Cardinals coach Bruce Arians: I was pissed when the Steelers 'fired' me
Bruce Arians still isn't happy about the way his time in Pittsburgh ended
By
John Breech
•
2 min read
Thanks to his recent success, it's easy to forget that Bruce Arians' coaching career almost ended after the 2011 season.
After five pretty successful seasons as the Steelers offensive coordinator (2007-11), Arians thought he was going to get a raise in Pittsburgh following the 2011 season, but that's not what happened. Instead, Arians was basically fired.
The Cardinals coach has never really talked about how his time in Pittsburgh ended, but that's about to change. During an interview with Andrea Kremer for HBO's Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel, Arians gave the ugly details of how his career with the Steelers came to an end.
After the 2011 season, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin had promised Arians that he would ask the front office to give Arians a raise as a reward for Arians' five seasons as the Steelers offensive coordinator. During his five years, the team finished 17th (2007), 22nd, 7th, 14th and 12th in total offense.
"[Tomlin] said, 'I can't get you the money,'" Arians said.
As it turned out, not getting a raise wasn't even the worst part.
"I said, 'OK.' He said, 'No, I can't get you a contract.' I said, 'Are you firing me?' He said, 'No,'" Arians said. "Well, it's just a matter of words, Mike, OK. If I don't have a contract, I'm fired.'"
So what happened next?
"[Tomlin] said, 'I'm going to fly down and talk.' And I said, 'Why waste the money and the time?' And so that was it," Arians said. "Walked upstairs and told my wife. And I've never seen her cry. And she cried."
Although the Steelers never officially fired Arians, the team did release a short statement in January 2012 saying that Arians had "decided" to retire.
The entire situation left a bad taste in the mouth of Arians' wife, Christine, who doesn't seem to really care for the Steelers anymore.
"I had admired Mike Tomlin so much, I really thought he was a coach who really cared about his people," Christine said. "For him to do this, I felt very disillusioned."
Arians was never told why the Steelers got rid of him, but he has his theories.
"The style of offense and my relationship with Ben [Roethlisberger]," Arians said.
Apparently, people at the top of the Steelers organization thought Arians was "too close" to Big Ben.
During the interview with HBO, Arians was asked if he felt betrayed.
"Yeah. Because I had done a good job. It was a damn good job," Arians said. "I was pissed. But time heals things."
After the Steelers forced him into retirement, Arians thought his coaching career was going to be over, and even he was surprised by what happened next.
"I had retired, legitimately retired, and then Chuck [Pagano] called and everything changed," Arians said.
Pagano's call led to a job in Indianapolis, where Arians would win coach of the year in 2012 as a interim coach for Pagano, who was sitting out after receiving a cancer diagnosis. Arians would go on to win another coach of the year award in 2014 with the Cardinals.
Unfortunately for Arians, he's going to have to wait awhile if he wants to get revenge on the Steelers. After losing to Pittsburgh in 2015, the Cardinals aren't scheduled to play the Steelers again until 2019.
HBO's full interview with Arians is scheduled to air on June 21.
