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Play-calling for Cardinals to be collaborative effort without Kliff Kingsbury

The Arizona Cardinals must make huge adjustments this weekend with their scheduled game against the Cleveland Browns. They will be without head coach Kliff Kingsbury, who tested positive for COVID-19 Friday and cannot make the trip to Cleveland. In addition to being the team’s head coach, he is also the playcaller. The team does not have an offensive coordinator.

So how will the Cardinals handle play-calling duties on Sunday without him?

According to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo, Kingsbury had not yet decided who would actually radio in the plays to quarterback Kyler Murray, but the process will be collaborative.

Kingsbury will script as much of the game as he can, making many of the play-calling decisions easier. Garafolo said that quarterbacks coach Cam Turner, who also is out after a positive test for COVID-19, would have been the next in line to call plays.

After that, offensive line coach/run-game coordinator Sean Kugler will have input and also quarterbacks Kyler Murray and Colt McCoy could have a say in plays.

It sounds like this could be a bit of a mess, or it could all go according to the script and it will be fine.

In any case, the Cardinals will need the defense to be great so the offense doesn’t have to stray from the game plan much.

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