The Arizona Cardinals hired Kliff Kingsbury to be their head coach in 2019 largely because he was considered an offensive genius. He was supposed to fix the historically bad offense the Cardinals had the previous season.
They had fired their previous head coach, Steve Wilks, after one season.
When the Cardinals opened the 2019 season with an awful first-half performance against the Detroit Lions, Kingsbury actually thought he wouldn’t last the first month of the season.
“I’m not exaggerating. I was thinking, ‘I can’t believe I just bought that house. I’m going to be here two games and they’re going to fire me,'” he said on the Ryen Rusillo podcast. “It was as bad as I had ever seen. We couldn’t get a yard.”
The Cardinals had only 53 yards of offense in the first half and rookie quarterback Kyler Murray, the No. 1 pick in the 2019 draft, had completed only 6-of-16 passes for 41 yards and an interception.
“We couldn’t complete a pass and every pass was knocked down and I told everyone he doesn’t have passes batted down,” recalled Kingsbury, who defended Kyler Murray’s short stature by noting how he only had five balls batted down the entire season he started for Oklahoma.
“That was about the highest anxiety I’ve ever had on a sideline just because anything we tried was a complete disaster,” he said.
He also was worried about general manager Steve Keim, who was coming off a rough year. He hired a college coach with no NFL experience after firing a head coach after only one season and after having had off-the-field issues.
“That was a rough 30 minutes,” Kingsbury said. “I just kept thinking about poor Steve in the press box with the owner probably wanting to jump off the balcony. Luckily, it worked out.”
He worried about his job and also his home.
“I remember thinking, ‘I can’t believe I spent that much on a house,'” he said. “I’m screwed on this deal because this is going to be a short stay and I don’t know what we’re going to do. It was just a disaster.”
The Cardinals turned it around in the second half and rallied to tie the game, took the lead in overtime and the game ended in a tie. The Cardinals finished 5-10-1 and the offense was vastly improved.
He survived the Week 1 disaster and he proved he belongs in the league. It seems funny now, but it had to be an awful feeling to live through.
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Ep. 259
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Ep. 258
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