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A Season in the Sun: The Inside Story of Bruce Arians, Tom Brady, and the Making of a Champion
A Season in the Sun is the behind-the-scenes story of how Coach Bruce Arians, Tom Brady, and the Tampa Bay Bucs came together to deliver one of the most improbable Super Bowl victories in NFL history. The story begins with how Arians successfully landed Brady, who became a free agent in March 2020 after spending two decades with the New England Patriots. Brady proceeded to help sway other players such as the retired tight end Rob Gronkowski, running back Leonard Fournette, and wide receiver Antonio Brown to join him in Tampa. All three players would go on to score touchdowns in Super Bowl LV. It was during their bye week in November that the Bucs transformed into a legitimate title contender. At the time Tampa was 7-5 and on a three-game losing streak. A Season in the Sun reveals how Arians, Brady, and offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich made critical adjustments that were so effective the Bucs would not lose another game the rest of the season. At age forty-three, for the first time in his career, Brady essentially became a player-coach, and his unique bond with Arians, who returned to coaching after retiring in 2018, became the solid foundation beneath the Bucs' drive to ultimate victory. Inspiring and revealing, A Season in the Sun is an iconic sports story of second chances and new beginnings, and a tribute to a truly legendary coach, quarterback, and team.
295 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 19, 2021
37 people are currently reading
180 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
November 10, 2021
I was surprised how much I really enjoyed this book but it was quite a treat. The story was written not unlike an adult fairytale but instead of a prince ,we had Tom Brady,the GOAT,picking a new team with dreams and some talent ,backed by a team of unlikely fairy godmothers in the disguise of coaches bolstered with a team of owners adding additional fairy dust..Complicated by the wicked witch who cast her spells of Covid over the land ....Could this Prince and his band of pirates capture the golden trophy against all odds? Sprinkled with BA’s favorite words to add to the atmosphere especially when he was fighting the wicked witch and her Covid Spells,it is sure to bring some smiles to your face. Of course ,it wouldn’t be a fairy tale without the prince and his merry band of pirates not sailing off into the sunset with the loot in tow. There are little nuggets of gold scattered through out the pages to discover. Nice job,Lars A true delight for Buc fans!
February 27, 2023
It's a Microsoft Surface NOT an iPad!
The book is a retelling of the recruitment of Tom Brady, the initial struggles of building the Super Bowl-winning Tampa Bay Buccaneers team during the pandemic, up to their infamous victory boat parade.
I liked that there are new nuggets of information, i.e., a deeper look into the people that formed the Bucs organization, some strategies that the Bucs used in recruiting Brady, etc. So, if you would like to reminisce the wonderful season that was and get more inside information, then I recommend reading this book.
What I didn't like was the author wrote that Brady was using an iPad on the sidelines. I do not believe this is true as the Microsoft Surface is the official tablet device of the NFL. It irks me that in the acknowledgment section of the book there were a lot of people who fact-checked with the author. None of them saw this mistake.
The book is a retelling of the recruitment of Tom Brady, the initial struggles of building the Super Bowl-winning Tampa Bay Buccaneers team during the pandemic, up to their infamous victory boat parade.
I liked that there are new nuggets of information, i.e., a deeper look into the people that formed the Bucs organization, some strategies that the Bucs used in recruiting Brady, etc. So, if you would like to reminisce the wonderful season that was and get more inside information, then I recommend reading this book.
What I didn't like was the author wrote that Brady was using an iPad on the sidelines. I do not believe this is true as the Microsoft Surface is the official tablet device of the NFL. It irks me that in the acknowledgment section of the book there were a lot of people who fact-checked with the author. None of them saw this mistake.
March 15, 2022
A solid recap of the Bucs’ 2020 Super Bowl winning season. Anderson focuses primarily on Brady and Arians: brief biographies, personalities, coaching / playing styles, philosophies, etc. (there are also some stories on GM Jason Licht, RB Leonard Fournette, QB Jameis Winston and the 1976 winless Bucs).
I was familiar with about 95% of the content covered in the book. I follow the Bucs year-round and read their beat religiously (pewter report, buccaneers.com). Anderson covers the 2020 season with brief recaps of every game and focuses on the synthesis of Brady-Arians offensive styles. I was disappointed he didn’t mention the defense more often. The reason we won SB LV was because of the unparalleled play of our defense in the playoffs (Todd Bowles’ game plans). Brady held up his end, but he did struggle in the Packers game with 3 interceptions. Without Shaq Barrett’s critical 4th quarter sacks on Rodgers, I doubt we win that game. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading the tales from an epic season.
Before Brady and Arians, the Bucs hadn’t been to the playoffs in thirteen years, a team with a .387 all-time winning percentage (lowest in NFL history). I’ve been a diehard Bucs fan since 1997, age 10 (I picked them because of their nasty D, the fanbase / home game atmosphere and uniforms / logo). Apart from my wife and 2 beautiful daughters, they are the next love of my life (much more so than my alma matter or even the Red Sox). I don’t miss a game and it’s truly heartbreaking when we lose (my chest hurts). The last decade has been particularly brutal, as we hadn’t been to the playoffs in 13 years. However, winning cures everything and I’m looking forward to the next era of Bucs football.
My favorite Arians leadership lesson was the following:
Relationships are key to coaching. You can’t push every player the same way. You must know your limits with everyone. The only way to do this is to understand the boundaries with each player. And the only way to know those boundaries is to really know each player—what motivates them, what they are playing for, what could trigger their temper to flare, and what the best way to reach them.
