One media member says it’s possible, while the coach himself says it’s ‘bull——’
Rich Ohrnberger has been in the spotlight quite a bit recently because of some of his tweets, and this time he struck a nerve with Tampa Bay Bucs head coach Bruce Arians.
“Heard some interesting things recently,” Ohrnberger stated via Twitter on Friday. “The Tom Brady & Bruce Arians honeymoon was over in Tampa. The retirement announcement wasn’t because of the trouble seeing eye to eye on the offensive game planning, but the relationship was souring.
“Apparently, while Arians was rehabbing the achilles in the early mornings, offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich and Brady would work on the week’s game plan. Arians would later come in and take the red pen to work they’d done. The QB and OC felt undermined, there was tension.”
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Following up on the report, Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times reached out to coach Arians for his thoughts, which he got plenty of.
“I mean, that’s such bulls—‚’’ Arians told Stroud. “That’s what pisses me off. I guess probably Byron could corroborate this, too.’’
Arians followed up by debunking much of what Ohrnberger claimed occurred within the walls of the AdventHealth Training Center.
“First of all, I don’t rehab my Achilles in the morning,’’ Arians said. “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.”
He also laughed at the notion he would take a red pen to the game plans developed by Brady and offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich.
“That was the best one ever. That’s pretty graphic to not know what the (expletive) you’re talking about.”
As Arians squashes every bit of what the San Diego-based reporter claims to have been told, one question remains.
Who gave Ohrnberger the information in the first place?
While it’s not outside the realm of possibility he simply made up the whole thing on his own, Ohrnberger does have a relationship dating back to before his NFL career – which began in 2009 – with Bucs offensive assistant, A.Q. Shipley.
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
No reports have surfaced to confirm or deny Shipley as the source of Ohrnberger’s claims and accusations, but as bold as he was to state them in the first place, the subsequent standing up for his words in a Twitter back-and-forth with Stroud himself certainly rings of someone who gained an inside perspective.
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