Why did the Cardinals fire Kliff Kingsbury? Problems with offense, Kyler Murray lead to Arizona coach’s dismissal
Kyler #Kyler
Kliff Kingsbury’s time as the Cardinals head coach has come to an end.
According to multiple reports, the Cardinals are moving on from Kingsbury after a 4-13 season. News of Kingsbury’s firing was first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Kingsbury spent four seasons as Arizona’s head coach and made the playoffs in 2021. However, the 2022 season was his worst in charge of the team, and the Cardinals felt that a change of leadership was necessary.
Kingsbury posted a 28-36-1 record during his time in Arizona, but that wasn’t the catalyst for his departure. Instead, it was a decline over a year-and-a-half span that caused Arizona to re-enter the coaching market for the third time since Bruce Arians retired from the team in 2018.
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Why did the Cardinals fire Kliff Kingsbury?
The Cardinals fired Kingsbury because their team wasn’t able to consistently perform at a high level during his four seasons in Arizona. Often, the team started the regular season well but scuffled to finish the season.
Kingsbury had a combined record of 18-13-1 in the months of September and October. But after the calendar turned to November, his record was only 10-24. You can see the month-by-month breakdown of Kingsbury’s record below.
Month Record September 6-6-1 October 12-7 November 4-9 December 5-11 January 1-4
This was a problem for Kingsbury during his time at Texas Tech as well, so it’s not a surprise that it carried over to the NFL level.
What is a bit more surprising is that the offense — which was supposed to be Kingsbury’s strength — has faltered over the last season-and-a-half of his tenure.
In each of Kingsbury’s first three seasons with the Cardinals, their offense improved. However, everything came crashing down in 2022.
Even before Kyler Murray tore his ACL against the Patriots in Week 15, he was enduring one of his worst seasons in charge of Arizona’s offense. The unit didn’t mesh together as expected and as a result, the Cardinals finished the season with the 21st-ranked scoring offense in the NFL.
As for Murray, he finished the season with the worst passer rating of his career.
Year Total yards rank Points per game rank Murray’s passer rating 2019 21st 16th 87.4 2020 6th 13th 94.3 2021 8th 11th 100.6 2022 22nd 21st 87.2
Speaking of Murray, he played a part in the Cardinals’ decision to part ways with Kingsbury. Why? Because the relationship between the two had grown chilly.
An ESPN story from December outlined that the relationship between Kingsbury and Murray had soured.
“It’s not good,” a team source said of the duo’s relationship last month, per ESPN. “It seems particularly bad this year.”
“They’re cordial,” another team source added about them. “It’s not the relationship you want from your quarterback and coach.”
Evidently, the tension between the two was derived from the team’s offensive struggles in 2022 and the inability of the two to communicate with one another.
As such, it would seem that at least one party would have to leave to fix the problem in those two areas. Kingsbury and Murray both signed contract extensions during the 2022 NFL offseason, but Kingsbury’s pact was far easier to move on from than the five-year, $230.5 million deal to which the Cardinals signed Murray.
Add in that Kingsbury’s efficacy as a coach had waned since a 7-2 start to the 2021 season and Murray’s lack of value after an ACL tear, and it made Arizona’s decision to move on from its coach a relatively easy one.
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Who will replace Kliff Kingsbury with Cardinals?
The Cardinals “did homework” on potential coaching candidates while weighing Kingsbury’s future, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. That included one who is on every coaching list across the NFL.
Former Saints coach Sean Payton is one of the options on Arizona’s radar. The Cardinals know he wouldn’t come cheap, but the option of bringing in the Super Bowl-winning coach, who has a 152-89 record, has at least been explored.
Another option the team has explored is promoting defensive coordinator Vance Joseph to head coach. Joseph previously coached the Broncos in 2017 and 2018 but led Denver to just an 11-21 record over two seasons.
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Kliff Kingsbury contract
Kingsbury was set to be in the final year of the four-year contract he initially signed with the Cardinals during the 2019 NFL offseason. However, Arizona inked him to an extension, along with Murray and general manager Steve Keim, that will pay the coach through the 2027 NFL season.
The official terms of Kingsbury’s contract have not been reported. However, his five-year extension is estimated to pay him about $5.5 million per season. That put him in the middle of the pack among NFL coaches entering the 2022 NFL season.
It isn’t clear exactly how much the Cardinals will owe Kingsbury in the wake of his firing. Still, needless to say, their decision to give him a long-term extension during the 2022 offseason will be heavily scrutinized after his dismissal.