Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians trolled fantasy football players on Sunday by listing John Brown as active and not playing him. Then, he had a message for them
Bruce Arians is a very popular coach in Arizona as he has the Cardinals riding high as the favorites to win the NFC West crown with a 6-2 record. However, Arians became very unpopular in the eyes of fantasy owners and DFS players yesterday when the team opted to list John Brown as active before leaving him on the bench in their win over the Cleveland Browns.
Naturally that decision has led to plenty of people freaking out over the Cardinals head coach playing mind games with the Browns at the cost of fantasy football players and the billion dollar industry that comes with it. One of the NFL’s head coaches trolling millions of people yesterday who potentially could have had Brown in their lineups.
Arians spoke on the controversy on Monday when asked about how he felt about fantasy players being upset about listing Brown as active when he clearly wasn’t healthy enough to play. Telling fantasy players ‘tough shit’ when it comes to being upset over Arians hiding Brown’s true status yesterday.
Arians on fantasy owners being upset that John Brown didn't play on Sunday: "Tough shit"
— Kent Somers (@kentsomers) November 2, 2015
Arians and NFL head coaches are old school, but if more cases like this continue to happen the NFL may have a tough decision to make to cater to the people who play fantasy football with some of their largest corporate partners in Draft Kings. With the league’s networks and the league itself receiving money from fantasy football every Sunday, this stance may be popular with Cardinals fans but it won’t fly with the people who spend their money every week to play fantasy football to create revenue for the league.