Cardinals HC Bruce Arians Still Taking Jabs At Steelers For Firing Him

[polamalubeast]

To say that Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians is still a little bit bitter about how is tenure with the Pittsburgh Steelers ended several years ago is probably a bit of an understatement as he continues to make small digs at the franchise he spent time with as their offensive coordinator.

During Wednesday’s annual NFC coaches’ breakfast at the league meetings in Boca Raton, Florida, Arians said it’s good to see the Steelers offensive coaching staff finally being allowed to open things up “without getting fired” for doing so, according to Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com.


....

While Arians still enjoys taking small shots at the Steelers franchise, he stressed Thursday that he still has great respect for the Rooneys and feels lucky that he had the opportunity to coach in Pittsburgh.

“I’m the most thankful guy in the world,” Arians said, according to Peter King. “If I don’t get fired, all this would never happened.”



read more


http://www.steelersdepot.com/2016/03/cardinals-hc-bruce-arians-still-taking-jabs-at-steelers-for-firing-him/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[BlackAndGold]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uRIN7pFmjU

[fansince'76]

I really can't say I much blame him, personally, especially when LeBeau at the very least should have also been shown the door after the Tebow debacle. Instead, he got another 3 years.

[polamalubeast]

Many criticized Arians for the 2009 season, but the defense was responsible why the Steelers missed the playoffs.

The defense on the 4th quarter in 2009 was the worst I have ever seen and not blame the offense or the time of possession for that, since the Steelers were in the top 3 for the TOP in 2009 and they had also the edge in the TOP in the 4th quarter.

But this is very easy to criticize Arians because of the game against the Browns.

[fansince'76]

Many criticized Arians for the 2009 season, but the defense was responsible why the Steelers missed the playoffs.

The defense on the 4th quarter in 2009 was the worst I have ever seen and not blame the offense or the time of possession for that, since the Steelers were in the top 3 for the TOP in 2009 and they had also the edge in the TOP in the 4th quarter.

But this is very easy to criticize Arians because of the game against the Browns.
Arians caught hell for the 2nd Cleveland game that year, and deservedly so.

What killed me about that season was how Arians also got widely blamed for Bruce Gradkowski and Louis Murphy (really, who?) driving a 5-11 Raiders team about 90 yards in under 2 minutes for the winning TD, not to mention the 4 other 4th-quarter leads the defense was spotted and wound up coughing up.

[st33lersguy]

I am thankful they fired Arians too, his play-calling sucked and the Steelers offense has gotten better since they fired him

[smokin3000gt]

Bottom line is that if Ben wasn't getting sacked 8x/game BA probably would have still been with us. I know a lot of that falls on the oline, but if that was our Achilles, then we have to change the play calling to keep Ben upright. The Rooney's expressed concern about the abuse Ben was taken and nothing was done about it. Can't blame 'em for wanting to protect their franchise QB.

[fansince'76]

Bottom line is that if Ben wasn't getting sacked 8x/game BA probably would have still been with us. I know a lot of that falls on the oline, but if that was our Achilles, then we have to change the play calling to keep Ben upright. The Rooney's expressed concern about the abuse Ben was taken and nothing was done about it. Can't blame 'em for wanting to protect their franchise QB.

The blame for that was misplaced as well, IMO...

November 1, 2013 (almost two full years after Arians was let go):


The Steelers quarterback is getting sacked at a higher rate than when he was playing under coordinator Bruce Arians, who was criticized for not sufficiently protecting the investment.

According to Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the 26 sacks Roethlisberger has absorbed so far puts him on pace for 59, well beyond his career-high of 50 — if he makes it that long.

Asked how he was holding up physically, Roethlisberger laughed and replied: “I am all right so far. As long as we slow it down soon.”

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/11/01/ben-roethlisberger-taking-hits-at-record-rates/

:noidea:

I think it'd been interesting to see what would have happened if the Steelers would have ever had competent OL coaching during Arians' tenure.

They better hold onto Munchak like grim death.

[polamalubeast]

The blame for that was misplaced as well, IMO...

