The Quarterback Whisperer

by Bruce Arians

  I looked back at Carson and he was on the ground, writhing in pain. Oh shit, I thought. As he had released the ball, defensive end Kimo von Oelhoffen drove his shoulder into Carson’s left leg. The hit tore Carson’s anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his knee. Kimo said he heard two pops that sounded like gunshots. I know Kimo felt horrible about the injury. Hell, we all did. You never want guys on the opposing team to get hurt—never—and this looked like a devastating injury.

  We ended up winning the game 31–17. But I wouldn’t be telling the truth if I said Carson’s injury didn’t have an outcome in the final score. We captured the Vince Lombardi Trophy a month later. Still, I couldn’t get Carson’s pass out of my mind. I love the deep ball as much as anyone, and that throw by Carson was a masterpiece, an artistic beauty.

  Carson worked his tail off to get ready for opening game of the following season. From afar, I admired his work ethic. Your quarterback needs to be the most driven player on your team—everyone else takes their cue from his actions—and it was clear to me that Carson had all the needed intangibles. For the next few years, as the Steelers and Bengals played twice a season, I always looked forward to being on the same field with the Human Jugs Machine, if for no other reason than to see him rifle spiraling pigskins into orbit.

  Carson had a nice run in Cincinnati. After recovering from that knee injury that he suffered against us in the playoffs, he started all sixteen games in 2006 and only missed one offensive snap. That season he threw for over 4,000 yards for the first time in his career and was named MVP of the Pro Bowl. His work ethic was admired around the league.

  The next season, 2007, he set a franchise record by throwing for 4,131 yards. He injured his elbow in 2008, but bounced back the following year to lead the Bengals to the playoffs. Carson was traded to the Raiders in 2011. His team didn’t enjoy as much success certainly as Carson had hoped for—he went 8–16 as Oakland’s starting quarterback over two seasons—but every time I saw him play I still marveled at that golden arm of his. What if he was my quarterback?, I often thought.

  What if?

  In January 2013, three weeks after I was named the Cardinals’ head coach, Steve Keim walked into my office and asked me what I thought about Carson, who was then the starting quarterback for the Oakland Raiders. “We might be able to get him in a trade,” Steve said.

  “Well, what do we have to give up?” I asked.

  “Not that much,” Steve replied.

  “If we get Carson,” I said, “we will win right away. And every player on this team will know we are legit and we’re gunning for the Super Bowl.”

  In early April 2013—four months after I was hired—we pulled the trigger on the trade. We sent a sixth-round pick to the Raiders (176th overall) in exchange for Carson and Oakland’s seventh-round pick (219th overall). We also gave the Raiders a conditional seventh-rounder in the 2014 draft if Carson started thirteen games in the 2013 season.

  Several NFL writers described the Cardinals as being in a “rebuilding phase” when I took over. I didn’t believe that at all. Not. One. Second. For starters, I was too damn old to rebuild anything, and I wouldn’t have taken the job if I thought it was going to take several years for us to become a Super Bowl contender. But I love it when writers dump on my team—and for the record, I have a great relationship with most NFL beat writers and I truly enjoy interacting with them—because that just gives us all the more motivation to work hard every day.

  When we announced the trade at a press conference, I made it clear to reporters that the move was done for one reason: to win now. After examining our roster, I knew that the team was a quarterback away from contending for a championship. The Cardinals franchise hadn’t been stable at the quarterback position since Kurt Warner retired after the 2009 season, and nothing will doom an NFL team’s chances to rise to the top faster than being in flux at QB. We had already signed free agent quarterback Drew Stanton a month earlier, and now with Carson in the fold I felt we had a real shot to win our division and also make some noise in the postseason.

  As soon as the deal was finalized, Carson flew to Phoenix. We sat down in my office and we talked for over an hour about everything except football—our shared love of golf, our wives, and our kids. I told Carson that one of the best days of my life was when my son, Jake, asked me to be the best man in his wedding. That act by Jake, I said, kind of validated everything I had done as a father. I wanted to let Carson into my heart, and the best way to do that was for me to talk about one of the greatest days of my life with Jake, who is my best friend, on par with Chris and Kristi.

  That night Carson, owner Michael Bidwill, Steve Keim, and I went to dinner at a steakhouse called Mastro’s City Hall in Scottsdale. The wine list is expansive at City Hall, and I learned that Carson is something of a wine connoisseur. We continued to hit it off, and I joked that we would be two cowboys riding off together into the sunset. “Let’s make it a long ride,” I told him, “a long and great ride.”

  Carson was different than any other NFL starting quarterback I had coached. He was mature, had kids, was an overall number one draft pick, and had been the face of two other franchises. Now he was entering the twilight of his career. This meant I had to handle him like no other QB I had been with. I couldn’t be the cool uncle with Carson; I had to be more like an older brother, one who offered counsel more than edicts, and yet who would be bossy when needed.

