Bruce Arians' first job in the NFL was as the Kansas City Chiefs running backs coach. (AP Images)
ASSOCIATED PRESSIn Super Bowl LV, Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians will face the Kansas City Chiefs, the organization with whom he started his NFL coaching career.
“I love the Chiefs,” Arians said. “It’s a first-class organization.”
His son, Jake, was even a Chiefs ballboy.
A quarterback guru who coached Ben Roethlisberger, Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck and Carson Palmer, the 68-year-old Arians is known for his vertical passing offense.
But his NFL coaching debut came as a running backs coach under Marty Schottenheimer and the ground-and-pound Chiefs from 1989 to 1992.
Though that might seem to go against his coaching style, Arians points out his roots as a wishbone quarterback at Virginia Tech, where he held the school record for rushing touchdowns by a quarterback (11) until Jerod Evans broke it in 2016.
“I love running the football,” he said.
A proponent of the play-action fake, Arians over the years showed his quarterbacks footage of Chiefs quarterback Steve DeBerg, who was the master of the fake and made great use of defenses focusing on Kansas City’s punishing running game.
Under Arians that stable of MartyBall backs included Christian Okoye, Barry Word, James Saxon and Herman Heard.
“We had a great running back room,” Arians said.
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One of those backs was Todd McNair, who is now a running backs coach under Arians for the Buccaneers.
McNair was so adept a pass-catching, third-down back for the run-oriented Chiefs, that set of downs became known as “3rd and McNair” in the early 1990s.
While playing six years for the Chiefs, McNair caught 186 passes for 1,856 yards and rushed 128 times for 667 yards.
Asked what it’s like to reach the Super Bowl for the first time in his coaching career and face the team he played for in six of his eight NFL years, McNair smiled.
“It’s surreal,” he said. “It’s pretty exciting.”
McNair, who Arians recruited to Temple during their college days, is not the only figure from that Arians/Schottenheimer era on the Tampa coaching staff.
Now a Buccaneers coach, cornerback Kevin Ross of the Kansas City Chiefs tackles quarterback John ... [+]
Diamond Images via Getty ImagesKevin Ross, who has known McNair for 30 years and was a co-captain with him on the Chiefs, is the Buccaneers cornerbacks coach.
A physical, bump-and-run corner who played for the Chiefs from 1984 to 1993 and in 1997, Ross made the Pro Bowl in the 1989 and 1990 seasons for them. He was inducted into the Chiefs Hall of Fame in 2011.
He rooted for them to win last year’s Super Bowl.
“I was very happy for them and now to play against them in the biggest game I’ve ever been involved with is special,” Ross said. “I hate that somebody has to lose.”
Ross will be tasked with slowing the Chiefs Legion of Zoom receivers, including Tyreek Hill, who had 13 catches for 269 yards and three touchdowns against the Buccaneers during the Chiefs’ 27-24 victory on Nov. 19.
Mahomes threw for 462 yards in the game, and Ross compared Mahomes’ ability to elude rushers and throw across his body to any point on the field to John Elway, a longtime nemesis of the Chiefs.
It might have been the Chiefs — not Elway’s Denver Broncos — who regularly represented the AFC in the Super Bowl had they had a quarterback like Mahomes to go along with their stellar defense led by Derrick Thomas and Neil Smith.
“If we had Mahomes back then, we’d probably have four rings — at least,” Ross said. “That defense was very dominant back then, and we had a nice, sound running game. We just didn’t have that firepower at that position that they have now.”
The current Buccaneers have offensive firepower as well, and Arians, who is in the second year of his four-year contract with them, directs it.
Tampa Bay traded a 2019 sixth-round pick to the Arizona Cardinals for him because the Cardinals still held his rights through 2019, according to his Arizona contract, which was signed in 2015.
Arians was not the only notable Chiefs coach during his time in Kansas City. Hall of Famers Bill Cowher and Tony Dungy were there too.
“What a great staff we had,” Arians said. “I learned so much football there.”
Arians’ current coaching pupils share his appreciation for their years with the Chiefs.
“Kansas City was such a great place to play,” McNair said. “The fans were amazing. I had a great time there.”
The Link LonkFebruary 02, 2021 at 08:00PM
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The Buccaneers’ Bruce Arians Began His NFL Career With The Kansas City Chiefs - Forbes
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