November 1, 2013 (almost two full years after Arians was let go):



http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/11/01/ben-roethlisberger-taking-hits-at-record-rates/

:noidea:

I think it'd been interesting to see what would have happened if the Steelers would have ever had competent OL coaching during Arians' tenure.

They better hold onto Munchak like grim death.

With a good o-line, The steelers offense would have had as much or more success than the Cardinals have right now when Palmer is healthy.

[fansince'76]

With a good o-line, The steelers offense would have had as much or more success than the Cardinals have right now when Palmer is healthy.

Thing is, by 2013, we actually had a pretty good OL, talent-wise. Bicknell was an absolute disaster - probably the worst hire of Tomlin's tenure. And Kugler and the "Email Porn King" (Zeirlein) weren't really much better.

[polamalubeast]

Thing is, by 2013, we actually had a pretty good OL, talent-wise. Bicknell was an absolute disaster - probably the worst hire of Tomlin's tenure. And Kugler and the "Email Porn King" (Zeirlein) weren't really much better.

Agree

Bicknell was possibly the worst position coach in Steelers history....I not blame Haley for the pathetic offense in the first half of the season in 2013 too.

[fansince'76]

Bicknell was possibly the worst position coach in Steelers history....I not blame Haley for the pathetic offense in the first half of the season in 2013 too.

No argument here. Just awful. And I agree, Haley gets a mulligan for the 1st half of 2013.

[polamalubeast]

I know,it was the preseason but....

http://www.steelersuniverse.com/forums/showthread.php/18138-Steelers-o-line-among-NFL-worst-at-3-of-5-positions-during-preseason?highlight=Bicknell



And this

Bicknell believes the offensive line, built with athletic, agile players who were high draft picks, is ready to emerge."These guys are at a point where we're going to really start to jell," Bicknell said. "It's not like they're young anymore. I think we're close. Sometimes it doesn't look like we're close, but we are."

http://www.steelersuniverse.com/forums/showthread.php/18355-Steelers-still-talking-the-company-line-when-it-comes-to-the-O-line?highlight=Bicknell

[86WARD]

Arians and LeBeau should've been shown the door along with Danny Smith...how that waste still has a job, I have no idea.

[hawaiiansteeler]

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/d1/d1d296977e2d994180e6e3a0ccecd15bc9f33450f4c3cc7a31 28656e7127cf31.jpg

[fansince'76]

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/d1/d1d296977e2d994180e6e3a0ccecd15bc9f33450f4c3cc7a31 28656e7127cf31.jpg

Gotta admit, some of the old "Arians is a boob" memes are still kinda funny. :chuckle:

[hawaiiansteeler]

Gotta admit, some of the old "Arians is a boob" memes are still kinda funny. :chuckle:

yeah, I never get tired of them. Arians just made it too easy...:deadhorse:

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/9c/9c582ec55e72cc95c2fb8f06490679f9c14383ec4ace712369 12e53621460f79.jpg

[steelreserve]

So what, he was a shitty coordinator and a much better head coach. I don't think replacing him was the wrong move at all.

[tube517]

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/9c/9c582ec55e72cc95c2fb8f06490679f9c14383ec4ace712369 12e53621460f79.jpg

[zulater]

Much ado about nothing, but not a bad offseason topic. He did a good job here, but it was time for him to move on. I think he took Ben as far down the road as they were going to go together. In another words they may have grown too close personally, and the things Ben needed to change weren't going to come about with Bruce there.

Offensive line aside Ben does get the ball out quicker now. Ben's deep ball has improved to a tremendous degree. And Ben's pocket awareness has improved by leaps and bounds under Haley, which has resulted in his fumbling less. To wit in 6 seasons under Arians Ben lost 38 fumbles. Over 6 per year. In 3 seasons under Haley Ben has 9 lost fumbles, despite passing the ball more frequently. But it gets better yet. Ben's lost fumbles have gone down every year under Haley, from 6 to 3 to 0. I rewatch the games on my phone at the gym from seasons past, and now when Ben steps up in the pocket he always takes a glance to see where the defensive players are before stepping up and delivering a pass. I can live with interceptions, because if you have an aggressive passing game you're going to throw into tight windows and obviously that can sometimes backfire. But under Arians Ben became irresponsible in the pocket and fumbled way too frequently. Just look at his stat line. Under Ken Whisnehunt in 3 seasons Ben fumbles 5 times total. Then Arians takes charge and boom! Ben becomes the fumbler.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/player/stats/_/id/5536/ben-roethlisberger

