Pittsburgh Steelers look to fill Bruce Arians coaching slot through internal promotion – NFL News
A week after Pittsburgh Steelers’ offensive coach, Bruce Arians, announced apparently his controversial retirement.
The team management is reported to have been weighing to fill his position through promotion of one of his assistant staff.
Arians announced his retirement after the team management reportedly refused to renew his contract a week earlier.
Steelers are now aiming to reshuffle one of his staff from other positions to fill the vacant spot.
The team has a tradition of promoting their assistant staff to higher position to fill available positions. Arians had been made an offensive assistant coach through same move.
A couple of names have so far emerged leading the prospects, without being confirmed or denied by the team management if they were going to take a decision on them in the near future.
The names include the offensive line co-ordinator, Sean Kugler, and quarterbacks assistant coach, Randy Fichtner.
Arians’ retirement was reported to be an outcome of the Steelers’ failure in the playoff game, which came about without any knowledge of their head coach, Mike Tomlin.
Tomlin in a statement had confirmed that the assistant coach told him of his retirement, which, according to some reports, emerged later, was a result of the team’s refusal to extend his review.
The decision reportedly came from the top management, with a couple of reports pointing out at the president of the team.
The Steelers finished the 2011 National Football League (NFL) regular season atop the American Football Conference (AFC) North division, tied with their rivals the Baltimore Ravens.
At the end they lost the tie breaker advantage to the Ravens, who beat them twice in the regular season. The team still managed to reach the wild card round of the playoff, and lost to the Denver Broncos.
The teams’ offense could manage only 10 points in the game and it was seen there and then that Arians could be an obvious target for the team.
Proving the fears true, the team apparently declined to extend the deal of the officials and only option left for him then was to resign.
As the Steelers look to fill his position through an inside promotion, Bruce Arians is reported to be in contacts with a number of teams despite his apparent retirement from the game.
His move of pursing his coaching career prospects elsewhere confirms the reports that the announcement of his retirement was a controversial decision, which has been made by an official other than Arians himself.
Some of the teams that Arians is reported to have been in contact with included the Arizona Cardinals. The former coach himself has not confirmed or denied these reports.
He is the only firing by the Steelers this year.
Tags: