The Super Bowl winner is stepping down as the first coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, so that his longtime friend and highly trained defensive coordinator Todd Bowles can have the opportunity to lead a successful team. “I wanted to make sure that when I left, Todd Bowles would have the best chance of succeeding,” Arians said in a statement Wednesday night. “So many coaches come to situations where they are set up for failure and I did not want that for Todd.” The Martians have long been allies of blacks and minorities. As a key general at Virginia Tech in the 1960s, he became the first white player to have a black roommate. He is a champion for diversity in the NFL coaching ranks, adding women to his staff and having three black co-ordinators on staff. Like any white NFL coach, Arians has known the struggles and struggles of the black football coach. That’s partly why I think he made the unusual decision to retire from coaching by March 30th. Leaving now ensures not only that Bowles will get the job, but also a great job at it. So often, NFL coaches become bad team coaches. This is probably why the job was open from the beginning. As we know, black coaches rarely find coaches. What they do usually stinks worse than the others available. What if you’re a black former coach like Bowles? Good luck getting this second gig. Only seven other black men have ever coached at least two NFL franchises in their careers.
Bowles’s first crack in training was a failure. The New York Jets took him 24-40 in his four years there, and were marred by poor free agency decisions, worse draft choices and inconsistent generalist play. I talked to him during the 2020 season about how he would not jump to the next opportunity just to become a coach again. “I think the situation has to be right and get out of there. If the situation is not right … if it is not a fight, I will not take it to take it,” Bowles said at the time. “First time, probably because you really want to be the first coach and do good and save the world. But after you go through it with experience and you know that situations have to be right for you to succeed anywhere, and obviously you have a lot to bring. “But they also have to bring something to the table. And if it’s not a fight, it’s just not a fight.” The move to install Bowles, the fourth black head coach in the history of the Buccaneers, comes as the NFL continues its decades-long battle with diversity in head-coaching ranks. Just this week, the league (again) amended Rooney’s rule, required all teams to hire a minority assistant coach, and set up a team of experts to make recommendations to NFL team owners. Brian Flores’s lawsuit against the NFL reportedly has two new plaintiffs in the coming days. The decision of the Arians to retire while promoting Bowles reminds me of what the legendary UNC men’s basketball coach Dean Smith did in 1997. He shocked the sports world when he retired shortly before the start of the season with a team ready for the Final Four, just so that he can ensure that his longtime aide, Bill Gatridge, will finally accept his shot. Arians has known Bowles since he first played under him as a key corner for Temple in the mid-1980s. And the Arians do not overthrow any team. He is one with Tom Brady back and is looking for an eighth Super Bowl title. However, there are already conspiracy theories. For those who can not enroll in Occam razor, they would rather believe a fairy tale that goes something like this: Brady returned to Tampa on the condition that Arians will no longer be the coach. GOAT did not have a good relationship with the blunt head coach. Without making it obvious, Brady planned a return from his boring retirement, but only if the Bucks did, could the Arians do. And in a league that is a sieve for information, everything would be kept secret for almost a month. Σιγουρεεεεε. There is no Babushka Lady or Umbrella Man here. On the contrary, the answer here seems rather simple. A lifelong ally approaching 70, he wanted to get it right from a successful black coach and longtime friend. Arians could have reached the top after the 2020 season with his championship, but he decided to try for a second and finally won on the field. I would say that by making this move, he stayed on top.