Anyway, this isn't hate on Bruce. I think Bruce helped Ben develop from a game manager to a game changer. He's obviously a very good coach, and not just a good head coach, but also a very good OC. But again he and Ben grew too close and I think to a point that it become detrimental to Ben's game.


So bottom line was Art II or Tomlin, whoever called the shot on firing Arians was right to do so. And this was obviously a case where both parties came out better in the end.

Now of course there are two underlying issues.

1) Who ordered the code red? Tomlin claims it was him, but the facts of the bygone day don't really support that notion. Art tried to oust him the offseason before (by multiple local press reports) and at the end of the 12 season Tomlin said on record that he was keeping the coaching staff intact.

2) The Steelers lied. BA didn't retire and yet they claimed he had when they announced his removal from the coaching staff. Yeah this comes off as cheesy on the Steelers part. But I think they had a great deal of respect for the man and didn't want to publicly fire him. Two things played in this.

a) Bruce and his wife had both had made some off the record remarkss indicating Bruce and particularly his wife were thinking about retiring in the near future.

b) I don't think the Steelers thought there was any interest from the rest of the league in Bruce's services. I think they were mostly right on this. Due to Bruce's age and health history I think there were 31 teams that had no interest whatsoever in making BA their OC.

But of course all it takes was one, and there was that one with Chuck Pagano reaching out to BA, and the rest as they say is history.

But getting back to the Steelers I think they announced his so called retirement as a face saving gesture for Bruce, not the team. The team fires coaches regularly, and maybe even part of it was they were trying to soft soap it to keep Ben from getting too butt hurt about it. If Bruce had actually retired to Ga. as they Steelers presumed I;m sure he would have walked away with a nice parting gift, as in in probably receiving all of his scheduled 2013 salary +.

So in my opinion there were no bad guys, and everyone in the end walked away a winner, so what more can you ask?

[Dwinsgames]

Bruce who ?

oh the old browns WR coach , gotcha

[Craic]

Bruce who ?

oh the old browns WR coach , gotcha

Bruce, the QB coach and later OC that helped the Steelers win 2 superbowls.

[fansince'76]

Bruce who ?

oh the old browns WR coach , gotcha

Which was another reason he took so much flak from Steelers fans...

[polamalubeast]

Which was another reason he took so much flak from Steelers fans...


Arians was the OC of the Browns in 2002 and they almost beat the Steelers in the playoffs that year because of his offense!

Their offense had scored 33 points and their QB had over 400 passing yards!

[zulater]

Arians was the OC of the Browns in 2002 and they almost beat the Steelers in the playoffs that year because of his offense!

Their offense had scored 33 points and their QB had over 400 passing yards!

All time epic playoff qb matchup of Kelly Holmcomb vs Tommy Maddox! :heh:


Actually it was a great game, even if the qb's overall pedigree wasn't equivalent to their days performance.

[Method28]

Much ado about nothing, but not a bad offseason topic. He did a good job here, but it was time for him to move on. I think he took Ben as far down the road as they were going to go together. In another words they may have grown too close personally, and the things Ben needed to change weren't going to come about with Bruce there.

