Dan Bickley

The Republic | azcentral.com

Truth is hard to find in the NFL. It’s even harder to speak.

Fortunately, that isn’t a problem in Arizona, where the blunt nature of head coach Bruce Arians has created one the best working cultures in professional football.

“He’s almost like a father figure,” veteran tight end Jermaine Gresham said. “He coaches you hard and sometimes it hurts your feelings. But he means well. He wants the best for you, as a player and a person. And he never lies. That’s someone you can respect.”

Brutal honesty from Arians isn’t a new development. But after one week of training camp, the value of his approach has never been more obvious.

He said Budda Baker looked “like a damn rookie.” He ripped into his wide receivers after an awful day of practice. He let loose on an uncensored podcast with former Colts punter Pat McAfee, admitting that he ran up the score against Chicago in 2015, just to punctuate how badly the Bears messed up by not hiring him after an embarrassing job interview two years earlier.

He even copped to his disdain for NFL officials, where his wrath can be heard during practice sessions.

“Absolutely … even in Foot Locker,” he said. “No striped shirt is safe.”

It seems counterintuitive that harsh words and public criticism can have a bonding effect on a football team, tearing down walls between the coaching staff and the men in uniform. But truth is sacred inside this violent profession, where players are asked to play through pain, push their bodies to the limit and marginalize their quality of life after football.

They need something that transcends the sacrifice, something to believe in and something worth dying for. That level of commitment is compromised the minute players can’t trust their leader.

“I’ve worked in a couple of situations where (head coaches) had different agendas than the team,” Arians said. “They had personal agendas, and it’s obvious. With me, there are no secrets. And our locker room is extremely close because we are honest with each other.”

Here are some more reminders:

Chris Johnson is back in Arizona for a third season, even though the veteran running back felt abandoned in the early stages of 2016, touching the ball only nine times in the team’s first three losses. Johnson said he re-signed with the Cardinals because he was injured after four games and has no idea if the diminished role would’ve continued. He also said didn’t want to bother learning another playbook.

But Arians’ apology went a long way, and deep down, Johnson trusts his head coach that it will not happen again.

Next, Carson Palmer. After the Cardinals quarterback visited with Peter King, the renowned NFL writer said he’d be “shocked” if Palmer retired after the 2017 season. Think about that. Six years ago, Palmer was ready to choose retirement over playing for the Bengals. The level of transparent discourse in Arizona has surely made a difference in his mindset.

Finally, star tackle Jared Veldheer. After missing Thursday’s practice for personal reasons, there was speculation that his absence could’ve been related to the ominous nature of a new CTE report and the sudden retirement of Ravens offensive lineman John Urschel.

Veldheer returned to the team the following day, offering no explanations. But we can assume it would be hard for any player to leave a close-knit team like the Cardinals, where trust is not an issue. Especially when Arians has plowed through his own series of health issues in Arizona, proving that life without football wouldn’t mean much to the Cardinals boss.

Players can relate to a guy like that. And it says a lot that not a single player leaked the information that Arians was coaching with kidney cancer in 2016, which he disclosed to the team in early December. It was his third bout with the dreaded disease.

“Once you get an opportunity to play for a person like that, you see the difference between him and other coaches around the league,” Gresham said. “And you have so much respect for him. There are tons of guys around the NFL who want to play for B.A. because they know if you have his back, he has your back. And if he says something about you, it’s to make you motivated. And that he cares about you. And that he loves you. That’s B.A.”

It’s sad that Arians is the exception and not the rule in the NFL. But football coaches can get sideways. It’s hard to keep a job. It's hard to maintain morale in a room with 53 players, where the temptation to mollify and sugarcoat must be overwhelming. The profession is also full of paranoia, where disclosing information to the media is considered ammunition for the opponent. Lying is encouraged, part of the job description. For some, it becomes second nature.

Arians is not a saint. He became an NFL head coach at age 60 and is nearing the end of his career. He doesn’t care what people think because he doesn’t need to worry about his next employer. He admits he "might be a little more guarded" if he were 20 years younger, if he was worried about his ability to put “bread on the family table.”

But you can’t hide an honest man, especially in the NFL. That’s what makes Arians special, a coach with a sharp tongue, zero BS and no sacred cows inside the locker room. Not even Larry Fitzgerald.

He's also a big reason why the Cardinals don’t have to go searching for free agents when trouble brews in training camp. They're already calling, looking for a culture of candor that is far too scarce in the NFL.

Reach Bickley at dan.bickley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8253. Follow him on twitter.com/dan.bickley. Listen to “Bickley and Marotta” weekdays from 12-2 p.m. on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station.