Highlights: importance of QB accuracy/timing (more important than arm strength), Brady’s humility and willingness to be coached (its impressive how small his ego is for somebody so successful), Brady’s ball placement and attention to detail (the importance of practice with WRs), Arians’ coaching style (relationships as the key to coaching), Arians relationships with coaches from high school to pro football (he gets ideas from every level of the game), Brady’s awareness of his physical limitations, “coach them hard and hug them harder later.” (Arians / Bear Bryant guiding philosophy), Arians’ tailgates from the back of his truck (even opposing players stop by), “Win or lose, we booze, baby.”, Brady’s preparation of footballs and knowledge of Tampa weather (unparalleled attention to detail), Arians’ play-calling (doesn’t call plays QB is not comfortable with; merged Brady and no risk it no biscuit philosophies after bye week), Brady’s Michigan experience (made him tough, wasn’t a star).
The book has 3 glaring errors that Anderson should correct: Tampa is the city, Tampa Bay is the team (the players play in Tampa, not Tampa Bay); the Bucs were the 5th playoff seed (not 6th); the DPI penalty in the Packers game was on Tyler Johnson (not Chris Godwin).
March 2022. 4/5. The GOAT announced on March 13 that he's unretiring and returning for the 2022 season. LFG!!!
NOTES
Bruce Arians
“To so many players in the league Bruce is like a cool uncle you want to have a beer with,” said former Arizona quarterback Carson Palmer. “He’s unlike any other head coach in the NFL in the way he relates to and treats players.”
“You either have accuracy as a quarterback by the time you’re about twenty years old or you don’t,” Arians said. “It’s that simple. Sure, you can improve a little on it, but not much. Accuracy is the number one most important physical skill a quarterback must have to me. It’s much more important than arm strength.”
The whole offense is based on receivers beating their defenders in one-on-one situations. If the receiver does that and the quarterback has time to make an accurate throw, Arians and Leftwich believe that every single pass should be a completion.
“It pissed me off sometimes because I’d tell a young guy something and he’d just kind of shrug his shoulders and then make the same mistake on the very next play,” Arians said. “But when Tom would say the exact same thing that I just said, the player would say ‘Yes sir,’ and the mistake would be corrected.”
“Bruce can talk street with anyone and, if he needs to, he can be the most intellectual guy in the room,” Bowles said. “Because of Bruce’s unique background, he can reach absolutely everyone on a football roster, and that’s the key to building chemistry and building a winning team.”
Arians and Leftwich never will call a pass play that their quarterback doesn’t believe will work.
Arians always lets his players pick their own pregame music, believing it keeps them relaxed—and the players appeared loose.
Bryant knew the name of everyone in the building—from the janitors to the cafeteria workers to the secretaries—and was familiar with their backstories. If a coach’s secretary was having a bad day, the Bear would know about it and stop by her desk to offer a few encouraging words. “It was magic the way he dealt with people,” Arians said. “He could read others better than anyone.”
Why did Bryant’s players work so hard for him? Arians believed it was because they knew he loved them—a lesson Arians would never forget.
“Coach them hard,” Bryant said, “and hug them harder later.” Those were the last words Bryant ever uttered to Arians. They became Bruce’s guiding philosophy.
“It’s impressive how he can use the word ‘fuck’ as a noun, an adjective, and verb in a single sentence.” Two days after their dinner, Bidwell hired Arians to be Arizona’s head coach. After Cardinal home games, Arians held tailgate gatherings from the back of his truck, serving drinks to coaches and players and front-office personnel, including Licht. The two grew even closer at these makeshift parties where Arians reprised his long-ago bartender days. Said Arians, “Win or lose, we booze, baby.
You can’t distance yourself from the team. You can’t show bad body language when you’re not playing. You either accept your role or I will cut you. It’s as simple as that. We want you. I think we’re going to need you down the road before this season is over.
“It’s the faith that Bruce shows in you that makes you never want to let him down or not come through for him when he gives you a chance,” Brady said.
Tom Brady
At his home outside of Boston, as the start of the free agency period approached in early March, Brady studied the rosters of the four teams that interested him the most: the Chargers, the 49ers, the Bears, and the Bucs.
In a 2018 interview with Jim Gray, Brady was asked whether he felt appreciated by his bosses for all that he accomplished. “I plead the fifth,” Brady said.
Kraft later didn’t directly say the reason Brady was leaving was Belichick, but he implied that it was. “Think about loving your wife and for whatever reason, there’s something—her father or mother that makes life impossible for you and you have to move on,” the owner told the NFL Network.
Brady established their relationship hierarchy during their first talk: he was the pupil; Leftwich the teacher. It didn’t matter that Brady had a small mountain of Super Bowl rings. It didn’t matter that Brady was two years older than Leftwich. He wanted to be coached and, more than anything, wanted to get better every single day.
He was usually in bed by 8:00 or 8:30 p.m. In the morning, he’d rise around 4:00 a.m. and drive from his home outside of Boston to the facility in Foxborough, usually arriving before 5:30 a.m.
“The only thing that has changed about Tom since he was in Ann Arbor is his bank account.”
In the conference room, with a whiteboard in front of them that listed all 150 potential plays the Bucs might run against the Saints, Leftwich selected the first 15 running plays that he was going to call. Then Brady named the 15 pass plays he wanted on the script, a mixture of drop-backs and play-action passes. In New England, Brady didn’t have as much input into the game planning.
