Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians is regarded as one of the best head coaches in the NFL. It’s not just for being considered a great “players coach” but also from a playcalling standpoint.
He has coached up two future Hall of Fame quarterbacks in Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger. He was the wide receivers coach for the 2005 Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers team and then was the offensive coordinator for the 2008 Super Bowl champion Steelers team.
Since becoming Cardinals coach in 2013, he resurrected the career of quarterback Carson Palmer, led the Cardinals to a 50-25 record since 2013, and has led them 2 playoff appearances going as far as the NFC championship in 2015.
One of Arians’ biggest accomplishments was winning the Coach of the Year award for the 2012 season after taking over for Chuck Pagano.
Pagano was diagnosed with Leukemia in late forcing Arians to take over from Week 5 to Week 16 in which the Colts went 9-3 and made the playoffs.
Arians, who is seen as one of the best quarterback coaches in the league, has a new book being released on July 11 entitled “The Quarterback Whisper”.
The book discusses how to develop a great quarterback, one of the topics was him being interviewed for a head coaching job back in 2013 when he was considered a finalist for the Chicago Bears head coaching vacancy.
Here’s what Arians said while appearing on 670 The Score’s Mully an Hanley Show on Monday:
“I though the interview was fantastic, I really was waiting for a call to tell me I had the job. Now, every time I look at the Weather channel, I’m glad I didn’t. especially in January.”
He later went on to talk about his meeting with former Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler and he praised him in the process.
“I really enjoyed my visit with Jay,” Arians said. “We talked for about an hour during my interview. I really liked what he was all about as a guy. I thought he was really anxious to become good again — not that he never was. I thought those pieces were there.”
It’s hard to imagine that a coach with those achievements in one year, let alone a whole career would be passed on by any NFL team with a head coaching opening.
But the Bears did just that at the time in 2013 deciding to go with another “Quarterback Whisper” from Canada in Marc Trestman.
Trestman lasted 2 seasons with the Bears posting a 13-19 record in that span and the 2014 season regarded as possibly the worst season in Chicago Bears history.
The Bears passing on Arians is just another addition to “What if” list of bad decisions Chicago sports history with it climbing only higher with Arian’s success.
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1 Comment
Just like the Bears,don’t win because of upper management.