How Sean McVay tricked Kliff Kingsbury into thinking Cardinals may lose No. 1 pick
Kliff Kingsbury may want to brush up on the NFL’s rules on tampering after being on the receiving end of a prank from a fellow head coach.
Kingsbury, entering his first season as the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals, is friendly with another young coach, Sean McVay of the Los Angeles Rams. The two recently had dinner with Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who was coached by Kingsbury at Texas Tech.
At the dinner, McVay tricked Kingsbury into thinking he may lose draft picks because he was tampering with Mahomes. McVay explained how he pulled off the prank on Adam Schefter’s podcast.
“We have a mutual friend and I put his name in my phone as ‘Roger Goodell.’ I had this friend send me a text saying, ‘I can’t believe you’re at dinner with Kingsbury and Mahomes. You know better than this. This is tampering. You’re both losing picks.’ I showed Kliff the text and he looked like he saw a ghost,” McVay said.
McVay said Kingsbury thought he was going to lose the Cardinals’ No. 1 pick in the upcoming NFL draft. McVay even suggested Kingsbury call up Cardinals general manager Steve Keim before letting him know it was all just a prank.
“We couldn’t let it go on too long. It was pretty good. We got him good,” McVay said. “I was talking to him about it yesterday when I saw him. I’m pretty proud of that one.”
Kingsbury vowed to get him back, McVay said.
That No. 1 pick Kingsbury and the Cardinals possess has caused plenty of speculation, especially when it comes to the former Big 12 head coach’s apparent infatuation with Oklahoma product Kyler Murray.
Could the Cardinals move on from Josh Rosen, the team’s first-round pick in 2018, and make a move for Murray, the electric 5-foot-10 quarterback coming off a Heisman Trophy-winning season? That remains to be seen.
And just because they are friends doesn’t mean McVay has any advice for his new NFC West coaching counterpart.
“He’s been a head coach longer than I have so I don’t think he needs much advice from me,” McVay told Schefter. “We haven’t spent a whole lot of time talking football but you can see some of the things when you flip on the tape and you’re able to see what he’s done at Texas Tech specific to the the offensive mastery he has. It’s going to create some problems for us.”
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