Bucs offensive assistant Tom Moore.
Joe has an interesting relationship with Bucs veteran offensive assistant Tom Moore. That is to say, Joe has no relationship with Moore.
A handful of times over the years Joe has tried to talk to Moore, maybe gain some insight into the Bucs, maybe find out how he ticks. Moore, instead, just grunts at Joe and waddles away.
Vita Vea on his Instagram account often tries to get Moore to open up on video. Moore’s less-than-pleased reactions are pretty much how Moore reacts when Joe tries to strike up a conversation.
Actually, Joe did get Moore to say something to him once. Just once. It was more accident than conversation and it was certainly a one-way chat. Might have been two sentences.
At the Bucs’ team hotel on a road trip, Joe was talking to some Bucs fans from Iowa who were milling about the hotel lobby when Moore just happened to walk by. Joe said something flippant about Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz and Moore overheard Joe.
Moore scolded Joe, briefly. Very briefly. Quickly set Joe straight about Ferentz. That was the most Joe has ever gotten out of Moore over the years.
Joe brings this up because recently, Dan Pompei of _The Athletic_ typed a piece about how Bucs running back Bucky Irving and Moore [have grown close](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6430532/2025/06/26/nfl-coach-bucky-irving-tom-moore/) since Bucky was drafted last year. It’s sort of the Bucs’ odd couple, as Pompei noted Todd Bowles describes their relationship.
Moore, 87, was born before Pearl Harbor in the depths of the depression in a small town in southeastern Iowa. Bucky was born in Chicago and grew up in the burbs under less-than-ideal conditions.
Bucky was no stranger to murder, having lost his father when he was little and a half-brother while in college playing for Minnesota at the time of the crime.
Bucky and Moore couldn’t be more different, yet they have a common bond: Football.
The story is well-written, as one should come to expect from Pompei. Joe had known about Bucky’s rough life but the element of Pompei’s story that stuck out for Joe was actually about Moore.
Most guys at 87 — if they are still fortunate enough to be walking around on their own and not in a senior citizen’s center needing the aid of a walker — are sawing logs at 3:15 a.m.
If they wake (not a sure thing at 87), they may wobble to get a cup of coffee at a neighborhood diner, the highlight of their day if they don’t otherwise have a doctor’s appointment somewhere.
But Moore? At 3:15 a.m. he’s at his desk at One Buc Palace doing work for the Bucs. Moore mentioned in front of Pompei it’s what he calls his “therapy.”
At three in the morning!
Joe has noticed with his own eyes it’s not uncommon to see Moore at St. Elmo’s or at his hotel bar around 9 or 10 p.m. nursing a caramel-colored cocktail the week of the combine.
Yet he regularly gets to work at 3:15 a.m. And Moore is 87!
Hell, when Joe’s in Vegas, he’s either playing poker or hanging at the bar at 3 a.m. at Aria — Moore is just getting to work. At 87.
Of all the cool things in Pompei’s story about Bucky and Moore, the former Iowa backup signal-caller who has coached three Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks as an assistant (Terry Bradshaw, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady) getting to work in the middle of the night each day blows Joe’s mind.