  Carson and I talked about how he best learns and relearns. He said he needed to take as many mental reps as possible during the week, meaning he liked to watch film of the upcoming opponent as early each week as possible. Most weeks we tried to have the game plan pop up on his tablet between 5 and 7 p.m. on Tuesdays. Some quarterbacks can look at a play once and commit it to memory then and there—Andrew Luck had that gift—but Carson likes to study each play over and over to make certain that he doesn’t miss anything.

  We usually have around 150 plays in the game plan. For each one, there is a formation to learn, a personnel group to learn, and the opponent’s defensive tendencies to learn. Then Carson needs to know what to change each play to if he sees a certain look by the defense, and, if the change is to pass play, he must know who his first, second, and third receiver options are. It’s a massive amount of both data and logic to absorb, catalog, and recall in seconds when needed. Think of cramming for your hardest college test, and you’ll have some idea of the extent to which a starting QB in the NFL prepares week after week for each game. To help Carson get battle-ready we used cutting-edge technology.

  At his home Carson could put on a virtual reality headset called STRIVR Oculus. Here’s how it works: A 360-degree camera is mounted on a tripod and placed next to the quarterback at practice. The camera sees everything the quarterback sees as he faces the scout-team defense. So when Carson puts on the headset and moves his head in any direction he can see what is happening all around him at any moment in every part of the field. This is particularly useful for identifying the location of potential blitzes.

  The technology also allows Carson to watch and evaluate his throwing mechanics. Most quarterbacks are like golfers; if their stroke is off, even in the most miniscule way, the ball simply won’t hit its intended target. So Carson, in the comfort of his home, can study his arm angle and follow-through, his footwork, and his balance simultaneously when he throws. If he misses a pass in practice, he can quickly pinpoint the reason by examining the play from myriad perspectives.

  I’ve been a fan of virtual reality for two decades. Back in the 1980s I told anyone who would listen that if someone could invent a headset to put on the quarterback that would allow him to visually take mental reps he’d be a millionaire. But it took until 2014 for it to be readily available. About fifteen NFL teams now use it.

  You see yourself, you see your wide receivers, you see your running back behind you, and you see the multiplicity of defensive schemes that you face. Carson is addicted to it. He basically can practice at home
without breaking a sweat. And our backup quarterbacks can get reps through VR. It’s a wonderful tool.

  Two days before games, Carson watches film to learn how pocket passers recently performed against our upcoming opponent. He wants to know where the defense was vulnerable and where were the danger zones that he should try to avoid. He also likes to view all the third-down plays of the team we’re about to face. NFL games are won and lost on third downs, and Carson always looks to pick up tendencies that he could exploit.

  On the day before games, Carson reviews our game plan in painstaking detail to discover one or two things he needs to work on before kickoff. Then we huddle together and I try to answer every question he has. Carson always wants more—more mental reps, more information about the defense, more time to study. All quarterbacks in the NFL work hard—they have to, or they won’t be in the league for long—but Carson takes all that to another level. This should be a lesson to all young football players who aspire to be a quarterback: Carson has as much arm talent as anyone, but it is his relentless off-the-field work that makes him a special NFL player.

  In my first draft with the Cardinals we made a controversial selection in the third round when we picked safety Tyrann Mathieu out of LSU. He had been kicked out of school there—his core issue was a documented drug problem—but he had first-round talent.

  When I met Ty before the draft I could tell he was a good kid. It absolutely crushed him to lose the thing he loved most in life: football. He politely asked me for an opportunity, and if I gave him one, he said he wouldn’t disappoint me. I believed he was sincere.

  Draft day came and we were able to pick Tyrann with the sixty-ninth overall selection. Since then Tyrann has been a model teammate and a great father, and now he’s got a golden future.

  There are too many times in the NFL when coaches and general managers are too worried about public opinion. We forget about the person and what the person is going through. The NFL is too quick to cast some players out of the league because they have a bad image. We’re ruining lives.

  Instead we need to try to fix the players. Is the problem alcohol? Drugs? Let’s fix it. Let’s try to address the problem rather than kick players to the curb because they have a tainted reputation. This is one of my biggest pet peeves with the NFL.

  Another pet peeve—the insane work hours of NFL coaches.

  After I was fired from Temple in 1988, I became the running backs coach for the Kansas City Chiefs. The head coach was Marty Schottenheimer and we worked unbelievable hours, typically staying in the office five days a week until one or two in the morning. Marty was a micromanager and he wanted to meet with his position coaches every day as a group. We’d sit in the office twiddling our thumbs watching the clock tick as we waited for Marty to come talk to us. It was aggravating as hell. I almost never got to see my kids before they went to bed.

  That fall Jake started playing junior high football. His games were on Thursday evenings. But Thursdays were also when I usually broke down the film of our next game opponent the following week. So I was torn. I eventually walked into the office of Joe Pendry, our offensive coordinator, who I had known for years.

  “Joe, man, I gotta see Jake play,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Joe said.

  “They are playing at the junior high right now,” I said.

  “Then go,” he said.

  “But you know Marty,” I said. “He doesn’t like anybody leaving the damn office before we meet with him for our OD [offense-defense] position meetings.”