Offensive line aside Ben does get the ball out quicker now. Ben's deep ball has improved to a tremendous degree. And Ben's pocket awareness has improved by leaps and bounds under Haley, which has resulted in his fumbling less. To wit in 6 seasons under Arians Ben lost 38 fumbles. Over 6 per year. In 3 seasons under Haley Ben has 9 lost fumbles, despite passing the ball more frequently. But it gets better yet. Ben's lost fumbles have gone down every year under Haley, from 6 to 3 to 0. I rewatch the games on my phone at the gym from seasons past, and now when Ben steps up in the pocket he always takes a glance to see where the defensive players are before stepping up and delivering a pass. I can live with interceptions, because if you have an aggressive passing game you're going to throw into tight windows and obviously that can sometimes backfire. But under Arians Ben became irresponsible in the pocket and fumbled way too frequently. Just look at his stat line. Under Ken Whisnehunt in 3 seasons Ben fumbles 5 times total. Then Arians takes charge and boom! Ben becomes the fumbler.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/player/stats/_/id/5536/ben-roethlisberger

Anyway, this isn't hate on Bruce. I think Bruce helped Ben develop from a game manager to a game changer. He's obviously a very good coach, and not just a good head coach, but also a very good OC. But again he and Ben grew too close and I think to a point that it become detrimental to Ben's game.


So bottom line was Art II or Tomlin, whoever called the shot on firing Arians was right to do so. And this was obviously a case where both parties came out better in the end.

Now of course there are two underlying issues.

1) Who ordered the code red? Tomlin claims it was him, but the facts of the bygone day don't really support that notion. Art tried to oust him the offseason before (by multiple local press reports) and at the end of the 12 season Tomlin said on record that he was keeping the coaching staff intact.

2) The Steelers lied. BA didn't retire and yet they claimed he had when they announced his removal from the coaching staff. Yeah this comes off as cheesy on the Steelers part. But I think they had a great deal of respect for the man and didn't want to publicly fire him. Two things played in this.

a) Bruce and his wife had both had made some off the record remarkss indicating Bruce and particularly his wife were thinking about retiring in the near future.

b) I don't think the Steelers thought there was any interest from the rest of the league in Bruce's services. I think they were mostly right on this. Due to Bruce's age and health history I think there were 31 teams that had no interest whatsoever in making BA their OC.

But of course all it takes was one, and there was that one with Chuck Pagano reaching out to BA, and the rest as they say is history.

But getting back to the Steelers I think they announced his so called retirement as a face saving gesture for Bruce, not the team. The team fires coaches regularly, and maybe even part of it was they were trying to soft soap it to keep Ben from getting too butt hurt about it. If Bruce had actually retired to Ga. as they Steelers presumed I;m sure he would have walked away with a nice parting gift, as in in probably receiving all of his scheduled 2013 salary +.

So in my opinion there were no bad guys, and everyone in the end walked away a winner, so what more can you ask?
I agree with most of what you said....I just had to point one thing out.....we didn't "fire" Bruce Bruce [emoji1] he retired right!

[st33lersguy]

One thing I remember about the Arians offense is that it always seemed to run better when the Steelers O went into a no-huddle and Ben called the plays.

[Hawkman]

Am I the only one here who thinks he's being a total ass for even making these comments??

[hawaiiansteeler]

Arians caught hell for the 2nd Cleveland game that year, and deservedly so.

What killed me about that season was how Arians also got widely blamed for Bruce Gradkowski and Louis Murphy (really, who?) driving a 5-11 Raiders team about 90 yards in under 2 minutes for the winning TD, not to mention the 4 other 4th-quarter leads the defense was spotted and wound up coughing up.

https://5goldenrings.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/blame-arians1.jpg?w=500

[pczach]

Bruce Arians wears the worst head cover in all of sports.....

[fansince'76]

Bruce Arians wears the worst head cover in all of sports.....

http://www.azcardinals.com/assets/images/imported/ARI/photos/WebImages/KangolUse.jpg

:chuckle:

[tube517]

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSH5tvXkmFwy6FlrudFCipkn73jyOOCS eIMV6jhiMvVDMVxFSu2

[zulater]

I really can't say I much blame him, personally, especially when LeBeau at the very least should have also been shown the door after the Tebow debacle. Instead, he got another 3 years.

