Bruce Arians is, by all accounts, an excellent football coach. In his three years with the Cardinals, he has guided them to at least 10 wins in each season, they’ve made the playoffs twice, and Arizona got all the way to the NFC championship game last season.
With that said, Arians has some extremely questionable opinions on youth football and, for some reason, he has continued to make those opinions known publicly. First, Arians said that parents who don’t let their children play football are “fools” despite the noted health risks involved with the sport, and now he has once again called out football’s greatest enemy: moms.
Arians made a keynote speech to over 130 high school football coaches recently at the Arizona Cardinals High School Football Clinic, and the Cards’ coach had some choice words for mothers who stop their kids from playing football.
“We feel like this is our sport. It’s being attacked, and we got to stop it at the grass roots. It’s the best game that’s ever been f—— invented, and we got to make sure that moms get the message; because that’s who’s afraid of our game right now. It’s not dads, it’s moms.”
According to Arians, the issue of player safety boils down to the fact that young players are not being taught the proper way to play the game safely.
“Our job is to make sure the game is safe, at all levels. The head really has no business being in the game. There’s a lot of different teachers, but when I was taught how to tackle, and block, it was on a two-man sled, and you did it with your shoulder pads. That’s still the best way to do it. There’s really isn’t any place for your face in the game. I would beg all of you to continue to learn more about what they’re now calling rugby style tackling. I thought it was f—– football myself.”
The 63-year-old coach might actually have somewhat of a point about teaching proper fundamentals. However, it’s overshadowed by his bizarre choice to blame the sport’s safety issue on mothers who are just looking out for the well-being of their kids. If moms really are “attacking” football, they’re doing a pretty terrible job, as it remains the most popular sport in America.
Also, only 40 percent of women polled by MSNBC last year said they would not support their son playing football, compared to 32 percent of men. That eight percent gap doesn’t seem to reflect Arians’ point that dads are supporting boys playing football while moms that don’t know what they’re talking about are shutting it down.
Maybe just stick to worrying about the Cardinals and which dumb looking hats you’re going to wear next year, and leave the whole youth football thing alone, Bruce.
(Via NBC Sports 1060)
