Bruce Arians on success & failure

[kcbubb]

Pretty interesting article that I thought I’d pass along.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/631...serId=12657204

I coached in the NFL for years. This is the biggest reason young QBs succeed or fail

I remember the exact moment I knew Andrew Luck had the makeup to be successful.

I’m not talking about talent. Everyone knew he had the talent. I’m talking about makeup — the mental side of the game that you can’t measure on film or at the combine.

I was the offensive coordinator for the Indianapolis Colts at the time. I flew up to Stanford to work Andrew out ahead of the draft. Andrew was the best player in the draft, but I wanted to see what he was made of, so we put in some plays, ran them out on the field, then came back to a meeting room to talk.

I said to him: “OK, put 62 Y Choice up on the board” — it was a play we had just put in earlier that day.

Andrew started diagramming the play and breaking it down. Then I cut him off: “That’s not what I said.”

Andrew didn’t hesitate a beat, man. He fired right back: “That’s exactly what you said.” And it was; he was right. I chuckled and said, “OK, man, you got me. I’m trying to check you out.”

I just wanted to test him, to see if he had the fortitude to know he was right and stick up for himself. He put a fork in that real quick.

I knew then that when tough times came — and they always do for young quarterbacks — he could handle it. It wouldn’t crumble him. And after all my years in the NFL, I think that’s the No. 1 indicator of whether players in general and quarterbacks in particular will succeed or fail: how they handle failure.

Andrew’s rookie year was chaotic. Chuck Pagano was the head coach, but he left the team in October to fight leukemia. I became the interim head coach.

Later in the season, we played the Detroit Lions. In the fourth quarter, we were down and Andrew threw his third pick of the game. When he came off the field, he went right over to the defense.

“Hey, if you stop them, we’re going to score,” he said.

The defense got a stop and Andrew threw a 42-yard touchdown pass to cut Detroit’s lead to five. When he came off the field after that touchdown, he went back to the defense: “If you stop them again, we’ll win this game.”

The defense stopped them, he threw a touchdown on the last play of the game and we won.

Andrew didn’t let failure get him down. He didn’t dwell on it; he didn’t waver. He just let it piss him off enough to go: Hey, we’re going to win this game.

When I was the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Arizona Cardinals, I put guys in extremely, extremely tough situations during practice and hoped they would fail. I’d give one of my quarterbacks the ball with 35 seconds left, no timeouts and they needed to drive down the field for a touchdown to win. It was almost impossible, but I just wanted to see how they would handle failing. Were they going to let it get them down? Were they going to let it affect their work the next day?

Here’s the thing about failure, though: I think you can learn how to handle it. You can train yourself to deal with it the right way, in football and in life.

For me, it was always about finding out the why. Why was I not successful? Instead of focusing on the failure itself, focus on the reasons behind it. Was it a lack of preparation, or did I overprepare? Was it technique? Was it execution?

And then, once we figure out the why, let’s go work on it.

Years before I coached Andrew, I coached another talented young rookie quarterback named Peyton Manning. He had all the ability, but he also had the same quality Andrew had: He didn’t let failure derail him.

During the second game of his rookie season, we played at New England. Peyton had thrown three interceptions in his first start. He threw three more picks against the Patriots.

We were getting smoked 29-0. But I told him: “Stay in there. We’re going to run the two-minute offense. Let’s learn something.”

Sure enough, late in the game, he drove us down the field and scored a touchdown. We still lost, of course, but he hung in there. He learned.

My point is: You never, ever saw him down on himself. It was always: “How am I going to get better? Let’s get better. Let’s work, work, work.”

That was his mentality. And that’s the mentality anyone needs to successfully deal with failure.

— As told to Jayson Jenks

[TLO]

Ty

[wazu]

I remember when Andrew Luck quit football a week before the season started. So badly broken from being destroyed by the Chiefs in the playoffs the previous year. Did Bruce Arians see that coming?

[PHOG]

Arians can go straight to hell.

[Clyde Frog]

Arians is a fat, blowhard piece of shit who lucked into the easiest ride imaginable. He inherited an All-Star roster and got handed a golden ticket when pedo tom saw it as his best shot at another ring. Then they played a Chiefs team held together with duct tape in the Super Bowl, and the refs called one of the most one-sided first halves I’ve ever witnessed. The second things stopped being gift-wrapped, the fat bastard tucked his tail and bailed. Fraud.

[big nasty kcnut]

Good article but **** Bruce Arians that mush mouth sounding piece of shit.

[Wisconsin_Chief]

Bruce Arians is one of the most brilliant and underrated football coaches of our time, just ask Bruce Arians and he'll even tell you so!

[Rain Man]

I have zero respect for anyone who had any affiliation with tom brady.

[alpha_omega]

F that guy.

[Deberg_1990]

Former Chiefs coach Bruce Arians! Put some respect on that name!

[Radar Chief]

Originally Posted by Clyde Frog

Arians is a fat, blowhard piece of shit who lucked into the easiest ride imaginable. He inherited an All-Star roster and got handed a golden ticket when pedo tom saw it as his best shot at another ring. Then they played a Chiefs team held together with duct tape in the Super Bowl, and the refs called one of the most one-sided first halves I’ve ever witnessed. The second things stopped being gift-wrapped, the fat bastard tucked his tail and bailed. Fraud.

When Brady can sprint across the field to the Chiefs sideline and get in Tyrone Mathieu's ear then when Mathieu turns to talk shit back he gets the Personal Foul flag, you know there's some going on.

[Tonka83]

Never take advice from a man who wears a penis cap.

[In58men]

If you don’t feel anything after a loss nor “dwell” on it, you’re simply not a competitive person.

I still remember Luck on the sidelines against Chiefs in the playoffs trying to hype up his team. “Alright guys let’s go, alright guys”.

It was the lamest shit ever, Luck simply didn’t have that dawg in him.

Oh, and **** Bruce Arians.

[RealSNR]

Guy who got fired for almost turning Ben Roethlisberger into a brain in a jar talks about the time he happened to be on the right team when Andrew Luck was around.

[TinyEvel]

Man, I wonder how many times Luck had to tell the defense "Stop them and we'll score again" when they were down 38-10 against us in the playoffs.