Brady’s reaction revealed a larger truth about him as a player: He’s always been acutely aware of his own physical shortcomings. When he drops back for a pass, he doesn’t view the unfolding action through the lens of endless possibility; he sees it through the prism of how to maximize what he’s capable of doing for the betterment of the team.
“I’ve never been around a player as calm as Tom,” Leftwich said. “The guy is never rattled. And when other players see that, they calm down. Never seen anything like it in my life.”
Along with about a hundred footballs, the garage contained several different types and brands of leather treatment products (including a variety of leather cleaners and conditioners), wire brushes, and a drying rack that Brady had purchased on Amazon. Each week, Brady spent hours in his garage preparing up to twenty-four game balls, a football scientist conducting his research.
“Tom is a perfectionist,” Christensen said. “And if you ever want to know anything about the wind in Tampa Bay on a game day, he’s your guy. He can tell you more about it than our local meteorologist.”
In New England, Brady preferred high-low reads in which he would always have someone crossing in front of him—a player he could get the ball to quickly on a shorter route. But this ran contrary to Arians’ fondness for down-the-field routes.
Brady also did something that was rare at the time: he sought the help of a sports psychologist, who emphasized to Brady that he needed to stop worrying about the other quarterbacks on the roster and focus only on what he could control.
“I didn’t have an easy experience,” Brady told Michigan players when he returned to campus to talk to the team in 2013, after he’d won an MVP and multiple Super Bowls. “I didn’t come in as a top-rated recruit. I didn’t come in with every opportunity to play right away. I had to earn it.”
He stretched for hours. He went to bed early, generally before 9:00 p.m. He was usually the first player to arrive at the facility. He studied each opponent like he was cramming for the most important final exam of his life. And his diet was a constant topic of wonder during the season when the players gathered for meals in the team cafeteria at One Buc Place.
Throughout the course of a day, he drinks anywhere from twelve to twenty-five glasses of water. For lunch, he prefers salads with nuts or fish, along with vegetables. He’ll often have a mid-afternoon snack of hummus and more nuts and vegetables, and then for dinner he’ll typically have chicken and more vegetables. The distinguishing feature of his diet is the veggies, which total more than half by volume of what he puts in his mouth.
Perhaps Brady’s sense of humor is an overlooked reason for his longevity—against the assault of laughter nothing can stand, Mark Twain once wrote—because he loves a good practical joke.
He always took copious notes in one of his many notebooks, cutting the image of a graduate student in a small lecture hall feverishly jotting down every salient point made by his professor. He carried his notebooks with him everywhere, from meeting to meeting, room to room.
“When you win this game, you honor your family and you honor your family name,” Brady said. “No one can ever take that away from you or your family. Play for your families. Play for their honor. Now LET’S FUCKING GO!” (SB LV Brady speech)
“He is everything and more than we thought he was,” Licht said. “It took an entire organization to win the Super Bowl, from ownership to coaches to players to staff members to the people who cleaned the locker rooms, but it all started with Tom."
Football Strategy
The lessons that Belichick emphasized at every practice—always live to play another down, minimize risk—were now about to be applied to the Arians offense that featured more difficult deep throws (typically at least six a game) and thus more risk than any other offense in the NFL.
About twenty-five seconds elapse between the moment the quarterback walks to the line of scrimmage and scans the defense to the whistle when the play is over. Dozens of decisions need to be made by the quarterback in those twenty-five seconds: Do I change the play based on how the defense is lined up? If so, what should I change it to?
“The called play in an NFL game only works about half the time,” Arians said. “When things don’t go as planned is when the quarterback really has to know the offense. And Tom has to process so much information in such a short amount of time, just like any quarterback.
“Timing is everything in the NFL,” Arians said. “An NFL quarterback either has this skill or he doesn’t. I’ll take a quarterback with a great sense of timing any day over one with a big arm who struggles to make rhythm and hitch throws.
If something isn’t working, we’ll ditch it. We’re going to come together and we’re going to do it right now. I need you to feel like every time we call a play, it’s a play that you believe in and it’s a play that will work.
What was most important to Arians was that the offense felt natural to Brady, that he wasn’t doing things on the field he wasn’t comfortable with. And there was a sweet spot between the Arians Way and the Brady Way: mixing Arians’s favored intermediate and deep shots with Brady’s fondness for methodical, short passes to slowly move the ball down the field.
Games in the playoffs always come down to a handful of plays, and we knew this was going to be the case against the Saints.”
There are nine basic pass patterns in the Arians playbook, which contains the core principles of his aerial attach: curl, load / flat (short pass toward sideline), pin (long pass as WR breaks to goalpost), divide (WRs crossing routes, line up opposite sides), X Ray (post routes to 3 WRs 40, 20, 5 yards), go, slant, hitch (5 yard curl route), jet (deep pass to go route).
I was familiar with about 95% of the content covered in the book. I follow the Bucs year-round and read their beat religiously (pewter report, buccaneers.com). Anderson covers the 2020 season with brief recaps of every game and focuses on the synthesis of Brady-Arians offensive styles. I was disappointed he didn’t mention the defense more often. The reason we won SB LV was because of the unparalleled play of our defense in the playoffs (Todd Bowles’ game plans). Brady held up his end, but he did struggle in the Packers game with 3 interceptions. Without Shaq Barrett’s critical 4th quarter sacks on Rodgers, I doubt we win that game. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading the tales from an epic season.
