After starting the 2021 NFL season with an unbeaten 7-0 record, Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury was garnering some much-deserved coach of the year talk. After that point, however, the Cardinals would go on to win just five more games all year, finishing with a 12-6 overall record and as the losers of five of their final six games (including the playoffs.)
Unfortunately for Kingsbury, collapses have been a common theme in his coaching career, from college to the NFL. As the head coach at Texas Tech, he lost five of his last six games in 2013, four of his final six games in 2014, four of his last six games in 2015, six of his final eight contests in 2016, six of his final eight games in 2017, and all of his final five games as Tech head coach in 2018.
In Arizona, things did not get much better as Kingsbury's Cardinals teams continued to fall off of a proverbial “cliff” in the second half of the season. Under Kingsbury, Arizona lost seven of their final nine games in 2019, lost five of their final seven games in 2020, and then had this year's aforementioned debacle. Here are three reasons (besides the collapsing) that Kingsbury should be fired from the Cardinals.
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Three reasons the Cardinals must fire Kliff Kingsbury
3. His system is flawed
Kliff Kingsbury has famously tried to implement as close to an “Air Raid” system as anyone in NFL history. Originally made famous by Hal Mumme, the “Air Raid” is an extremely pass-heavy offense with a running game consisting of very few plays. It does not work in the NFL, because it relies too heavily on making sure your team gets “big-on-big” pass protection, meaning the running back is usually only asked to block linebackers and not defensive lineman. However, that makes the offense vulnerable to sophisticated NFL blitzes. It has also failed because it utilizes very wide offensive line splits, making it difficult to create double teams in the running game. If you can't double team guys in your own division like Aaron Donald and Nick Bosa, you aren't going to have success. That has been the case for Kingsbury as he has now faced the Rams and Aaron Donald seven times since Kingsbury entered the NFL and Arizona has won just one of those games.
2. He has never won anything
This one is big because the Cardinals are also a franchise that has never won anything. The Cardinals have never won a Super Bowl and have not even won an NFL championship since 1947 when they were still in Chicago. If the franchise is going to get themselves their first Lombardi Trophy, shouldn't they at least get someone who has won before? Not only has Kingsbury never won a playoff game and his teams have consistently faded at the end of seasons, but he has never even won a BIG-12 conference championship as the head coach of Texas Tech. We get it, the guy looks like a model and should probably run for president, but when it comes to bringing winning football to the desert, Kingsbury does not have the track record to be “that guy.” The Cardinals may want to see what he can do with one more year, considering all of the injuries that the team had in 2021, but that would probably be just their version of “kicking the can down the road,” instead of making a decision right away.
1. The clock is ticking on Kyler Murray's contract
With just two more seasons left on his rookie contract (which includes a team option for the second year), Murray could be looking at a huge payday after the 2023 season at the latest. The Cardinals need to put a winning team on the field before Murray's contract expires or one of two things will happen. One, they could lose Murray to free agency, something that rarely happens to franchise quarterbacks in their prime; or two, they could end up paying Murray $40 million per year instead of the manageable $6-12 million per year that he has made in the first deal. That leaves $30 million per season that the team was able to spend on upgrades around Murray. If he is taking up that amount of capital, it will be hard to improve the team around him. All the more reason for the Cardinals to go all-in on winning in these next two seasons, and if they want to do that, it is probably best to let go of Kingsbury.
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