I don't think it's an apples to apples situation when you compare LeBeau to BA. It was a lot harder for the Steelers to let go of LeBeau because he had built up a much greater degree of accomplishment, both as a Steeler and as a defensive coordinator. LeBeau was an innovator that changed the way football is played. Part of his getting into the Hall of Fame was in recognition of his accomplishments as a defensive mastermind, most of which came while on the Steelers staff, first as a lb's coach then in two stints as DC. .He was the defensive coordinator for both of our recent Super Bowl wins. BA was a wr coach for the SB 40 champs. Also the defense was the driving force that got the Steelers to those SB's (though ironically the offense was the better performing unit on the field in SB 43.So in my opinion it wasn't the same. The Steelers and the league saw LeBeau through a different lens than Bruce. While a Steelers assistant Bruce was never considered anything more than a so and so sort of coach. Probably regarded more around the league a misplaced position coach than a top flight OC. But of course that's all changed since he's left, and bravo to him. But getting back to the point you know as well as I do that LeBeau had more league wide cache as a Steelers assistant than Bruce ever came close to approaching. In a sense you could compare firing LeBeau given his status in this city and throughout the league as just a notch below what it would have been to fire Noll. (which in essence sort of happened) So to me it was easy to understand why LeBeau was given a longer plank to walk than Bruce.

[pczach]

http://www.azcardinals.com/assets/images/imported/ARI/photos/WebImages/KangolUse.jpg

:chuckle:


:rofl2:



He is a man for all seasons. :chuckle:



http://cdn-png.si.com/sites/default/files/styles/mmqb_marquee_large/public/2016/03/23/screen_shot_2016-03-23_at_2.25.11_pm.png?itok=gfnPqKMV

[fansince'76]

I don't think it's an apples to apples situation when you compare LeBeau to BA. It was a lot harder for the Steelers to let go of LeBeau because he had built up a much greater degree of accomplishment, both as a Steeler and as a defensive coordinator. LeBeau was an innovator that changed the way football is played. Part of his getting into the Hall of Fame was in recognition of his accomplishments as a defensive mastermind, most of which came while on the Steelers staff, first as a lb's coach then in two stints as DC. .He was the defensive coordinator for both of our recent Super Bowl wins. BA was a wr coach for the SB 40 champs. Also the defense was the driving force that got the Steelers to those SB's (though ironically the offense was the better performing unit on the field in SB 43.So in my opinion it wasn't the same. The Steelers and the league saw LeBeau through a different lens than Bruce. While a Steelers assistant Bruce was never considered anything more than a so and so sort of coach. Probably regarded more around the league a misplaced position coach than a top flight OC. But of course that's all changed since he's left, and bravo to him. But getting back to the point you know as well as I do that LeBeau had more league wide cache as a Steelers assistant than Bruce ever came close to approaching. In a sense you could compare firing LeBeau given his status in this city and throughout the league as just a notch below what it would have been to fire Noll. (which in essence sort of happened) So to me it was easy to understand why LeBeau was given a longer plank to walk than Bruce.

Good point. LeBeau was a MUCH more accomplished coordinator than Arians.

Can you tell I am still really pissed about the Tebow wildcard game? :chuckle:

Still can't believe I dropped $200+ to see that in person. :doh:

[teegre]

Good point. LeBeau was a MUCH more accomplished coordinator than Arians.

Can you tell I am still really pissed about the Tebow wildcard game? :chuckle:

Still can't believe I dropped $200+ to see that in person. :doh:

LeBeau's defense was the top scoring defense (allowed the fewest points) in 6 out of 7 seasons. That type of dominance will get you a couple of extra years.

In his defense of the Tebow game, I would have done the EXACT same thing. I would have loaded the box with 9 & 10 players, and forced Tebow to throw. Somehow, Tebow connected on a couple of "miracle" throws that decided the game. (That TD pass to Eddie Royal still has me wondering if there was divine intervention. :lol: )

[tube517]

What pisses me off about that season is they got manhandled by the Ratbirds in the season opener.

They (both Arians and LeBeau) adjusted and game planned for the Cheats** game and win. Ben threw (dink and dunk if you want to call it) more short passes and got rid of the ball quicker than usual. LeBeau laid off the cushion and kept Gronk from destroying them and Woodley had his last great game as a football player.

They then go back to their regular ways and get embarrassed by Tebow. Yes, Ike had his worst game at the wrong time.

A very weak 12-4 team. I thought they would at least win the WC game.