Before Brady and Arians, the Bucs hadn’t been to the playoffs in thirteen years, a team with a .387 all-time winning percentage (lowest in NFL history). I’ve been a diehard Bucs fan since 1997, age 10 (I picked them because of their nasty D, the fanbase / home game atmosphere and uniforms / logo). Apart from my wife and 2 beautiful daughters, they are the next love of my life (much more so than my alma matter or even the Red Sox). I don’t miss a game and it’s truly heartbreaking when we lose (my chest hurts). The last decade has been particularly brutal, as we hadn’t been to the playoffs in 13 years. However, winning cures everything and I’m looking forward to the next era of Bucs football.
My favorite Arians leadership lesson was the following:
Relationships are key to coaching. You can’t push every player the same way. You must know your limits with everyone. The only way to do this is to understand the boundaries with each player. And the only way to know those boundaries is to really know each player—what motivates them, what they are playing for, what could trigger their temper to flare, and what the best way to reach them.
Highlights: importance of QB accuracy/timing (more important than arm strength), Brady’s humility and willingness to be coached (its impressive how small his ego is for somebody so successful), Brady’s ball placement and attention to detail (the importance of practice with WRs), Arians’ coaching style (relationships as the key to coaching), Arians relationships with coaches from high school to pro football (he gets ideas from every level of the game), Brady’s awareness of his physical limitations, “coach them hard and hug them harder later.” (Arians / Bear Bryant guiding philosophy), Arians’ tailgates from the back of his truck (even opposing players stop by), “Win or lose, we booze, baby.”, Brady’s preparation of footballs and knowledge of Tampa weather (unparalleled attention to detail), Arians’ play-calling (doesn’t call plays QB is not comfortable with; merged Brady and no risk it no biscuit philosophies after bye week), Brady’s Michigan experience (made him tough, wasn’t a star).
The book has 3 glaring errors that Anderson should correct: Tampa is the city, Tampa Bay is the team (the players play in Tampa, not Tampa Bay); the Bucs were the 5th playoff seed (not 6th); the DPI penalty in the Packers game was on Tyler Johnson (not Chris Godwin).
March 2022. 4/5. The GOAT announced on March 13 that he's unretiring and returning for the 2022 season. LFG!!!
NOTES
Bruce Arians
“To so many players in the league Bruce is like a cool uncle you want to have a beer with,” said former Arizona quarterback Carson Palmer. “He’s unlike any other head coach in the NFL in the way he relates to and treats players.”
“You either have accuracy as a quarterback by the time you’re about twenty years old or you don’t,” Arians said. “It’s that simple. Sure, you can improve a little on it, but not much. Accuracy is the number one most important physical skill a quarterback must have to me. It’s much more important than arm strength.”
The whole offense is based on receivers beating their defenders in one-on-one situations. If the receiver does that and the quarterback has time to make an accurate throw, Arians and Leftwich believe that every single pass should be a completion.
“It pissed me off sometimes because I’d tell a young guy something and he’d just kind of shrug his shoulders and then make the same mistake on the very next play,” Arians said. “But when Tom would say the exact same thing that I just said, the player would say ‘Yes sir,’ and the mistake would be corrected.”
“Bruce can talk street with anyone and, if he needs to, he can be the most intellectual guy in the room,” Bowles said. “Because of Bruce’s unique background, he can reach absolutely everyone on a football roster, and that’s the key to building chemistry and building a winning team.”
Arians and Leftwich never will call a pass play that their quarterback doesn’t believe will work.
Arians always lets his players pick their own pregame music, believing it keeps them relaxed—and the players appeared loose.
Bryant knew the name of everyone in the building—from the janitors to the cafeteria workers to the secretaries—and was familiar with their backstories. If a coach’s secretary was having a bad day, the Bear would know about it and stop by her desk to offer a few encouraging words. “It was magic the way he dealt with people,” Arians said. “He could read others better than anyone.”
Why did Bryant’s players work so hard for him? Arians believed it was because they knew he loved them—a lesson Arians would never forget.
“Coach them hard,” Bryant said, “and hug them harder later.” Those were the last words Bryant ever uttered to Arians. They became Bruce’s guiding philosophy.
“It’s impressive how he can use the word ‘fuck’ as a noun, an adjective, and verb in a single sentence.” Two days after their dinner, Bidwell hired Arians to be Arizona’s head coach. After Cardinal home games, Arians held tailgate gatherings from the back of his truck, serving drinks to coaches and players and front-office personnel, including Licht. The two grew even closer at these makeshift parties where Arians reprised his long-ago bartender days. Said Arians, “Win or lose, we booze, baby.
You can’t distance yourself from the team. You can’t show bad body language when you’re not playing. You either accept your role or I will cut you. It’s as simple as that. We want you. I think we’re going to need you down the road before this season is over.
“It’s the faith that Bruce shows in you that makes you never want to let him down or not come through for him when he gives you a chance,” Brady said.
Tom Brady
At his home outside of Boston, as the start of the free agency period approached in early March, Brady studied the rosters of the four teams that interested him the most: the Chargers, the 49ers, the Bears, and the Bucs.
In a 2018 interview with Jim Gray, Brady was asked whether he felt appreciated by his bosses for all that he accomplished. “I plead the fifth,” Brady said.
Kraft later didn’t directly say the reason Brady was leaving was Belichick, but he implied that it was. “Think about loving your wife and for whatever reason, there’s something—her father or mother that makes life impossible for you and you have to move on,” the owner told the NFL Network.
