When the Arizona Cardinals fired Kliff Kingsbury in January 2023, the coach who jumped from the college game to NFL head coach had developed a reputation.
He was a sharp play-caller with creative offenses that had helped jumpstart 2019 first overall draft pick Kyler Murray’s career. Opposing coordinators wondered how to stop the looks he threw at them early each season, the time in the college trenches fueling Kingsbury’s creative and diverse schematic wrinkles.
But midway through the season, a shift would occur. Opposing coordinators competing at the game’s highest level would begin to solve the problems that the Cardinals gave them.