Although the Cardinals notched a one-sided win over the Rams — in a game that featured two backup quarterbacks — the team only improved to 4-6. Months after extending the Steve Keim–Kliff Kingsbury–Kyler Murray trio, the Cardinals have put together an underwhelming season.
Increased chatter has pointed to discord in the Cardinals organization, according to the Washington Post’s Jason La Canfora, who notes the Murray-Kingsbury relationship hovers at the center of this. This relationship has deteriorated to the point Kingsbury, despite signing an offseason extension, may not be a lock to finish the season.
Kingsbury’s offseason extension did not merely buy him an extra year or two; the Cardinals extended both he and Keim through 2027. Financial details of this deal are not known, and the Panthers’ Matt Rhule situation may be relevant in this case. The Panthers will be off the hook for the post-2022 portion of Rhule’s salary if/when he lands a college HC position. Talk around the league has pointed to the possibility of the Cardinals-Kingsbury partnership ending in similar fashion, La Canfora adds, with the former Texas Tech HC potentially a candidate to end up back in the college ranks.
One general manager informed La Canfora he would be surprised if Kingsbury finished the season with the Cards. Considering where this situation was this offseason, that would make for a borderline-shocking outcome. But Arizona has been unable to string together wins this season, with Kingsbury’s offense being a steady concern.
Kingsbury, 43, is 28-30-1 as Arizona’s HC. The Cardinals showed signs of dominance last season, when they started 10-2 despite losing Murray for a stretch. Colt McCoy, as he did Sunday, fared well in relief of the Pro Bowl signal-caller in 2021. But the Cards tailed off, finishing 11-6 and losing five of their past six — including a blowout wild-card loss to the Rams. That made the lengthy Kingsbury extension rather surprising, and this season has not rewarded ownership’s faith.
The Cards have submitted slow starts in most of their games this season, and although productive sequences have taken place this year — a Week 2 comeback over the Raiders, a 42-point performance against the Saints, and the McCoy-led Rams victory — questions came in regarding Kingsbury’s status as the team’s play-caller recently. Kingsbury said he would be open to ceding that responsibility, but he has continued to call plays in his fourth season at the helm. The Saints matchup also featured a Kingsbury-Murray shouting match.
Upon taking the Cards job in 2019 — not long after being fired at Texas Tech — Kingsbury advocated for Murray with the No. 1 overall pick. The Cardinals became the first franchise since the 1982-83 Baltimore Colts (Art Schlichter, John Elway) to select QBs in back-to-back first rounds, trading Josh Rosen during the 2019 draft. Murray has been an original-vote Pro Bowler in each of the past two seasons, and the Cards reunited him with college teammate Marquise Brown this offseason. Of course, the Brown-DeAndre Hopkins duo playing together has been delayed due to Hopkins’ PED ban and Brown’s subsequent foot injury. That has undoubtedly hurt this Arizona attack, leading to the team’s Robbie Anderson trade. Murray has slipped to 22nd in QBR; he finished 14th and seventh in 2020 and ’21, respectively.
The Cardinals’ Week 10 win will buy Kingsbury more time, with JLC adding no change is imminent. But it appears Kingsbury will not be safe if the team continues on its current pace. This will obviously be a situation to monitor during the season’s second half.
The Keim and Kingsbury extensions were both ridiculous. Their seats shouldn’t be warming. They should already be on fire.
Yep! Same for the Murray extension.
At least in Murray’s case, he’s shown flashes of high level performance at his job, he’s been surrounded by a janky roster and bad scheme, and it’s a job very, very few people in the world can do at a high level, all of whom are in high demand and command extremely high contracts. Not only is there nothing in Keim or Kingsbury’s job performance that would indicate they deserve an extension, but there’s a long list of people who don’t currently hold GM or HC jobs that you could reasonably expect to do at least as good a job.
We’ll see about Murray. He is athletic, but when the team has to write in a clause to study, that’s a terrible look for him.
I’m not the biggest fan of the GM, but he’s is over 500 (80-73) in 10 years. I thought he should have been fired after the Rosen draft and firing that coach after 1 year. Double miss for him.
That would have been one good time. He also committed extreme DUI the same offseason he traded up to draft Rosen. His record is aldo boosted heavily by early teams with players drafted before he was GM, like Peterson, Fitzgerald, and Calais Campbell. Inheriting three hall of fame caliber players with prime years left helped. They only have one winning season since 2015, and his drafting is a huge reason why. There are absolutely reasons to not have the most belief in Murray, but he’s also easily one of Keim’s best picks.
This organization has become a joke. Keim is downright clueless. Can’t draft a player and when he does they play out of position and go elsewhere and are fine. Hires Wilks then Klunkhead. Trades up for Rosen to dump him the following year. Bring in “ No Air Raid Offense Klunkhead” he is an imposter. Brings in crybaby Kyler and then has the patsy of a coaching staff let him go undisciplined and become a team headache. Then throw in Birdbrain Bidwell. “ Hey we just lost 5-6 and got blown out in the playoffs let’s sign these guys long term” WHAT?? Then he doesn’t have the cash flow to go out and get decent free agents because he doesn’t have the up front bonus $$$. Should I continue because ethics only scratches the surface.
Murray seems hard-headed and difficult to coach. Him yelling at and not taking constructive criticism from Hopkins on the sideline was a bad look.
Agreed. Murray looked disrespectful to his coach. Not good for teams’ moral and leadership. Guess some of these athletes making this much money makes them feel like God themselves!!!
His coach is a moron, though, and he’s had to deal with him day in and day out. There’s only so much you can take before exploding.
His coach is making way too much money and all his money is guaranteed. Why did they extend perhaps the least creative offensive coach in football when offensive thinking was supposed to be his calling card? Meanwhile, Murray is playing in a division with Aaron Donald and his interior offensive line and points this season has been constructed entirely of other teams’ busts.
Murray is every bit to blame for the cardinals crap season thus far. I never liked him and it seemed that he and kingsbury always clashed. Murray needs to know his role and just play
“New Steelers OC Kliff Kingsbury” comments in T-minus 5….4….3….
Niners about to put it on em in may he ko
Kliff Kingsbury > Josh McDaniel
Kliff Kingsbury is going to go on vacation with that stellar girlfriend of his and he is going to do it on Bidwell’s bank account.
WINNING
Poor man’s Sean McVay won’t last thru rest of the season if they know what’s good for them.
I imagine the next update will announce Bruce Arians has decided to un-retire.
A bit unrelated, but Colt McCoy has to play for the Colts at some point.
Kingsbury was probably behind that “put the video game down and study some film” addition to Murray’s contract.
If only……
I really don’t understand. The Cardinals went to the playoffs year and won 1q games. Where does all of this dissatisfaction come from. Only 14 out of 32 made the playoffs and some haven’t made it in 3 to 5 years or more. When was the last time Houston, NYJ, Washington, NYG, Atlanta, Jacksonville, etc were in the playoffs? Murray better than most qbs whatever is thought about him.
Murray is a career 92.6 qb rating. That is pretty good for a young qb.
He may be a prima donna but he’s probably the best QB the Redbirds have had since Neil Lomax. People forget how many bad QBs preceded him.
Ever see Murray mad about losing a game? That tells you all you need to know.
To be fair, he’s mad when he loses in Call of Duty.
Priorities, brother. Priorities.
I’ve been saying for years Kingsbury never deserved a job, and is extremely overrated. His schemes are very simple