Brady established their relationship hierarchy during their first talk: he was the pupil; Leftwich the teacher. It didn’t matter that Brady had a small mountain of Super Bowl rings. It didn’t matter that Brady was two years older than Leftwich. He wanted to be coached and, more than anything, wanted to get better every single day.
He was usually in bed by 8:00 or 8:30 p.m. In the morning, he’d rise around 4:00 a.m. and drive from his home outside of Boston to the facility in Foxborough, usually arriving before 5:30 a.m.
“The only thing that has changed about Tom since he was in Ann Arbor is his bank account.”
In the conference room, with a whiteboard in front of them that listed all 150 potential plays the Bucs might run against the Saints, Leftwich selected the first 15 running plays that he was going to call. Then Brady named the 15 pass plays he wanted on the script, a mixture of drop-backs and play-action passes. In New England, Brady didn’t have as much input into the game planning.
Brady’s reaction revealed a larger truth about him as a player: He’s always been acutely aware of his own physical shortcomings. When he drops back for a pass, he doesn’t view the unfolding action through the lens of endless possibility; he sees it through the prism of how to maximize what he’s capable of doing for the betterment of the team.
“I’ve never been around a player as calm as Tom,” Leftwich said. “The guy is never rattled. And when other players see that, they calm down. Never seen anything like it in my life.”
Along with about a hundred footballs, the garage contained several different types and brands of leather treatment products (including a variety of leather cleaners and conditioners), wire brushes, and a drying rack that Brady had purchased on Amazon. Each week, Brady spent hours in his garage preparing up to twenty-four game balls, a football scientist conducting his research.
“Tom is a perfectionist,” Christensen said. “And if you ever want to know anything about the wind in Tampa Bay on a game day, he’s your guy. He can tell you more about it than our local meteorologist.”
In New England, Brady preferred high-low reads in which he would always have someone crossing in front of him—a player he could get the ball to quickly on a shorter route. But this ran contrary to Arians’ fondness for down-the-field routes.
Brady also did something that was rare at the time: he sought the help of a sports psychologist, who emphasized to Brady that he needed to stop worrying about the other quarterbacks on the roster and focus only on what he could control.
“I didn’t have an easy experience,” Brady told Michigan players when he returned to campus to talk to the team in 2013, after he’d won an MVP and multiple Super Bowls. “I didn’t come in as a top-rated recruit. I didn’t come in with every opportunity to play right away. I had to earn it.”
He stretched for hours. He went to bed early, generally before 9:00 p.m. He was usually the first player to arrive at the facility. He studied each opponent like he was cramming for the most important final exam of his life. And his diet was a constant topic of wonder during the season when the players gathered for meals in the team cafeteria at One Buc Place.
Throughout the course of a day, he drinks anywhere from twelve to twenty-five glasses of water. For lunch, he prefers salads with nuts or fish, along with vegetables. He’ll often have a mid-afternoon snack of hummus and more nuts and vegetables, and then for dinner he’ll typically have chicken and more vegetables. The distinguishing feature of his diet is the veggies, which total more than half by volume of what he puts in his mouth.
Perhaps Brady’s sense of humor is an overlooked reason for his longevity—against the assault of laughter nothing can stand, Mark Twain once wrote—because he loves a good practical joke.
He always took copious notes in one of his many notebooks, cutting the image of a graduate student in a small lecture hall feverishly jotting down every salient point made by his professor. He carried his notebooks with him everywhere, from meeting to meeting, room to room.
“When you win this game, you honor your family and you honor your family name,” Brady said. “No one can ever take that away from you or your family. Play for your families. Play for their honor. Now LET’S FUCKING GO!” (SB LV Brady speech)
“He is everything and more than we thought he was,” Licht said. “It took an entire organization to win the Super Bowl, from ownership to coaches to players to staff members to the people who cleaned the locker rooms, but it all started with Tom."
Football Strategy
The lessons that Belichick emphasized at every practice—always live to play another down, minimize risk—were now about to be applied to the Arians offense that featured more difficult deep throws (typically at least six a game) and thus more risk than any other offense in the NFL.
About twenty-five seconds elapse between the moment the quarterback walks to the line of scrimmage and scans the defense to the whistle when the play is over. Dozens of decisions need to be made by the quarterback in those twenty-five seconds: Do I change the play based on how the defense is lined up? If so, what should I change it to?
“The called play in an NFL game only works about half the time,” Arians said. “When things don’t go as planned is when the quarterback really has to know the offense. And Tom has to process so much information in such a short amount of time, just like any quarterback.
“Timing is everything in the NFL,” Arians said. “An NFL quarterback either has this skill or he doesn’t. I’ll take a quarterback with a great sense of timing any day over one with a big arm who struggles to make rhythm and hitch throws.
If something isn’t working, we’ll ditch it. We’re going to come together and we’re going to do it right now. I need you to feel like every time we call a play, it’s a play that you believe in and it’s a play that will work.
What was most important to Arians was that the offense felt natural to Brady, that he wasn’t doing things on the field he wasn’t comfortable with. And there was a sweet spot between the Arians Way and the Brady Way: mixing Arians’s favored intermediate and deep shots with Brady’s fondness for methodical, short passes to slowly move the ball down the field.
Games in the playoffs always come down to a handful of plays, and we knew this was going to be the case against the Saints.”
