Bruce Arians kicks off a new round of Nick Saban to the New York Giants rumors

DJ Dunson

Bruce Arians has been retired for all of a week, but he’s already discussing other head coaching vacancies. Arians isn’t interested in filling any himself, but he believes the New York Giants would be ideal for Alabama head coach Nick Saban.

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Arians said Tuesday on The Herd with Colin Cowherd. “There’s a job he covets, and it just happens to be open. But he’s got a dynasty right now, [and] another dynamite recruiting class. Why he would do it? I don’t know, but it would not shock me if he did.”

Since Saban left the Miami Dolphins a decade ago, his name has been bounced around for a litany of openings. Last December, Saban was connected to the Giants through a rumor that was propagated by actor Tom Arnold and boxing megapromoter Bob Arum. Suffice to say, it did not come to fruition.

Saban and the Giants feels like the least likely destination he’s been attached to for one major reason.

The Giants’ head coaching opening is a middle of the road job. Eli Manning has reached his expiration date as the Giants franchise quarterback and the depth chart at running back is depressingly shallow.

The Mara and Tisch ownership cabal is still stable, but most importantly the New York metropolitan tri-state area media cauldron is brutal. As we all know, Saban is naturally hostile towards reporters. Between the New York Post, the New York Daily News, Jersey papers, The Wall Street Journal, NewsDay, amNew York, various national outlets, and the litany of outlets, the oversized personalities such as Eli Apple and Odell Beckham Jr. and more that grow even more bloated under the bright lights, his head could explode.

Somehow the Giants have become the hottest head coaching job in the rumor mill. There were also unconfirmed reports that Bill Belichick was also interested in coaching the Giants. Of these unlikely rumors, Belichick sounds the most likely, given his past as a defensive coach for two Super Bowl champion Giants teams in the 1980s.

A follow-up report by the New York Post’s Paul Schwartz says that Saban isn’t interested in the Giants, but after his vehement denial about being interested in Alabama while he was still coaching Miami, there are those who will never believe Saban is out of the running until the Giants hire a new head coach.