After seeing a lifeless Arizona Cardinals side lose to Seattle with my own two eyes in week six, I was convinced that Kliff Kingsbury would be fired right then and there. It wasn’t just the lost performance on the field that made me think that. The team gave off a bad vibe on the sidelines prior to kickoff.
Look, pregame vibe and hype won’t win you an NFL game. But it can sure as hell lose one. The Cardinals appeared as if they were at an office party before the matchup against the Seahawks. There were a few cliques gathered and some players doing their own thing. No one seemed all that excited for the task at hand or appeared as if they wanted to be there. At no point did this feel like a football team. It was a collection of guys paid to play football.
That is bad. And this problem falls entirely on Kliff Kingsbury who has apparently installed a culture of indifference. Head coaches don’t need to be rah-rah guys nor do sidelines need to be full of jacked up dudes headbutting each other into a bloody pulp. However, there must be some energy and signs of life.
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Let’s zoom out from this micro event of Kingsbury’s tenure to a macro view of his head coaching career. He is an empirically bad, or at the very least, mediocre head coach. A 27-30-1 record with a single playoff appearance should be a massive red flag.
Hell, Frank Reich was just let go despite doing significantly better than that. But let’s be real, Kingsbury should have never been hired as the Arizona Cardinals Head Coach in the first place. Nothing on his resume up to that point made him even remotely qualified.
That’s because in six seasons with Texas Tech, he compiled a record of 35-40 and never once finished Big XII play above .500. Kansas was the only other school to go without a winning record in conference during that span.
Despite being let go by the Red Raiders, Kingsbury somehow fell up into a cushy NFL gig after the briefest of stints as USC offensive coordinator. His only claim to coaching fame is that he coached Patrick Mahomes years ago. That is not a reason to hire someone, let alone keep that coach employed after seasons of underachieving performances.
Offense is supposedly Kingsbury’s calling card, but Arizona hasn’t posted a top-10 finish in points under his watch. Talent is not the issue. The franchise has been willing to go out and spend on free agents. It’s not like he inherited Sam Darnold and a bunch of flotsam like poor Matt Rhule.
There is no other way to say it, Kliff Kingsbury is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad football coach. A modern-day Dave Wannstedt only less successful.
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