There are nine basic pass patterns in the Arians playbook, which contains the core principles of his aerial attach: curl, load / flat (short pass toward sideline), pin (long pass as WR breaks to goalpost), divide (WRs crossing routes, line up opposite sides), X Ray (post routes to 3 WRs 40, 20, 5 yards), go, slant, hitch (5 yard curl route), jet (deep pass to go route).
November 1, 2025
Full disclosure: I’m a New England Patriots fan. I didn’t hold it against Tom Brady when he decided to leave the Pats in free agency, I watched every Buccaneers game I could, I cheered on the team all season, and I was thrilled at their Super Bowl 55 victory.
This is an enjoyable look back at that highly unusual 2020 season, with Covid-19 hitting the US, and NFL games being played in empty or nearly empty stadiums. For Tampa Bay, adding to the sense of an unprecedented season was the recruitment of Tom Brady, the acknowledged G.O.A.T. of quarterbacks. Did the oldest QB in the game still have it? Could he adjust to a new system after 20 years in New England? Was he just a creature of Bill Belichick’s making?
Well, we know how those questions turned out. But in this book, author Anderson fills us in on the thought processes of GM Jason Licht and head coach Bruce Arians as they considered whether to pursue Brady in free agency and, once Brady joined the team, worked to figure out how to meld Brady’s strengths and comfort with Arians’s offensive scheme that was far more aggressive than New England’s.
I particularly enjoyed reading the details about game planning and how player and coaches worked together to devise a game plan that was a best of both worlds for Brady in his first year as a Buc.
I was less enamored of the practically hagiographic approach to not just Brady, but especially to Arians. I’m sure Arians has many fans, and his role in promoting minorities and women in coaching is admirable, but I’ve always thought of him as one-dimensional as a coach, and I’m no admirer of his constant cursing. Brady comes off as a combo of a gee-whiz kid and a demigod.
That awestruck approach also leads to some willful ignorance when it comes to Antonio Brown. There is brief acknowledgment of Brown’s legal and behavioral issues before signing on with Tampa Bay (at Brady’s urging). But after that, it’s all lollipops and rainbows, due to Brady’s support and Arians’s proclamation that Brown would be operating under a one-strike rule. If you read this book, you’d think this good cop/bad cop approach made Antonio Brown into a model citizen. As we all now know, the next season, Brown faked a vaccination certificate, got in more legal trouble, and had an on-field meltdown that resulted in his dismissal from the team—and there have been many subsequent bizarre events, including those in which Brown trolled Brady in disgusting ways, and had more arrests. Although Anderson couldn't have known with specificity of Brown's later debacles, did anyone doubt that Brown would crash and burn spectacularly at some point soon? That makes Anderson's glowing treatment of Brady's and Arians's Brown project feel awkward, at best. Of course, we also now know that after the 2020 season, and while Brady was still with the Bucs, he and Gisele Bundchen divorced. Anderson doesn't spend a lot of time on the marriage; his focus on Brady's family is much more focused on the close relationship between Tom and his father.
As books about Super Bowl seasons go, this lands right in the middle. A decent choice for those already fans of the team or Brady, more iffy for others.
This is an enjoyable look back at that highly unusual 2020 season, with Covid-19 hitting the US, and NFL games being played in empty or nearly empty stadiums. For Tampa Bay, adding to the sense of an unprecedented season was the recruitment of Tom Brady, the acknowledged G.O.A.T. of quarterbacks. Did the oldest QB in the game still have it? Could he adjust to a new system after 20 years in New England? Was he just a creature of Bill Belichick’s making?
Well, we know how those questions turned out. But in this book, author Anderson fills us in on the thought processes of GM Jason Licht and head coach Bruce Arians as they considered whether to pursue Brady in free agency and, once Brady joined the team, worked to figure out how to meld Brady’s strengths and comfort with Arians’s offensive scheme that was far more aggressive than New England’s.
I particularly enjoyed reading the details about game planning and how player and coaches worked together to devise a game plan that was a best of both worlds for Brady in his first year as a Buc.
I was less enamored of the practically hagiographic approach to not just Brady, but especially to Arians. I’m sure Arians has many fans, and his role in promoting minorities and women in coaching is admirable, but I’ve always thought of him as one-dimensional as a coach, and I’m no admirer of his constant cursing. Brady comes off as a combo of a gee-whiz kid and a demigod.
That awestruck approach also leads to some willful ignorance when it comes to Antonio Brown. There is brief acknowledgment of Brown’s legal and behavioral issues before signing on with Tampa Bay (at Brady’s urging). But after that, it’s all lollipops and rainbows, due to Brady’s support and Arians’s proclamation that Brown would be operating under a one-strike rule. If you read this book, you’d think this good cop/bad cop approach made Antonio Brown into a model citizen. As we all now know, the next season, Brown faked a vaccination certificate, got in more legal trouble, and had an on-field meltdown that resulted in his dismissal from the team—and there have been many subsequent bizarre events, including those in which Brown trolled Brady in disgusting ways, and had more arrests. Although Anderson couldn't have known with specificity of Brown's later debacles, did anyone doubt that Brown would crash and burn spectacularly at some point soon? That makes Anderson's glowing treatment of Brady's and Arians's Brown project feel awkward, at best. Of course, we also now know that after the 2020 season, and while Brady was still with the Bucs, he and Gisele Bundchen divorced. Anderson doesn't spend a lot of time on the marriage; his focus on Brady's family is much more focused on the close relationship between Tom and his father.
As books about Super Bowl seasons go, this lands right in the middle. A decent choice for those already fans of the team or Brady, more iffy for others.
