Bruce Arians rides to Indianapolis Colts’ rescue

What might have been a tale of woe for the Indianapolis Colts now reads like a Hollywood story.

The franchise, among the NFL’s most successful over the last decade, was coming off a 2-14 season and had parted ways with future Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning. After his team started 1-2, first-year Coach Chuck Pagano learned during the bye week that he had a treatable form of leukemia and handed the coaching reins to Bruce Arians, his offensive coordinator.

Arians, 60, who five years ago successfully battled prostate cancer, will never forget the call from Pagano during the team’s week off.

“He had missed Thursday in the office, so I said, ‘Where’d you guys go? Did you have a good time?’” Arians said. “And he said, ‘Well, I went to the doctor.’ I said, ‘Yeah, how’d that go?’ He said, ‘I’m still in the hospital. I’ve got leukemia.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean, you’ve got leukemia?’

“Floored me, just floored me.”

Then, Pagano delivered the second piece of news: Arians would be taking over as coach. By every indication, the Colts were in a downward spiral. The forecast called for nuclear winter.

“He called me as soon as he got off the phone with Chuck,” said Jake Arians of his father, who is his best friend and was the best man at his wedding. “As soon as the bluntness and the shock of that wore off, it was, ‘I’ll be there tomorrow.’ My wife said, ‘Get out of here. You’ve got to go up there.’”

Hours later, Jake hopped in his car and made the seven-hour drive from Birmingham, Ala., to Indianapolis to help however possible.

It was the first NFL head-coaching opportunity for the elder Arians, who was abruptly dropped as Pittsburgh’s offensive coordinator after last season despite playing a key role in getting the Steelers to three Super Bowls.

“So my dad and I kind of bounced ideas off each other all week,” Jake said. “I was a sounding board as much as I could be.”

Arians took a big gamble in his debut. He decided to go with a no-huddle offense. It was a bold move in light of his team’s inexperience.

“If it had been his third or fourth week as a rookie coach, I’d have said, ‘OK, whatever you think,’” said his son, who had a brief NFL career as a kicker. “But this was like his third or fourth hour. This was Monday afternoon after lunch; he goes, ‘I’m thinking about making a big decision.’ No huddle with a rookie quarterback against the [Green Bay] Packers is not what I thought would come out of his mouth.”

Six days later, the Colts pulled off a stunning victory, 30-27. Andrew Luck brought the team from behind late in the fourth quarter, converting two third downs with passes to Reggie Wayne, and scrambling for another third-down conversion, before hitting Wayne again for the go-ahead touchdown.

“I’ve maybe seen my dad cry twice in his life; one of them was at his dad’s funeral,” Jake said. “And the week of Green Bay, I saw him cry five or six different times. It was on the sidelines before the game. We cried in each other’s arms after the game, just the relief that they actually pulled it off, the emotion of all that. Just thinking about Chuck during the week. My dad’s a cancer survivor himself, so the reality that one of your best friends and your boss is struggling with something that you’ve been through in the past.

“It was a crazy week emotionally.”

The whirlwind of success was underway. The Colts would win seven of their next nine games, and now, at 9-4, can secure a spot in the playoffs Sunday with a victory at Houston. Even if they don’t beat the Texans — their opponent in two of the final three games — the Colts are in prime position to earn a wild-card berth.

“People thought we were going to win one or two games,” Colts owner Jim Irsay said in a phone interview. “To play the type of football that we’ve played has been incredible. Bruce, Chuck and I have had long talks, and I’ve said, ‘Bruce, you’re the head coach right now. You’ve got to take this thing by the reins and go with it.’ Chuck and I have talked about how everything’s waiting for him as soon as his health returns.”

Rookie quarterback Luck has been essential to Indianapolis’ success. From the start, the No. 1 pick has been ahead of the learning curve. So much so, Bruce Arians said, that “we’ve had to slow things down just so the other guys can catch up.”

Said Luck: “It’s been a blast playing for him. I do feel — and I think all the guys in the locker room feel this — that he doesn’t hold anything back in his play calling, in his play design, just because we’re a young team or in our first year in the offense.

“He’s put the whole shebang on us, and he expects us to run it well. We’re trying to live up to our end of the bargain.”

The Colts’ rally to beat the Packers doesn’t seem so unusual now. Counting Pagano’s win in Week 2, the team is 8-1 in games decided by a touchdown or less, and Luck has led six fourth-quarter comebacks.

Arians, who was perfectly comfortable with another season in relative anonymity as an offensive coordinator, has made a strong case for becoming the first interim leader to be named the NFL’s coach of the year. With an 8-2 record, he is tied for third in NFL history for wins by a coach who has filled in during the season for a still active coach. Hamp Pool was 9-2 as interim coach of the Los Angeles Rams in 1952, Wally Lemm was 9-0 with the Houston Oilers in 1961 and Don Coryell was 8-4 with San Diego in 1978.

