Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians has fired back at a report suggesting his relationship with Tom Brady was "souring" prior to Brady's retirement.
Former Patriots offensive lineman Rich Ohrnberger turned heads on Friday when he claimed that he'd heard Arians was either absent or late to early-morning game-planning meetings with Brady and offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich while rehabbing an Achilles injury -- and would then nix what his QB and OC had drawn up without him.
Arians, responding in the Tampa Bay Times, said he was "pissed off" at Ohrnberger's suggestion that Arians had annoyed Brady and Leftwich by "undermining" their game plans.
In response, Arians called the report "bulls--t."
“First of all, I don’t rehab my Achilles in the morning,” Arians told reporter Rick Stroud. “I will go over the game plans and add things, but I don’t delete anything. I don’t have to because they do such a good job. ... I’ll see some things. Add some things. It’s an awesome collaboration, one of the best I’ve ever been around.”
Arians added that Leftwich would confirm his account.
The 69-year-old coach also took exception to Ohrnberger's characterization of using a "red pen" to scrap the game plans.
“I never heard of that one,” Arians said. “That was the best one ever. That’s pretty graphic to not know what the f--- you’re talking about.”
While Arians' denials make for colorful reading, they might not do much to dispel rumors that Brady was something less than happy by the end of his tenure in Tampa Bay.
Speculation of a potential Brady comeback continues to rage, and the surefire future Hall of Famer for his part didn't fully close the door on the possibility, saying "never say never" when he was asked if he was done for good.
While Ohrnberger certainly stirred the pot with his tweets about Brady and the Bucs, a separate nugget about Patrick Mahomes was humorously refuted by the Chiefs star himself.
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