Arizona Cardinals: Easy to follow simple rules

Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians cut a player in 2015 for parking in the wrong spot

If you watched All or Nothing: A Season with the Arizona Cardinals at some point this past weekend on Amazon, you would have seen the episode where Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians cuts a player – for parking in the wrong spot.

It’s true. It happened. For some reason ESPN just picked up on that story today and ran with it. It sparked hundreds of comments on social media.

If you know Bruce Arians at all though, you know its his way or the highway. Defensive end Lawrence Okoye was cut early on in the 2015 season for parking in the wrong spot in the team’s parking lot at headquarters in Tempe.

Okoye was a practice squad player. Even if he wasn’t, you can be sure this would have been handled the same way. If you can’t follow simple rules off the field, how is the team expected to believe the player can follow simple rules on the field?

Arians warned the players too. Don’t park in his spot or any other spot marked for someone else. Okoye likely was on his way out anyway but it was a simple rule coach asked of his team.

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So why are so many people in an uproar over the story? You have the haters of course, saying Arians is being ridiculous. Some say Arians is on a power trip. Neither could be further from the truth.

If you show up to work and your boss asks you to follow one simple rule and you break it. What do you think should happen to you? Oh, and if you are told ahead of time if you break said rule you lose your job, don’t you think the rule would be followed then?

Then I’m seeing comments saying if receiver Larry Fitzgerald had been the one parking in the wrong spot, he would never have been cut. Well, that would never happen. Fitz knows better. Fitz is smart enough to follow all rules, simple or not.

The fact is here you had a player who needed to prove himself in every which way to make the team. He failed to follow the simplest of rules, so he’s out. There has to be a process in which to weed out the ones that aren’t fully committed. Being fully committed means following all rules.

Okoye made a mistake. He’s human. However it would have been simple to park anywhere else in the lot. He made a choice not to so he paid the consequence. Life is full of choices and consequences my friends. Don’t blame Arians, General Manager Steve Keim, or anyone else.

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