February 4, 2022
I read a ton of sports books and I've found that some authors spend too much time recapping game accounts when writing about an entire season or era. Lars Anderson does include game recaps of some of the Tampa Bay games played in 2020, but he does it to show how Tom Brady adapted to the new play calling regime under coach Arians. It was done perfectly.
It is remarkable story and should finally, without doubt, convince even the haters that Brady is the greatest quarterback to play football. Anderson notes that, but he has football savvy to know Brady doesn't have the strongest arm or is the quickest. Instead, and this comes through very strongly in the book, Brady studies and prepares for games harder than anyone.
It was a contrast to Anderson's recent book on Dabo Sweeney, the Clemson coach. In that book, Sweeney is portrayed almost saintlike with his language. I thought the book may have been printed by a Christian publisher as clean as it was. Anderson, however, shows Arians use of the F-bombs in A Season in the Sun. Arians couldn't finish a sentence without cursing. Anderson even notes that within a few minutes of his job interview for the Tampa gig, Arians dropped a few f-bombers.
There were also nice anecdotes and inside scenes that made this book better. We all heard the story about how Brady went to the wrong house when he was to meet his offensive coach for the first time. But Anderson writes well of it and adds that the guy was selling his house when Brady showed up errantly. He wrote that the homeowner used that bit of info to sell his house quickly to show how Tampa loved Brady's arrival.
I also liked how Anderson wrote of the coaches and connected them with the team. As great as Brady is, the success of the Buccaneers was a team effort and he notes that.
This is a quick read that's fun, informative and a well-written book for any sports fan. Anderson has taken a historical moment in sports and rather than resort to cliches and fairytale approaches, he pens a professional, detailed look at a team and its success.
It is remarkable story and should finally, without doubt, convince even the haters that Brady is the greatest quarterback to play football. Anderson notes that, but he has football savvy to know Brady doesn't have the strongest arm or is the quickest. Instead, and this comes through very strongly in the book, Brady studies and prepares for games harder than anyone.
It was a contrast to Anderson's recent book on Dabo Sweeney, the Clemson coach. In that book, Sweeney is portrayed almost saintlike with his language. I thought the book may have been printed by a Christian publisher as clean as it was. Anderson, however, shows Arians use of the F-bombs in A Season in the Sun. Arians couldn't finish a sentence without cursing. Anderson even notes that within a few minutes of his job interview for the Tampa gig, Arians dropped a few f-bombers.
There were also nice anecdotes and inside scenes that made this book better. We all heard the story about how Brady went to the wrong house when he was to meet his offensive coach for the first time. But Anderson writes well of it and adds that the guy was selling his house when Brady showed up errantly. He wrote that the homeowner used that bit of info to sell his house quickly to show how Tampa loved Brady's arrival.
I also liked how Anderson wrote of the coaches and connected them with the team. As great as Brady is, the success of the Buccaneers was a team effort and he notes that.
This is a quick read that's fun, informative and a well-written book for any sports fan. Anderson has taken a historical moment in sports and rather than resort to cliches and fairytale approaches, he pens a professional, detailed look at a team and its success.
January 4, 2024
After an incredibly successful career quarterbacking the New England Patriots, in 2020 Tom Brady found himself yearning to play elsewhere. For reasons that have never been thoroughly articulated, and are not examined in detail in this book, Tom Brady decided he wanted to play for another team. At 43 years of age, Brady was generally considered at an age where he could no longer be effective in the NFL. Yet, Brian Arians, having been a successful head coach in the NFL, was now coaching the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The team with the lowest historical winning percentage in all of major sports, the Buccaneers were not a team with a great winning tradition.
Brady signed with the Buccaneers in March of 2020 and immediately began the process of acclimating to the weather of Tampa Bay and the culture of the Buccaneers team. This required him to learn a different offensive system and become comfortable with a new set of teammates. Pass receivers are quite different in their moves and how they prefer to receive the ball from the quarterback. After a few setbacks, the Buccaneers went on to win the NFC and win Super Bowl LV against the Kansas City Chiefs.
This book is the story of that year, and it is both unique and yet a bit formulaic. There are the standard problems of acclimating a superstar into a team not used to winning as well as the descriptions of how all of the principals from Brady to the coaching staff to the other players adapted in order to pursue the prize of a championship. Yet, it is interesting to learn some of the human and professional background events that led to the Buccaneers hoisting the Lombardi trophy at the end of the Super Bowl. It is a bit laudatory of the main players, but not beyond what is considered acceptable.
Brady signed with the Buccaneers in March of 2020 and immediately began the process of acclimating to the weather of Tampa Bay and the culture of the Buccaneers team. This required him to learn a different offensive system and become comfortable with a new set of teammates. Pass receivers are quite different in their moves and how they prefer to receive the ball from the quarterback. After a few setbacks, the Buccaneers went on to win the NFC and win Super Bowl LV against the Kansas City Chiefs.
This book is the story of that year, and it is both unique and yet a bit formulaic. There are the standard problems of acclimating a superstar into a team not used to winning as well as the descriptions of how all of the principals from Brady to the coaching staff to the other players adapted in order to pursue the prize of a championship. Yet, it is interesting to learn some of the human and professional background events that led to the Buccaneers hoisting the Lombardi trophy at the end of the Super Bowl. It is a bit laudatory of the main players, but not beyond what is considered acceptable.
