Bruce Arians hints Patriots were misusing Tom Brady

Bruce Arians has earned the right to brag a bit now that he has led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the Super Bowl, and he continues to stop just short of criticizing the New England Patriots for the way they handled Tom Brady last season.

Arians spoke about Brady’s arm strength during an appearance on the “Tiki and Tierney” show on CBS Radio on Monday. He said the Bucs studied film on Brady and didn’t feel he lost any zip on his throws. Arians believes some of that talk may have come from New England’s refusal to throw the ball outside the numbers.

“Everybody talked about his arm. We studied that tape pretty good and we didn’t see any downfall in his arm,” Arians said. “They just quit throwing it outside. Now, whether they didn’t believe his arm was good, I don’t know, but when we got him, he could make every throw.”

Of course, Brady had far fewer offensive weapons last season. You can blame the Patriots for not giving him a better group of receivers, but they really didn’t have the option of throwing outside. Brady’s best target was Julian Edelman, and he’s hardly an outside threat.

If the Patriots had Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Rob Gronkowski, they would have thrown outside a lot more in 2019. That doesn’t mean they felt Brady’s arm was shot.

This isn’t the first time Arians has hinted that he believes he’s doing a better job with Brady this season than the Patriots did a year ago. He’s earned the right to feel that way, at least for now.