Irsay said there’s no way this season would have come together but for the mutual respect of Pagano and Arians, and the masterful personnel decisions of first-year General Manager Ryan Grigson, who on a shoestring budget cobbled together a roster of untested young players who have produced.

In the middle of it all is Arians, who is mindful that he’s holding Pagano’s place. Arians hasn’t moved into the head coach’s office, and he uses the assistants’ dressing room for games. Pagano, who has finished three rounds of chemotherapy, is hoping to return to coach in the Dec. 30 finale against the Texans in Indianapolis. He recently began lifting weights again and exercising to build his endurance.

The season has been a delicate balancing act for Irsay, not unlike that of a coach dealing with two quarterbacks. Both Pagano and Arians are longtime NFL assistants, and each has paid his dues. Pagano never really got a chance to get rolling — the fatigue hit him during training camp — yet Arians deserves a lot of praise for how far he has taken the team. The two are close friends, and clearly have set their egos aside for the good of the franchise.

“It’s been very difficult,” Irsay said. “Chuck finally gets his chance and then this happens, and Bruce realizes the respect he has for Chuck. What it’s come down to is I’ve had to say, ‘Guys, this is how we’re doing it. This is how it goes.’ When you have good people, they understand that. We’re in it to win. It’s about the horseshoe.”

Arians is prepared to step aside as soon as he’s asked. But that’s not what he coaches up-and-coming players. From Kansas City’s Christian Okoye — who led the league in rushing in 1989, with Arians as his position coach — to Manning in his first three years with the Colts, to Ben Roethlisberger and a collection of young Steelers, Arians has taught players to believe they belong, and to hang on to their jobs as tightly as they grip the ball.

“I’ve always told them, ‘Hey, next man up. When you get your shot, don’t give it back,’” he said.

Sometimes, it’s simply taken away from you. That’s how Arians felt when the Steelers declined to extend his contract after last season, even though he was a key figure in helping them get two Super Bowl rings.

There’s much speculation about why Arians was shown the door, but one plausible theory is he was too chummy with Roethlisberger, and the Steelers owners, the Rooneys, wanted a coordinator who would keep the quarterback on a shorter leash.

Insiders say the image of Bill O’Brien, then New England’s offensive coordinator, getting into a shouting match with Patriots quarterback Tom Brady on the sideline last season left an impression on the Steelers’ higher-ups. Some wanted the type of coordinator who would do that, and the one the team hired, Todd Haley, is unquestionably more combustible than Arians.

“That doesn’t work with Ben,” Jake said. “My dad knew that. It doesn’t mean that he can’t yell at him, or that he wouldn’t. It’s that he knew he wasn’t going to get the results by doing that. He wasn’t worried about damaging their relationship. He wants to win football games. But you’re not going to win football games with Ben by screaming at him, because he doesn’t respond to that.”

In part, Arians credits Paul “Bear” Bryant for teaching him how to relate to all kinds of personalities. Arians worked for the legendary Alabama coach in 1981-82, overseeing the running backs.

“He was a master of personnel, and not just football players,” Arians recalled. “I mean every person in the building. He could read how they were doing that day, and either chop ‘em down or build ‘em up. And he loved chopping me down. I thought I knew everything at that point in my career.

“He’d go around the table and ask, ‘How’d your players play in that game?’ I’d be one of the last ones, and whatever I said, he’d look at me and say, ‘Pssh!’ and spit a little bit, and ‘You didn’t even watch the film.’ I’d say, ‘Yessir.’

“As soon as that meeting was over, I’d be at his door, ‘Coach, how do you want that film graded?’ And he’d say [in a gentle Southern accent], ‘Aw, you’re doing fine. I like what you’re doing.’ Next week, he’d tear my butt up again. I’d be right back in there, ‘Coach, obviously I’m not doing something right.’ He’d say, ‘Naw, you’re doing fine.’”

In most instances, Arians has done far better than fine in his coaching career. That’s why he was so stung when Pittsburgh cast him aside. He had every intention of retiring to his home in Georgia, and to spend his golden years with Chris, his wife of 41 years.

“I was actually retired, and I was fine with it,” he said. “We had talked about it for a year, the possibility of it. Then it happened, and you get a little sour on it too. My wife said, ‘You can’t play that much golf.’ I said, ‘The hell I can’t. I can learn how to fish too.’”

Instead, he’s putting together a season that — had we not witnessed it with our own eyes — would sound like a fish story.

“It’s an amazing thing to live through,” his wife said. “You keep waiting for the magic to end, and we know it will at some point. But in the meantime, what a great ride.”

sam.farmer@latimes.com

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