It will not happen, because he is not technically eligible, but the NFL’s Rookie of the Year award should be handed to 61-year-old Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians.
It will not happen, because coaches do not get votes for Rookie of the Year, and technically, Arians — who coached the final 12 games of the 2012 season for the Colts while Chuck Pagano underwent treatments for leukemia — has actually coached in the NFL.
He coached well enough, in fact, to be named the 2012 NFL Coach of the Year, going 9-3.
Until the Cardinals hired Arians in the offseason, he never had his own NFL team.
And, given his nomadic coaching existence, it kind of figured, with eight vacant NFL jobs once the 2012 season ended, Arians was the eighth and final hire. So much for respect for being the reigning Coach of the Year. But NFL teams hire young these days, too often overlooking experience and wisdom while in search of the next hot young assistant.
Two Januarys ago, Arians was the offensive coordinator of the Steelers when Tim Tebow shot an arrow through Pittsburgh’s 12-4 regular season and led the Broncos to an upset wild-card victory. Arians was not retained by the Steelers after that game, and he figured he his NFL coaching career was finished at age 59.
About a week later, the Colts hired him, a move that turned out to be a precursor to him taking over for the ill Pagano for the rest of the 2012 season.
“What he did in my absence was truly remarkable,” Pagano has said.
Now, Arians has a perennial-losing Arizona team, which went 5-11 in 2012 after a 4-0 start, at 9-5 and in the playoff hunt with two games remaining.
The Cardinals’ five losses have come against teams with a combined 46-24 record. Their only loss to a team with a losing record was to the Rams (6-8). They’re one of the NFL’s hottest teams, having won six of the past seven games after a 3-4 start. That makes Arians 18-8 as an NFL head coach.
It’s quite a story.
“We could be a phenomenal story if we go out and beat Seattle this week,’’ Cardinals kicker Jay Feely, a former Giant and Jet, told The Post.
The Cardinals’ challenge on Sunday is to become the first team to beat the 12-2 Seahawks in Seattle in the last two seasons. The following week, they must beat the 49ers (10-4) at home then hope for other chips to fall for them to qualify for the playoffs for the first time since 2009.
“These fans are starving for a successful football team,’’ said Feely, who is in his fourth season in Arizona. “Look at history of our franchise. This is only the fourth winning record since they moved to Arizona [in 1988], which is unbelievable.’’
The Cardinals have made the playoffs just three times in the past 30 years. In the 26 seasons since moving from St. Louis, they’ve gone 5-11 seven times, 4-12 five times, 7-9 four times and 8-8 three times. They were 5-11 last season for the second time in three years and the fifth time in the last 11.
As daunting as it appears, wins over the Seahawks and 49ers would put the Cardinals in a position to make the playoffs, depending on how the Saints, 49ers and Panthers fare. The Cardinals lose all tiebreakers involving those teams except head-to-head with Carolina.
“If you want to be the best you’ve got to beat the best,’’ Feely said of the next two weeks. “[Seahawks quarterback] Russell Wilson has not lost at home in his career in Seattle. This is an opportunity to go up there and do something that no one has been able to do.’’
Even if the Cards win out these last two weeks, they still might come up short of the playoffs despite owning a record that would have them in first place in four of the eight NFL divisions.
Arians — who, ironically, as the Steelers offensive coordinator called the play that beat the Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII in February 2009 — has changed the culture in Arizona, which had lost 30 of its previous 48 games before his arrival. Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer came to the team having led his previous teams to just 12 wins over the past three seasons.
“The biggest change [Arians has] made here is he’s really brought accountability to this team — regardless of your position,’’ Feely said. “He starts every game and practice with this accountability sheet. You put stuff on a sheet that everyone did wrong, whether it’s a mental mistake or physical mistake, and it is cumulative, so you see if someone had one or four or six [errors] — even if it’s Carson Palmer. It raises the level of expectations for everyone.’’
In all, 26 players on the Cardinals’ 53-man roster were not on the team in 2012. Eleven of the 22 starters in the Cardinals’ win over the Titans last week were not on the team last season. Seven of the past eight touchdowns scored by the Cardinals came from players who weren’t with the team last year.
“All of our core players are guys that are going to get extended and going to be here,’’ Feely said. “It’s very young team that will be here for a long time.’’