Paul Farquhar
Legend
You're granting a player, essentially, two characters,
But Crawford is actually suggesting that the DM allow players to have allied animals as party members, instead of beastmaster rangers. In effect, giving the player two characters.
Which I'm fine with - its how it was done in 1st edition. But it needs to be spelled out. Perhaps there needs to be a supplement called "Pets and Sidekicks" giving full rules for secondary characters in 5e.