Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians was hospitalized earlier this week with chest pains after his team fell to 4-5-1 with a loss to Minnesota Vikings. Was the timing a coincidence?
Larry Fitzgerald doesn’t seem to think so.
On Monday, Fitzgerald told reporters that he and his teammates feel “partly responsible” for Arians’ health issues.
“I think there’s a trend here,” Fitzgerald said, via Paola Boivin of The Arizona Republic. “It’s stressful when we’re playing bad. We were 13-2 last year and he was feeling good. As a player, you feel partly responsible for what’s happened. A lot of that falls on our shoulders.”
Arians has since been released from the hospital and returned to work Tuesday, so fortunately it doesn’t sound like tests showed anything he should be seriously concerned about. Still, Fitzgerald spoke like a man who feels his team’s poor play may have landed the coach in the hospital.
“At times when you’re in the midst of a season, and things are not going the way you want them to go, you can lose sight of (what’s important),” Fitzgerald said. “You feel like the world’s closing in on you. You go out to eat at restaurants and people are telling you how bad you are and how bad you’re playing, you kind of lose sight of real-world perspective.
“Something like this really snaps you back to reality. It makes you appreciate real life. obviously, (losing) in Minnesota, it sucked. … But we’re human beings. At the end of the day, we love Coach. We want to see him healthy and live a long, long life and that’s really what it’s about.”
Arians, who is known for delivering some fantastic zings at opponents, is one of the oldest coaches in the NFL at age 64. He obviously knows his body best, but you’d hate to hear that losing football games is taking a toll on his health.
