OC Jeff Tedford returned to One Buc Place intermittently this week and is expected to return to play calling duties this Sunday against the Rams.
“He is still on schedule,” Head Coach Lovie Smith told reporters Friday. “Nothing has changed from that.”
Tedford returned to work full-time on Monday, only to leave mid-way through the week “to get checked out” and get clearance to return permanently. He returned to the area on Friday but was not at practice. Tedford used some of his limited time to meet with QB Josh McCown (#12) on Monday.
“I talked with Jeff on Monday and a little bit yesterday,” McCown said. “It’ll definitely bring more confidence [to have him back]. But again, the guys have helped kind of pull the extra weight that they needed to to fill in for Jeff. So hopefully that transitions – it won’t be completely seamless – but it’s pretty smooth. But again, there’s a reason he’s here, there’s a reason why he’s our coordinator, so it’ll be good to have him back.”
The contingency plan in the event that Tedford is not able to be on the sideline on Sunday is to again have QB Coach Marcus Arroyo call plays, as he did during Week 1. Like McCown, Smith was pleased with the ability of the offensive staff to communicate with Tedford while he sat in the box and Arroyo called plays from the sideline.
“[I felt] very good,” Smith said. “And just not he and Marcus; he and the staff. Jeff was a part of the staff with input, like all of the guys were. That could be the way we go this week. Again, our entire offensive staff working on the game plan, cooperating on game day.”
Overall the team is anticipating his return.
“It’ll be good to get him back, obviously,” McCown said. “He’s the leader of our offense, so to have him around helps us. From day one, his vision of where our offense needs to go, it’s his vision because he’s the coordinator. So when you remove that person, a little bit of that is lost, and everybody does a good job of picking up the pieces, but there’s a reason why he’s there. So it’ll certainly be good to have him back.”