  “I’ll tell Marty you went jogging,” Joe said. “When you come back, throw some water on your face so it looks like you’ve been sweating.”

  So every Thursday that fall I went to see Jake play and then I’d sprinkle water on my face before we met with Coach Schottenheimer. It was silly but necessary to keep my job. It was so important to see Jake play, to see his face light up when he spotted his old man sitting in the stands. The hassle was well worth it. I told myself then that if I ever became an NFL head coach, I would demand that my assistants carve family time into their schedules. Work will always be there; kids won’t.

  I missed so much of Jake’s and Kristi’s development because I was imprisoned in the office. One of the first rules I told my assistants in Arizona was that they had to be out of the office by 10 p.m. If they stayed later, then that was because they didn’t want to go home. It’s simply uncalled for to be sleeping in offices.

  You know why? Because the game ain’t that damn hard.

  The first time I met with the Cardinal players I had a simple message: We have to trust each other.

  “Everyone in the building has to trust that the other guys are doing their jobs,” I said. “We have one cause, and that’s to win the world championship. Every decision you make, on and off the field, is either going to help the cause or hurt it. You have to respect the cause—and respect each other. You have to respect the people cooking your food and cleaning the locker room because they are fighting for the cause as well.”

  I also emphasized that they had to respect the process of preparation.

  “The process is what you do on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday,” I said. “You can’t think about Sunday on Monday. You gotta get Monday’s work done, and only then can you move on to Tuesday. You can’t have a bad practice on Wednesday, because you don’t get a do-over. The process is key. No speech by me is going to get you ready to play. Snot bubbles and tears don’t win shit. They’ll get you knocked out real quick. If you respect the process, you’ll be prepared, and there’s never any pressure when you’re prepared. I never feel any pressure calling plays, and I don’t think you as players should feel pressure on Sundays when you step between the lines—as long as you’ve honored the process of preparation.”

  I told my players that I don’t believe in “chemistry.” That’s the most overused word in football. Teams don’t have chemistry, they have caring. When players and coaches truly care about each other they become accountable to each other. I’ve been in locker rooms where it’s offensive guys versus defensive guys and where everyone is divided into cliques. It’s the teams where all players are asking each other questions like, “Hey, how’s the wife?” or “How are the kids?” that perform the best.

  I laid down one law: We don’t haze anybody on the Cardinals. There is no room for hazing on my team because we’re going to need the young guys to win. I don’t care if they carry helmets or water bottles—that stuff is easy—but there will be no demeaning hazing such as taping guys to the goalpost.

  “Everyone needs to remember to help each other at all times,” I told my players in our opening meeting. “And if a veteran sees a young guy who’s partying too much, well, that veteran needs to get that young guy’s ass out of the bar. Because if you don’t, it will come back to bite all of us. That’s what accountability is.”

  My first job with Carson was to figure out how to make him comfortable in our offense. We had talked about no-huddle, but whenever we ran it early in our first season together he looked a little out of sorts. His execution of the no-huddle was different than that of most of my other quarterbacks. He’d check with me on the sideline before running anything. Carson wanted to make sure we were in the right play rather than speed up the game. That often took time—precious time—but it became part of who we were.

  I also knew I couldn’t be too hard on Carson at practice. You can’t publicly undress proven NFL players in practice. Carson has earned that. But that doesn’t mean I can’t get a point across by excoriating the backup quarterback about something—even though I’m really talking to Carson. To put it in no-mince words, you rip the third-stringer a new one so the starter gets the message.

  Here’s an example. We’ll run two practices during training camp on two fields that are next to each other. If I see that the starter is making the same mistakes on his field as the backup is on his, I’ll scream loud enough so everyone can hear. “What
the fuck are you looking at?” I’ll ask the backup. “It’s cover three so you should be looking over here but you’re looking over there. Your helmet is pointing that way so I know you’re looking over there. And don’t tell me you like the fucking matchup, because it wasn’t man-to-man.”

  In cases like this, my words are aimed at the backup. But in reality, I’m trying to get my point across to the starter. And it’s been my experience that the more colorful language I use—and if you didn’t guess it, there aren’t many four-letter words that aren’t in my everyday vocabulary—the more successful I am in capturing the attention of my players.

  I clearly got Carson’s attention. In our first year together—his tenth season in the NFL—he threw for a career-best 4,274 yards. Carson and I simply clicked almost from the day we first met. I admired how hard he worked and how many hours he put in studying the game plan; defenses rarely surprised him. His arm was even better than I thought—he could wing it as good as any quarterback I’d ever been around—and he was a professional in every sense of the word, from how he interacted with teammates in the locker room to how he patiently dealt with the media to even signing every last autograph after every home game. Remember: the great quarterbacks still play the role of leader long after they walk off the field. The great ones earn the respect of their teammates as much with their actions outside the white lines as inside them. Carson is an example of this.

  My Saturday night meetings with Carson were extremely productive in our first season together. He always came with great questions about certain plays that he was struggling to understand or execute. He was like the kid in school who always needed to be overprepared for the final exam—and I loved that about him.