For the past 20 years, Tom Brady hasn't really had to deal with very much change. Ever since his rookie year in 2000, he's had the same head coach (Bill Belichick), and ever since 2012, he's had the same offensive coordinator (Josh McDaniels).
Now that he's in Tampa though, Brady is going to be dealing with a lot of change, and according to Buccaneers offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, that change is going to be the 'greatest challenge' that Tampa's new quarterback will face in 2020.
"I think the greatest challenge is this: He's been somewhere for 20 years," Leftwich said this week, via the Tampa Bay Times. "You guys know, some of you may have worked at the same job for 20 years. And you've done something for 20 years in one spot and there's a change, it's automatically different. It doesn't matter if it's for better or for worse, it's just different. And I try to communicate with him. I want him to just talk football."
Something Leftwich has been stressing is that the Buccaneers offense is just like any other offense that Brady has run in his career.
"I know you've been saying things a certain way for so long," Leftwich said. "So when we communicate, we're able to just talk football, because realistically, we're all kind of running the same plays. It's when we call them, how we teach them, and how we're trying to attack them that's different. So it's not a play that he hasn't heard of. It's not a play that he hasn't ran. Now we just got to figure out what he does well and make sure we run a lot more of those plays on Sunday than not."
One thing Leftwich likes about working with Brady is that the two come from the same era of football. The 42-year-old Brady was drafted in 2000 while the 40-year-old Leftwich made his NFL debut in 2003 after the Jaguars made him the seventh overall pick in the NFL Draft.
"We're pretty close in age so we from the old school version of football," Leftwich said Tuesday, via NFL Network. "Me and him talk a lot about the old days when you did seven, eight, nine days of two-a-days, we're from that era of football in this league. We can talk old school, things that happened in '08, '09, things that are still relevant in this league. The history that he understands, the history that I understand, the ability for us to be able to talk top-level football."
Although Leftwich and Brady seem to be getting along just fine, one thing the pair hasn't got to do yet is work together on the field. Those pictures that surfaced of Brady practicing with teammates back in May came during a private workout that Leftwich wasn't allowed to attend. The Buccaneers offensive coordinator, who's going into his second year with the team, is going to have to wait until training camp opens before he's able to get on the field with Brady.
