When it's Super Bowl time, you often hear about a head coach in his late-60s who is one win from being the oldest ever to win a Lombardi Trophy.
And of all the standard names we summon, we don't consider the coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Indeed, Bruce Arians is four historic quarters from becoming the oldest head coach to win a Super Bowl, at age 68. Since he wasn't a wunderkind like Sean McVay; since he didn't have a Hall of Fame QB wave a wand and get him a gig; and since he paid grueling dues for decades before he finally got his shot at coaching an NFL club, we don't think of Arians as part of the NFL coaching aristocracy. But his work as a sexagenarian suggests he is.
Arians didn't get his first shot running an NFL sideline until his 20th NFL season, when he was 60 years old – and he literally backed into that, as a sub for Colts coach Chuck Pagano, who was battling cancer. Arians went 9-3 with those Colts, and even won the 2012 NFL Coach of the Year. Yet those wins aren't even on his official record because he wasn't officially the Colts' head coach.
A year later, Arians finally got a clean shot at coaching, when he was hired by the Arizona Cardinals. He went 10-6 his first year and then 11-5 in his second season, earning another NFL Coach of the Year nod, his second in three seasons.
Not bad for someone who toiled in college for eons, from Virginia Tech to Mississippi State to Alabama as an assistant before landing his first head gig at Temple, hardly a college power. Then he pinballed from college to the NFL and back, before diving into pro football for good in 1998.
The fact that Arians is here is shocking on two levels. First, he doesn't have an iconic mentor or advocate who could open doors for him. In fact, the Steelers just let him walk after eight seasons, including two Super Bowl appearances as their offensive coordinator working with Ben Roethlisberger. Head coach Mike Tomlin didn't even ask Arians to stay after the 2011 season, despite a Super Bowl title in 2008 and losing to the Packers by just six points in the 2010 Super Bowl. So he left the game, all but retired.
Pagano tossed Arians a lifeline and, through a most circuitous journey, here he is, coaching his own team in the Super Bowl, with the only quarterback anyone would say is better than Big Ben and Peyton Manning. That would be Tom Brady, of course, the high priest of playoff football, now in his 10th Super Bowl. In a sense, Arians was the perfect coach for Brady in the back-nine of his career. Arians isn't one of those silly, screaming coaches who think volume equals victory. He's not a control freak who feels threatened by Brady's godlike status. And he's secure enough to coach Brady in those rare moments when he needs it.
Second, Arians doesn't fit the profile for a football coach. He's a self-effacing goofball. He doesn't spend days, weeks, or months in his office, have his mail forwarded to his desk, or snore on the team-colored couch from September to January. He often wore a Kangol over the league-issued baseball cap. He ends each work day at a reasonable time, boots his coaches from the facilities to spend time with their families, and has been known to pour a few fingers of whiskey after work, often doubling as host/bartender for some of his players.
His record as an NFL head coach, however, is hardly humorous. If you include his record in 2012, when he replaced an ill Pagano, then Arians has a career coaching record of 76-47-1 to go with his two Coach of the Year honors. He has won 62 percent of his regular season games - a higher rate than Pete Carroll (61%) and just below Andy Reid (63%) and Sean Payton (64%).
But when we muse over the best NFL coaches, you never hear about Arians. But the cool, low-key boss of the Bucs can change all that with one major win on Sunday. He started as an NFL head coach too late to be universally revered, but he's done quite enough to earn our respect.
Follow Jason Keidel on Twitter: @JasonKeidel
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