The Buccaneers fired Byron Leftwich, which may suggest they're done with Tom Brady too

One of Tom Brady’s first connections as a Tampa Bay Buccaneer wasn’t with Mike Evans or Chris Godwin. It was with Byron Leftwich, the team’s offensive coordinator and then a rising star as a potential head coach.

The two met throughout Brady’s first offseason with the team to build a playbook. Brady even visited Leftwich’s neighbors, albeit accidentally when he wasn’t sure exactly which house was his coordinator’s. Together they built on the quarterback’s prolific legacy. The Bucs won Super Bowl 54 at home. Brady threw 40 touchdowns that season.

One year later, Brady was the runner-up in MVP voting at age 44. But the wheels came off in 2022 thanks to injuries and departures on the offensive line. The veteran quarterback set a career high for total passes and his lowest yards per attempt in two decades. That frustrating year, it turns out, was enough to cost Leftwich his job.

The Bucs have fired offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich. The team is making sweeping changes to their coaching staff following an 8-9 regular season and wildcard loss to Dallas. As many as five offensive assistants and two on defense are expected to be let go.

— Rick Stroud (@NFLSTROUD) January 19, 2023

This is a surprise on a few levels. Leftwich had been considered one of the best young coordinators in the game as recently as a year ago. But one season without the guidance of former head coach Bruce Arians under defensive-minded Todd Bowles proved costly. Leftwich faced a tough situation with a quarterback who didn’t want to get hit and an offensive line unable to protect him and ultimately couldn’t escape with his job.

This surprising dismissal could also be a message on Brady’s future with the franchise. Arians’ sudden retirement — in March, after Brady had retired, then unretired, and several weeks after most coaching decisions had been made — reportedly stemmed from a conflict with the quarterback and his play-caller. Arians told the media he “probably would still be coaching” had the future Hall of Famer sat out 2022.

Rumors swirled that Arians left due to philosophical differences between the head coach and his QB-OC combination. His departure was supposed to retain the playbook flexibility on which Brady and Leftwich built a contender. Both Bowles and Leftwich have said the quarterback tweaks game plans the night of and during games and that they accept it — something Brady later denied this winter. True or not, the end result worked wonders in 2020 and 2021.

The Buccaneers weren’t a contender in 2022, merely victors by default in an awful division. Is Leftwich’s firing the sacrifice the team needed to show Brady they’re serious about change and willing to hire someone new to restore his greatness in 2023? Or was it a message that this era is over, they don’t believe Brady is coming back and no longer require the services of the coordinator who built an offense around him?

All we know at this point is that Leftwich, once a leading candidate for the Jacksonville Jaguars head coaching job only to be passed over for Urban by-god Meyer, has gone from one of the hottest prospects on the sideline to unemployed in roughly a year’s time. That’s a curious timeline — and it’s fair to wonder if there’s a larger message baked into the fabric of Tampa’s latest coaching move.