Bruce Arians Q&A: Cardinals HC on Teaching, Learning and Future After Football

PHOENIX — Bruce Arians didn’t get a chance to be a head coach in an NFL game until he had already turned 60 years old. Ever since that day in 2012, when he took over as the interim coach with Indianapolis, he has made owners around the league wonder why he didn’t get a job years earlier. 

As Arians gets ready for his fourth season as the head coach in Arizona, he has compiled a 43-17 record in the regular season and led the Cardinals to an appearance in the NFC Championship Game last season. Arians has also coached the team to three straight years with at least 10 wins, a mark matched only once in Cardinals history. That was from 1974 to 1976, when legendary coach Don Coryell walked the sidelines for the St. Louis Cardinals.

In fact, in the 96-year history of the Cardinals organization, the team has won 10 games or more only nine times. He sat down recently to talk with Bleacher Report:

 

Bleacher Report: You were talking about how sharp the players were at practice recently and that it was a little unusual. Is there a reason for that?

Bruce Arians: Well, this is the fourth time around for the offense, and having almost everybody back, they should fly through it. Defensively, we have a lot of young kids out there who are doing really, really well. It’s really different for the college guys, but they did really well.

 

B/R: So how much is safety Tyrann Mathieu able to do at this point as he comes back from that knee injury?

BA: He’s still rehabbing out there. He’s going to be ready in training camp. He could be ready in minicamp, but we won’t do that. He’s out in the back end coaching, Pat [Peterson] is coaching the corners. [Tyrann] is coaching the safeties.

 

B/R: You coached for a long time with Troy Polamalu on your team in Pittsburgh and against Ed Reed in the same division. Is it fair to compare him with either of them?

BA: No, really, because he is such a hybrid. They were true safeties. We can move him. Now, we limit his number of outside reps. But just his ability to play man-to-man on a slot separates him from them. Instinctually, he’s on the same level with them.

 

B/R: So the way that Ed Reed could react to a play, Mathieu has that ability?

BA: Yeah. Ed was an unbelievable film studier. As was Troy. So their instincts came from that. The more they studied, the more they saw tips. Ty’s instincts are like that. He has natural blitzing ability like them, too.

 

B/R: But he’s not as stout as Troy?

BA: No, he’s not as big as Ed, either.

 

B/R: Ed was never that big or bulky.

BA: No, but Ty is not his size. It’s close, but not quite.

 

B/R: So is there a comp for him?

BA: He’s a safety who plays nickel. Now what is a safety who plays nickel? He’s a safety. There are a million people out there who evaluate football, and they say that’s a corner. A corner is a corner. He plays out there on the corner. A safety is a nickel. Does he play man-to-man? Well, yeah, all our safeties do. So it’s semantics when you start talking about Tyrann.

Pro Football Focus or whoever, all these people who grade the players and want to put stuff out there that he’s the best corner in the league, he doesn’t play corner. He might line up at corner 2 percent of the time because his guy happens to line up out there. But he’s not a corner in the classic sense.

B/R: And he would get overwhelmed eventually if you left him out there.

BA: He could manage it, but I don’t think he’d be as outstanding as he is because he’s such a playmaker in the middle of the field. We want him where the action is. I mean, he’s our Jimmy Graham out wide. He has had other people out wide. So he can run and cover. But I don’t want him out there covering John Brown.

 

B/R: He has good speed though.

BA: Good, but not great. Not like [Peterson]. All our corners now are 4.4 [in the 40] or better. He’s a 4.5 guy.

 

B/R: The type of things that Tyrann was talking about after Will Smith was shot and killed in New Orleans, about how there’s not enough government support for recreation to keep kids out of trouble, made me think that this is a far different human being than the one who entered the league three years ago. His maturity level is so much higher.

BA: He wakes up every day proving that he’s a good person and wants to make sure he’s doing the right thing all the time. He got his chance. I’m a big believer in second chances, so he will be the face of the franchise whenever he is finished.

 

B/R: That’s a pretty big responsibility.

BA: And he loves it. He loves it, embraces it. He talks to a lot of guys we bring in. Rookie minicamp, installation meeting, he was rehabbing and went in and sat in the [defensive back] meeting room with the rookies. He wanted them to know how important it was.

 

B/R: He’s basically saying, don’t throw away this opportunity.

BA: Yeah, it’s all about that you have to learn this. It’s not just out on the field. 

 

B/R: You have gotten that level of seriousness out of other players. I did a book with Plaxico Burress after the Super Bowl in which he caught the game-winning touchdown pass against New England. He talked extensively about his first meeting with you and how you got his attention and trust in a very short time in Pittsburgh. He said that was a key to him becoming a better player. Why is it that you have that ability to bring that out in people?

BA: I don’t know. I remember that first meeting vividly. He was a good player and basically said, “How are you going to make me better?” Well, I said, “First thing I’m going to do is change that [messed]-up stance you got.” I looked at him and said, “Your foot is pointed this way, so you’re wasting a step on every play. You have to straighten your damn leg out and then run straight.”

A little thing like that. I look at your out route and I look at Hines [Ward’s] out route and you’re a yard short of him because your legs are so long that you ain’t running. “I can’t run that,” [he said]. “Sure you can, trust it,” [I said]. It was good from then on.

 

B/R: So you talk really straight with people right from the start.

BA: Especially players. I think they appreciate honesty, even if it’s not what they want to hear. I tell them what I think, and it’s not criticism, it’s coaching. I make that clear from the start. I’m getting on your ass, I’m not criticizing you. I’m coaching them to be better.

 

B/R: You’re basically saying, “If I didn’t talk like this, I wouldn’t care.”

BA: This is how I talk.

 

B/R: Has there ever been a time when a player didn’t get that right away and then came back and told you later that he appreciated it?

BA: My gosh, so many kids from Temple. (Arians was head coach there from 1983 to 1988.) It’s amazing how close we are still, 30 years later. I had a couple of the guys who left the team, became successful and called to thank me for the time that …

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