“We feel like this is our sport. It’s being attacked, and we got to stop it at the grass roots,” Arians said at the “Arizona Cardinals High School Football Coaches Clinic” on Friday, according to Ed Cole of NBC Sports 1060 in Phoenix. “It’s the best game that’s ever been f—— invented, and we got to make sure that moms get the message; because that’s who’s afraid of our game right now. It’s not dads, it’s moms.”
The message isn’t much different than one he delivered at league meetings in March when Arians told Sports Illustrated’s Peter King that parents are “fools” if they won’t let their kids play football. But on Friday, he narrowed the scope from “parents” to “moms.”
Many of the NFL’s most prominent names, including Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw, Adrian Peterson, Kurt Warner and Brett Favre, have all said that they wouldn’t let their sons play football. LeBron James echoed the sentiment and even President Barack Obama told The New Yorker that if he had a son, he wouldn’t let him play pro football.