Bruce Arians Wins Coach of the Year Award

At the NFL Honors show tonight, the annual NFL awards were announced, and while no current Colt received an award, a former Colt received a notable one.  Former Colts coach and current Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians was named the NFL's Coach of the Year for the 2014 season.

Arians led the Cardinals to an 11-5 season despite a number of injuries, including to starting quarterback Carson Palmer.  At times even playing with a third stringer at the position, along with a number of players missing from the defensive side of the football, Arians turned in a masterful coaching job this year to get the Cardinals into the playoffs with an 11-win season.  If you ask me, it was a no-brainer decision for Arians as Coach of the Year.

This is the second time in the last three years that Arians has won the award.  In 2012, as interim head coach of the Indianapolis Colts in wake of Chuck Pagano's absence as he battled leukemia, Arians led the Colts to a 9-3 record and 11-5 on the season to get them to the playoffs.  According to Mark Dalton, the VP of the Cardinals' media relations staff, that was an NFL first:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Bruce Arians is 1st in NFL history to win Coach of Yr Award twice in 3 year span w different teams</p>&mdash; Mark Dalton (@CardsMarkD) <a href="https://twitter.com/CardsMarkD/status/561700345970061312">February 1, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Congrats to Bruce Arians, an incredibly deserving recipient of the Coach of the Year award.