Bruce Arians wants smaller role for Antonio Brown in Week 10

It sounds like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers actually want to lean on Antonio Brown a bit less than they did in his debut going forward.

Brown played 39 snaps in Tampa Bay’s loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday night. That’s too much from coach Bruce Arians’ perspective, as he made clear that he wants a lower snap count for Brown in Week 10.

“His pitch count was a little higher than we anticipated,” Arians said on his Buccaneers.com show, via JoeBucsFan. “But we tried to go two-minute early in the ballgame just to get some life, so his pitch count was up a little bit. But he handled it really, really well.

“I’m hoping we’re not throwing the ball that much this next week, so hopefully his pitch count goes down.”

The Buccaneers fell behind early to the Saints, and Tom Brady ended up throwing 38 passes. That’s clearly more than the Buccaneers will want to regularly see.

On one hand, this makes sense. On the other, this is probably going to remind people that Arians didn’t particularly want Brown in the first place earlier this season.