He won a national championship as a backup quarterback at Iowa way back in 1958. Since then he’s coached everyone from Terry Bradshaw and Lynn Swann to Barry Sanders, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.
Now, at age 86, Tom Moore is returning for a 49th season on an NFL sideline.
As reported by The Tampa Bay Times’ Rick Stroud, the famed offensive mind has agreed to work with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for another campaign after spending the six years as an offensive consultant with the team.
It’s hard to say what the four-time Super Bowl champion is best known for.
He was a wide receivers coach and offensive coordinator for two of the Pittsburgh Steelers‘ four titles in the 1970s.
Later he helped to turn the Indianapolis Colts into one of the most fearsome offenses in football from 1998 to 2008, thanks to Manning, Edgerrin James, Marvin Harrison and a simplistic no-huddle scheme that left defenses struggling to catch their collective breath.
Manning told NFL films last month how he always appreciated Moore’s straightforward approach to offense.
‘My second year we were going up to Foxboro and the week before Marvin and I had thrown kind of a slant-and-go for a touchdown,’ Manning recalled. ‘So I came to him before the game in Foxboro I said, ‘hey Tom, Marvin and I have been working on kind of a slant-go, slant-right.’
‘And I still remember like it was yesterday,’ Manning continued. ‘Very first drive we got done about the 15-yard line and he said: ”Ok, Peyton here we go. Let’s go dice right, scat right… uh… just run whatever the f*** you and Marvin been working on.”
‘And we called it and we scored a touchdown,’ Manning concluded.
Moore would go on to coach under Bruce Arians in Arizona before following the head coach to Tampa in 2019. A year later, Moore was helping to mold an offense that Tom Brady ultimately led to another Super Bowl title.
He previously considered retirement back in 2009, but would opt against it to continue coaching with the New York Jets and Tennessee Titans in 2011 and 2012, respectively.
Last season, while working with Bucs head coach Todd Bowles and offensive coordinator Liam Coen, Moore helped a unit that ultimately finished third in yardage and fourth in points en route to a playoff berth.
