The Chicago Bears requested permission this week to interview Indianapolis Colts offensive coordinator Bruce Arians for their head coaching vacancy on Thursday and reporters have already caught up with Bears tight end Matt Spaeth to get his thoughts on the possibility of Arians coming to the Wind City.
As you can imagine, Spaeth, who played for Arians during his first four seasons in the league as a member of the Steelers, praised his former offensive coordinator quite a bit. Spaeth also thinks that the Steelers locker room was not very happy when Arians was jettisoned after the 2011 season.
“I can tell you that when Pittsburgh got rid of him, nobody was happy in that locker room, especially Ben (Roethlisberger). Ben has a lot of pull around there and he was upset. People were mad because of the job Bruce does.”
Now of course Spaeth has been out of Pittsburgh the last few seasons as he was allowed to leave via free agency following the 2010 season. He missed Arians final season in Pittsburgh but likely stays in contact with a few of his former teammates.
Spaeth, however, saying that nobody was happy in that locker room is extremely over the top for sure and his comments about Roethlisberger specifically being unhappy isn\’t news worth stopping the presses for. You have to get a chuckle, however, out him stirring the pot from another city nonetheless.
What would you expect Spaeth to say about Arians, though? You think he is going to bad mouth the man that could potentially be his new head coach? No. He is going to grease the situation the best that he can and he did just that.
As far as the overall remarks made by Spaeth, perhaps he would have been better served to say that if Roethlisberger ain\’t happy, ain\’t nobody happy in the Steelers locker room.
Non story? Absolutely, but a good one when you can work in a back up tight end into it.
