Bruce Arians is retired, but if he is showing any interest in coaching the Cleveland Browns, they shouldn’t hesitate to make it happen.
With the Cleveland Browns having parted ways with Hue Jackson last week, there is now an opening for a new head coach in Cleveland.
What if the Browns could convince Bruce Arians, who retired from coaching after last season, to come out of retirement and fill that vacant spot? Apparently, the 66-year-old Arians isn’t completely opposed to the possibility.
“Cleveland is the only job I would consider,” Arians said, via the Canton Repository. “I don’t know if anything will come of this, but the door is slightly cracked.”
Arians is at the age where most people do retire from their job and he’s enjoying the time that he now gets to spend with his family. If he ultimately decides that he has no desire to return to the game, then it is completely understandable.
But if Arians is showing even the slightest bit of interest at becoming the head coach of the Cleveland Browns — a job that might be a tough sell for a lot of people, given the poor reputation of the franchise — then this team should do everything it can to get him to do it.
Although he has been a football coach since the 1970s, Arians only has five years of experience as a head coach in the NFL. He coached the Arizona Cardinals from 2013-17 before officially calling it a career.
But during his tenure in the desert, the Cardinals went 50-32-1, including playoffs, and made a trip to the NFC Championship Game in 2015. Arians was also named Coach of the Year in 2014.
Even before he made the move to Arizona, Arians filled in for Chuck Pagano as interim coach of the Indianapolis Colts in 2012, and went 9-3 to become the first ever interim coach to win Coach of the Year.
If the Browns have an opportunity to hire Arians, they shouldn’t think twice about it. He’s proven to be a winning coach in the NFL with more than one team and he could be the guy to pull the Browns out of the dumpster that Jackson left them in.
It might turn out to be much ado about nothing, but Cleveland should do whatever it can to make this happen.