Bruce Arians has only one target for a return to the NFL | Exclusive

Former Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians has confirmed he is interested in returning to the NFL but only as a head coach and not as an offensive coordinator or in a front-office role as a team president, director of football operations or general manager.That would effectively preclude any chance of Arians, 74, returning to the Cardinals, who might be moving on from GM Monti Ossenfort after this season. He didn’t sound as if he would be interested in any of that sort of job description if he were to come back to the NFL.“Probably not. I’d rather coach it,” Arians told The Arizona Republic during a phone conversation on Thursday, Nov. 12. “And I don’t want to be putting the team together and looking over someone else’s shoulder who’s coaching it.“I’d rather put the team together, coach it and try to win another championship.”Arians went 49-30-1 in five seasons with the Cardinals from 2013-17 and is the franchise’s all-time winningest coach. He retired because of health concerns but resurfaced as head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2019 and won Super Bowl 55 with Tom Brady at quarterback after the 2020 season.He was 31-18 during his three seasons there and 5-1 in the playoffs. He stayed on with the Buccaneers in a senior football consultant role, but told The Republic, “It wasn’t my cup of tea.”News of Arians’ interest in possibly coaching again came to light Nov. 12 during his appearance on a podcast with NFL insider Jordan Schultz when he said, “Now that I’m healthy again, I’ve got the itch again. So, we’ll see.”Asked if he expects that an NFL team would consider hiring him again as head coach, Arians told The Republic, “I don’t know, I doubt it. I mean nobody’s getting hired at 74, but I’m finally healthy for the first time in a while. If my health was this good, I would have never retired.”Arians is a three-time cancer survivor who in February had surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm.This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Bruce Arians has only one target for a return to the NFL | Exclusive