January 10, 2022
I initially picked this book up because I'm a fan of Bruce Arians (HC for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers). I didn't realize until about a quarter of the way through the book that Lars Anderson was the author. I have read several of his football-related books and enjoyed them immensely. No wonder I was enjoying the book! I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know how the inner workings of an NFL organization transpire. Mr. Anderson has an easy reading style, that pulls me into the story. He's doesn't overcomplicate football. I read several sections to my wife (who likes the Minnesota Vikings because of the color "of their hats) and she laughed out loud. So you don't necessarily have to be a big fan of football (although it helps) to enjoy this book. Good stuff, Maynard!
February 28, 2023
I have read a large number of football books and this was a relatively antiseptic look at Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl season. To be fair, this book may reflect the actual events around the football team. However there were a number of reports that things did not go as smoothly with the Brady-Arians relationship that this book portrays.
If you are a Tom Brady fan or interested in his influence on a team, Anderson lays out the efforts Brady made to learn the offense, bond with his new teammates and push himself physically, mentally and emotionally to win a Super Bowl.
A must read for a Tampa Bay Buc fan. For this Philadelphia Eagles fan, meh...
If you are a Tom Brady fan or interested in his influence on a team, Anderson lays out the efforts Brady made to learn the offense, bond with his new teammates and push himself physically, mentally and emotionally to win a Super Bowl.
A must read for a Tampa Bay Buc fan. For this Philadelphia Eagles fan, meh...
November 3, 2021
What a superb book. It provided so much information on how the buccanneers won the Super Bowl. It had to involve the coaching staff too who did a good job in getting this team to a good record and to Tom getting his 7th ring. It was a very well written book that went over key players and coaches background stories. It was cool that Lars added that information. Lars work paid off, and it was a great book.
November 1, 2021
Huge Buccaneers Fan here and I read this book immediately and I loved it. Great inside look to the greatest Buccaneers team ever assembled. It was amazing to read the inside story of how it all came together. Still cannot believe Tom Brady chose our trash can of a franchise to ride off into the sunset!!! Go Bucs!!! Fire the Cannons!!!
January 17, 2022
I don't read many sports books. This one was well worth the time, well written and thoroughly researched. It gave me a new respect for Tom Brady. His talent is obvious, but this book presents his amazing discipline and hard work. He deserves his astounding accomplishments, and apparently he's not done yet. A great read.
February 12, 2025
Full of insight on the 2020 season and how everything came to be. There were a lot of interesting looks behind the scene.
A bit heavy handed with the praise for Arians and Brady but that is expected when an author gets this kind of access and has a history with the coach. However, Belichick and Jamis Winson catch a lot of strays throughout the book which seemed unnecessary.
A bit heavy handed with the praise for Arians and Brady but that is expected when an author gets this kind of access and has a history with the coach. However, Belichick and Jamis Winson catch a lot of strays throughout the book which seemed unnecessary.
December 5, 2021
A nice and easy read for fans of Tom Brady and or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Anderson’s A Season in the Sun briefly highlights the magical 2020-2021 season with an exclusive behind the scenes look into the organization.
January 18, 2023
Very fun book to read about the Bucs. Initially I thought it was going to be just from Brady’s perspective, but was very happy that it was an overview of the whole Bucs organization on their run to the Super Bowl.
January 3, 2024
I liked this book quite a bit. I thought the author did a great job with the research and stories from not only this season, but prior seasons for stories that deepend certain characters, etc. Really well done.
January 14, 2024
I do not follow football at all, but randomly decided I wanted to know more about Tom Brady, and this is the book I chose. I really enjoyed all the angles it enlightened me about for the Super Bowl championship year for the Buccaneers and Tom Brady. For a non fan, it was very well done.
August 5, 2025
Some great behind the scenes stories from my favorite year of football. Great to relive the magic, though I wish the chapter on the Super Bowl was longer. Leaving out Antoine Winfield’s iconic peace sign is a huge whiff.
November 8, 2021
Reads like an Adult Fairy Tale with lots of f-bombs thrown in for good measure. A fun tale of amazing things that can happen when a GOAT is thrown into the mix.
November 25, 2021
Arguably the greatest story in the history of the world :')
January 31, 2022
Truly fabulous book for any Buccaneers and Tom Brady fans. Well-written and engaging, it offers a ton of great stories and insight behind the fairy tale season of 2020. A must read!
April 9, 2022
A Season in the Sun was okay and Lars Anderson did what he could with the subject at hand. The issue is, the story itself seems to lack drama, conflict and controversy. Readers are expecting more of a fallout between Tom Brady and Bill Belichik, but are left with a curiosity. Profiles of coach Bruce Arians and Tom Brady are fine and the process of getting Brady to Tampa Bay is interesting, but is a little anti-climactic. Anderson is a terrific writer and the story flies by.
June 6, 2022
It was a great book that recounts an incredible season. Though at times it got a little sycophantic, this overall was an good look at the people and events that shaped the 2021 season
May 8, 2023
Rating: B
June 14, 2023
Very good book, but had to read across like 5 months which prolly made it 4 stars and not 5
June 15, 2023
Left me entertained throughout. Very interesting dive into the bucs Super Bowl run with the GOAT
August 4, 2023
Cool book to read if you followed the team.
September 22, 2023
Fun read.
January 7, 2024
Loved getting the Tom Brady perspective from Tampa. Good behind the scenes on how he was treated in New England. Such an inspiration for us older guys
September 11, 2024
A great inside look into the 2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and their run to a Super Bowl title.
Want to read
October 3, 2024hoopla
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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