Bruce Arians surprises with retirement, here’s his final record against the Saints
Super Bowl-winning Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians stepped down in a move to the Bucs front office, much to the surprise of the football world, tapping defensive coordinator Todd Bowles to replace him. Arians has been in the NFL for 30 seasons, and while only a head coach for eight years, he won a Super Bowl in 2020. He also coached tight ends for the New Orleans Saints in 1996. He’s experienced a lot of success, but not against against the Saints in 10 meetings (of course, none of Tampa Bay’s coaches have done well against the Saints). Let’s break it down and see what happened at both of his stops:
Arizona Cardinals: 1-2
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Arians faced off against the Saints three times as the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals, picking up just one win in those attempts. In 2013, the two teams played against each other during Arians’ third career game and the Saints picked up a 31-7 victory. The Cardinals returned the favor in 2015 as they beat the Saints 31-19 in the season opener. The last time he played against New Orleans while in Arizona was in 2016 where the Saints won a shootout, 48-41. Drew Brees threw for three touchdowns and Tim Hightower ran for two more, which led to the Saints victory.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 1-6
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Arians’ time with the Buccaneers will live on in Saints fandom history, as Tampa Bay was never able to beat New Orleans in the regular season during the Arians reign. They faced off in the playoffs once, a game that went to Tampa Bay, Drew Brees’ last career game. The most recent loss was the 9-0 shutout of Tampa Bay, in a game where Dennis Allen was just the acting Saints head coach at the time. This has been an interesting era of the rivalry, as each fanbase felt that they had the advantage over the other team.
Overall: 2-8
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Arians lost seven straight regular season match-ups against the Saints, but that one game in 2015 and the playoff game bring the total record to 2-8. New Orleans seems to have had Arians’ number, outside of that one time they ran into playoff Tom Brady.
Bonus Louisiana Matchup
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The 9-0 shutout was not the only time Arians was shutout by a team from Louisiana, as a Bruce Arians that was early on in his coaching career was the offensive coordinator at Alabama in 1997 when the Crimson Tide offense got shutout by the LSU Tigers.
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