know is that Arians and Leftwich did not change their offensive identity to fit Brady’s needs. Every statistic and charting data we have reveal that. Instead, the Bucs grew and changed in the same way any offense should over time, and Brady did the same in his role. Whatever overlap existed between New England and Tampa Bay’s offenses existed well before Brady ever arrived on the scene.

Belichick and Arians are two of the best coaches in the league. They both know this. Yet the over-exaggerated barbs still flew. Don’t look now, but there might be some quiet beef here. Remember, Arians let this gem fly back in January too.

“Consummate leader,” Arians said about Brady. “Has been all year. Got the air of confidence that permeates through our team every day. I allow him to be himself. Like, New England didn’t allow him to coach. I allow him to coach. I just sit back sometimes and watch.”

Don’t be surprised if the handshake between Arians and Belichick is frostier than the one between Brady and his ex-coach on Sunday.