FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, August 20th, 2020

BUCCANEERS HEAD COACH BRUCE ARIANS ON COACHING TOM BRADY; LA DODGERS’ JUSTIN TURNER ON JOE KELLY — QUOTES FROM THE RICH EISEN SHOW ON NBCSN

“We sat down one day for about three and a half hours talking about what he loves to do, and it really wasn’t anything different scheme-wise…I haven’t had this much fun coaching in a long time.” – Bruce Arians on coaching Tom Brady

“When you see that guys have each other’s backs and they’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder supporting one another, I think it’s huge for team chemistry.” – Justin Turner on how the Dodgers rallied from Joe Kelly’s incident with the Astros

“The teams that go down early, they find themselves without the boost that comes with playing in front of their home crowd.” – Chris Mannix on teams adjusting to not having fans for home court advantage in the NBA playoffs

STAMFORD, Conn. – August 20, 2020 – Host Rich Eisen was joined on today’s episode of The Rich Eisen Show on NBCSN by:

    • Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians
    • Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner
    • Pro Football Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis
    • Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix
    • Actor Rob Riggle

 

Beginning next Monday, Aug. 24, The Rich Eisen Show will also stream live on Peacock, which will become the show’s exclusive video home on Oct. 5.

Following are highlights from The Rich Eisen Show on NBCSN:

Bruce Arians on coaching Tom Brady: “Every single day is fun because you’re speaking a different language. When you’re talking with a guy that has 20 years [of] experience…he just looks at you and says, ‘Sure.’ When you’re talking to these young guys, they go, ‘What?’…Tom, he just gets it.”

Arians on working with Brady on their playbook: “It’s a great collaboration…Him learning what we do, me picking his brain on things he likes…We sat down one day for about three and a half hours talking about what he loves to do, and it really wasn’t anything different scheme-wise. It was just adapting the terminology and putting the pieces together…I haven’t had this much fun coaching in a long time.”

Arians on Brady’s influence on the Buccaneers’ trade for Rob Gronkowski: “(Brady) sold me on the fact that he wanted to play again. I thought he was happy in retirement…I called a game in New England during my year off and Gronk didn’t look like himself…He got here, he looks like he’s eight years younger…Tommy sold me on him and then we got the deal done.”

Arians on if the Buccaneers could sign Antonio Brown this season: “That would take a lot of different moving parts, injuries and other things that would have to happen. I don’t think that would ever happen.”

Justin Turner on if the Joe Kelly incident with the Astros brought the team closer together: “Anytime something like that happens I think it brings the guys closer together…When you see that guys have each other’s backs and they’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder supporting one another, I think it’s huge for team chemistry.”

Turner on playing this season without fans in the stadium: “It’s definitely different…No fans is tough. I knew we had great fans in LA, and I knew we always fed off of their energy and what they brought every night, but you don’t realize how much you enjoy playing in front of people until there’s no one there.”

Jerome Bettis on Ben Roethlisberger’s outlook this year: “Hopefully we get 75 to 80 percent of the player that he has been…If he is 80 percent of himself, this is going to be an out-of-sight team because you already have a championship caliber defense. They proved that last year.”

Bettis on Bill Cowher being selected to the 2020 Pro Football Hall of Fame Class: “You look at the consistency of what his career was…He was the model of consistency and you knew the Pittsburgh Steelers, when you played them, what you were going to get — which was going to be physical, hard-nosed [football]. We won a majority of the games we played.”

Bettis on what he would do as a player right now: “This would be very scary. I am an asthmatic. So, this would be a very difficult decision for me to have to decide to play or not. This would be a scary one, but the football side of me I think would want to win out because you want to play and that is what you love to do. But your health is paramount.”

Chris Mannix on the NBA bubble and teams adjusting to playing without fans: “The teams that go down early, they find themselves without the boost that comes with playing in front of their home crowd.”

Mannix on the Philadelphia 76ers: “I think where Philadelphia made a huge mistake was not re-signing Jimmy Butler. It would have been an expensive team, that is for sure, but Jimmy Butler has been brilliant for Miami this year. The Sixers didn’t believe in a five-year contract that Jimmy Butler would be able to stay healthy enough and produce enough to live up to that money. That was a mistake.”

Mannix on the Lakers struggles: “All it takes is one practice, or one meeting, or one quarter even, for them to get it right, for their shots to start to fall.”

Mannix on Russell Westbrook’s potential return from injury: “Not soon from the people I have talked to within Houston. The concern in Houston is not the state of injury right now, but the likelihood that if he comes back too soon, he gets a more significant version of it.”

Rob Riggle on being a Kansas City Chiefs fan: “I got to play golf with Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce at the American Century Golf Tournament in Tahoe. They were just so fun and lighthearted and jovial…It just feels like there is this wonderful optimism that surrounds them. I sincerely hope we are the team of the ‘20s. I hope we are the dynasty of the ‘20s.”

–NBC SPORTS–