Bruce Arians used to be one of my favorite NFL coaches.
As an interim head coach, he led the Indianapolis Colts to a 9-3 record after head coach Chuck Pagano had to leave to be treated for leukemia.
He was then hired to take over the 5-11 Arizona Cardinals, which he coached to a respectable 10-6 record in just one season.
And in his three years in Arizona, he has yet to win less than 10 games, with the team steadily improving every year.
All that plus the fact that he brings a signature swagger to the sideline with his thick-rimmed frames and cabby hats made him a pretty likeable guy.
That is, until he made some controversial comments earlier this week.
I say controversial only because they’ve garnered a lot of attention, but ideally, there would be no controversy about what he said. Only outrage.
Speaking to a high school coaching clinic at the team’s practice facility, Arians voiced concern that the game of football is under attack because of its increasingly strong link to the degenerative brain disease CTE.
"It’s the best game that’s ever been invented," Arians told the crowd in a conversation recorded by NBC's 12 News in Arizona. "And we have to make sure that moms get the message, because that’s who’s afraid of our game right now. It’s not dads, it’s moms. Our job is to make sure the game is safe, at all levels. The head really has no business being in the game."
These comments are extremely problematic for two main reasons, starting with the inexcusable sexism.
To insinuate that moms are more concerned for the safety of their children than dads is just downright insulting.
I’m sure there are some dads out there who do, regrettably, pledge a blind allegiance to America’s game, but to make a blanket statement like that is just not realistic.
When I was a kid wanting to play football, both my parents voiced equal concern about the game’s violent nature, and that was before the game’s link to CTE became so prominent. And I know that my parents — mom or dad — are not alone.
Arians tried to clarify his comments, but instead succeeded in spinning his tires and sinking further into the already-overwhelming mud.
"My point is that moms are often the ones making those decisions in a family," he said via Twitter. "We have to make sure that they’re getting the message about everything being done to make the game as safe as possible."
You know he’s in it deep when even in his clarification statement, he offers no evidence of moms being more involved than dads when determining if a child plays football or not.
That’s the problem that’s gotten the most attention, but there another problem with his statements, too. He says that the head has "no business being in the game," meaning that with proper tackling, blocking and playing techniques, a player’s head should suffer no damage.
The problem, of course, is that it’s an unrealistic solution.
Until science can figure out a way to detach a person’s head before a game and re-attach it after while still somehow giving players control over their bodies, heads are going to be inherent to the way the game is played. No amount of change in tackling technique is going to change that.
Whether at the bottom of a pile, deep in the trenches or even if delivered with a shoulder pad, hits to the head are still going to happen.
I can’t blame Arians for defending the game he loves, but blathering on about how safe the game is without a full understanding of how CTE works is just irresponsible.
Throw in the sexist overtones he used to do it, and I just can’t root for the guy anymore.
Ethan Bauer is the assistant sports editor. You can contact him at ebauer@alligator.org and you can follow him on Twitter @ebaueri.
