Cardinals’ Kliff Kingsbury ranked in bottom of third of NFL head coaches
For Arizona Cardinals fans, it feels like head coach Kliff Kingsbury is in a make-or-break year. He has led the Cardinals to improvement each of his first two seasons but a bad final stretch of the 2020 season led to missing the playoffs.
Perhaps that is why, in CBS Sports’ head coach rankings entering 2021, Kingsbury is in the bottom third.
He is ranked 22nd, just out of the bottom 10.
Speaking of innovators, Kingsbury was supposed to bring fireworks to Arizona alongside Kyler Murray. That’s happened on occasion, but mostly because he’s just let Murray take off and chuck it up when and where he wants. The arrow is at least mildly pointing up thanks to 2020 improvement, but Kingsbury almost has to get his explosive playmakers to the postseason to justify a longer leash.
The feeling is that Murray gets more credit for the Cardinals’ improvement than Kingsbury. He has had his share of questionable decisions, especially at the ends of games in critical moments, but this ranking seems unfair.
He ranks behind Atlanta Falcons head coach Arthur Smith, who is in his first head coaching gig.
He is also ranked behind the Panthers’ Matt Rhule, who led his team to only five wins, and the Bears’ Matt Nagy.
While Nagy has taken the Bears to the playoffs twice, they have moved backward in their performance. It is also a big year for him.
He is ahead of the Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy, the Giants’ Joe Judge and the Broncos’ Vic Fangio. They are the only non-new head coaches ranked behind him.
That will change if he leads the Cardinals to the postseason this year.
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