Open Rants by a wombat on a boat

Bruce Arians a retrospect in a sad desert.

(note, all the data that is used is pulled from https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ I find it is a great source of information and has fun numbers to look at it).

Heading into the 2013 season the Arizona Cardinals where looking for a new head coach. Ken Whisenhunt had been fired after going 45-51 in six years as their head coach. Many put blame on Ken due to his failure to develop a quarterback after Kurt Warner retired. With Bruce Arians coming in and his track record of quarterbacks he has mentored there seemed to be a glimmer of hope in Arizona. He spent five years there going 49-30-1 becoming their winningest coach in history. But I will prove that Bruce Arians may have had the same fate as Ken Whisenhunt.

Let’s look at a quick break down of each season under Arians.

He only had one year under .500 and led them to double digit wins in three straight years. An impressive feat. But looking at the numbers the teams he piloted seemed to far better on defense then offense. Turnovers are huge in the game of football and three separate times his offense was in the bottom 10 of the league in giving the ball away. His offense only had one season being in the top 10 of not turning the ball over. Where his defense never finished below 16^th in takeaways and finished three times in takeaways in the top 10. When you think of that five-year span in Arizona and you look at players who dominated defensively for that team, they had quite the talent. Listed below are a few names you should recognize who were playing on his defenses at the time.

The fact that every year Arians was there his defense was in a top 10 category shows how fortunate those teams were to field a stop unit like that every year.

 Now a big thing about Arians is people have referenced to him as this Quarterback Guru working with the likes of Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, and Andrew Luck. Having this guru as a head coach would give you the belief that he could develop someone in his tenure in Arizona. That there could be a guy for the future. But there was none.

Here is a list of every QB to start for the Cardinals under Arians. Remember he joined Arizona to be the coach of the 2013 season.

All four of these guys to start a game where not drafted under Arian’s tenure. And everyone but Ryan Lindley was at least 28 years or older when they arrived in Arizona. None of these guys who started were rookies or where drafted under him. This is not to entirely bash Arians, he had some great years in AZ as the coach and when you look at the numbers below, he got the best out of players like Palmer and Stanton. When they showed up to AZ they were at a point in their careers where most people didn’t think they would do anything else. But looking at the numbers below we can see Palmer was slinging it in the desert.

For a guy who played in 60 games he averaged 279 yards passing a game and 1.75 passing touchdowns a game. He had success under Arians. But the other three starters their numbers don’t come off so glamorous and since their time in Arizona haven’t gone on to win any accolades such as a Pro Bowl or All Pro. These numbers are important because its important to show the body of work these QBs did under Arians. These were guys brought in by him (or kept in Lindley’s case) from other teams. These were players who he wanted and thought he could be successful with.  But what about the quarterbacks he drafted? I mean Palmer joined the team at age 34 so it wouldn’t be foolish to draft a guy to sit 2-3 years to develop or learn right?

In the five drafts under Arians the cardinals selected 36 players. In those five drafts from 2013 to 2017 a total of 57 quarterbacks were drafted. Can you guess how many the Cardinals drafted? One.

Logan Thomas was drafted in 2014 draft. He was the 120^th pick in the draft and the 6^th quarterback selected in the draft. Looking at how only one quarterback was drafter by the Cardinals in that five-year span you would think that he was the developmental guy. The guy who could sit behind Palmer and Stanton and learn. But all the passing numbers I have posted his name has not come up? He never started for the Arians and his career numbers for passing are not something to get excited about. Here are his passing numbers from his time under Arians.

One. One completion is all Logan had in his tenure for Arizona. Now we can give him kudos it went 81 yards for a touchdown. But outside of that this is troubling. A guy picked by the Quarterback Guru you would think would develop into a decent passer. I mean if Arians will start guys like Blaine Gabbert and Ryan Lindley you would think Logan Thomas would have a chance, right? Here are some numbers since Thomas departed AZ.

Wow sure looks like this guy went from being a quarterback to a different position. The one quarterback taken by Arians has ended up playing tight end. He has more receptions then passing attempts in his career. This is the one guy Arians drafted in five years to play quarterback. So, what was Arians planning? He wasn’t…

The moves by Arians and the team show there was no plan at quarterback for the future. Even in his final draft in 2017 no quarterback was selected. Palmer was 38 years old for that season and Stanton the backup was 33. There was no young QB grooming because it’s something Arians didn’t want to do. And I believe that is why he stepped down from his position in Arizona. He knew the mess of that quarterback situation and wanted no part of it. They had every opportunity to take some one in the later rounds and try to develop them. He only took one guy and could not work his magic. To then step down and the team keep none of the five quarterbacks mentioned shows it was a mess.

How bad of it was a mess? Considering at the start of the 2018 season none of the four quarterbacks who started under Arians or Logan Thomas were apart of the team; I would say it was. It was so bad that in 2018 and 2019 they spent their first-round draft picks on quarterbacks.

Bruce Arians had success in Arizona winning. He won a lot of games lead his team to playoffs multiple times and made Arizona compete for a solid stretch of time. But his inability to develop young quarterbacks doomed the team. He set the franchise up for failure by leaving no viable option at the quarterback position for them after he retired.

Now he is in Tampa Bay. In first year, there he drafted no quarterbacks. But hey he had a guy who he thought he could develop in Jameis Winston. A guy who lead the league in 2019 under Arians in passing yards and had the 2^nd most passing touchdowns with 33. He also became the first quarterback to post at least 30 touchdowns and 30 interceptions in a year. He piloted a team that had these rankings under him.

I believe Arians will fail to develop a quarterback in Tampa Bay and he will get out when the time is right for his sake. Tampa Bay should take notes after what happened in Arizona, so they don’t have the same fate of trying to fix a whole at quarterback.

Thank you for your time if you read this article please leave a comment and let me know what you think. Have a great day.