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For just the second season since Peyton Manning was drafted in 1998, Bruce Arians will not be on an NFL sideline this fall.
Arians, who began coaching football in 1975 and served two different stints with the Indianapolis Colts, surprisingly announced his retirement from NFL coaching on March 30.
“I have spent most of the last 50 years of my life on the sidelines as a football coach in one form or another,” Arians wrote in a statement released on Buccaneers.com. “Today, I have made the decision to move from the sidelines into another role with the Buccaneers front office, assisting Jason Licht and his staff.”
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Bruce Arians Groomed Peyton Manning & Andrew Luck
Arians landed his first NFL coaching job with the Kansas City Chiefs in 1989. Four jobs later, he became the quarterbacks coach in Indianapolis for rookie Peyton Manning in 1998.
Manning struggled as a rookie. He threw a league-leading 28 interceptions during his first season, as the Colts finished with a 3-13 record. But under Arians’ tutelage, Manning cut his interceptions in half during his second season, and the Colts went 13-3 in 1999.
Arians served as Manning’s quarterback coach for three seasons. By his final year under Arians, Manning was leading the NFL in passing yards and touchdowns.
Arians moved on to become offensive coordinator with the Cleveland Browns and then wide receivers coach and offensive coordinator with the Pittsburgh Steelers. With the Steelers, Arians won two Super Bowls as an assistant coach.
Following a somewhat messy departure from Pittsburgh after the 2011 season, Arians returned to the Colts for Andrew Luck’s rookie season.
Coming off a 2-14 campaign, the Colts were in a major rebuild. In addition to Luck, head coach Chuck Pagano and general manager Ryan Grigson were in their first years too.
But thanks in part to Arians, Luck developed into an offensive rookie of the year candidate, throwing for 4,374 yards and 23 touchdowns. The Colts went 11-5 and returned to the playoffs.
Bruce Arians Holds a Special Place in Colts History
As Indianapolis fans remember, Luck’s development is hardly the full story of the 2012 Colts campaign.
During the team’s Week 4 bye, Pagano received a leukemia diagnosis. He missed the next 12 games for cancer treatment, and in his absence, Arians served as the team’s interim head coach.
Under Arians, the Colts posted a 9-3 record. That mark isn’t counted towards Arians’ official NFL record, as the league awarded the record to Pagano, but it was an astonishing achievement for Arians in the face of unique adversity.
For the successful 12-week run, Arians won the 2012 NFL Coach of the Year.
That was the beginning of another successful run that saw the Colts go 11-5 and earn a postseason berth three years in a row. Arians has been credited with helping jumpstart that success and Luck’s career.
Arians can thank the Colts too. In 2012, he was a 60-year-old coach who had never received serious consideration for NFL head coaching jobs. After the 2012 season, the Arizona Cardinals hired him as head coach, and he quickly led the organization to three straight 10-win seasons.
Prior to Arians, the Cardinals last won at least 10 games in three consecutive years from 1974-76.
After a year in the broadcasting booth in 2018, Arians returned to coaching with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He became the oldest head coach to win the Super Bowl with a 31-9 victory against the Chiefs in Feb. 2021.
Including his stint as interim head coach with the Colts, Arians won 89 regular season NFL games.
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