Tempe, Ariz. – The arizona cardinals Head coach Kliff Kingsbury has been fired 10 months after signing a contract extension through the 2027 season.
Team also announced General manager Steve Keim “has decided to step down from his position to focus on his health.”
Like Kingsbury, Keim signed an extension in 2022 that took his contract through the 2027 season. However, Kim has been on a health leave since mid-December.
Keim joined the Cardinals as a college scout in 1999 and was promoted to general manager in 2013 after years in the personnel department.
Cardinals and tennessee titans Both requested interviews with the GM. san francisco 49ers Pro personnel director Ran Karthan and 49ers assistant GM Adam Peters, league sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Kingsbury was hired in January 2019, two months after being fired from Texas Tech, to revitalize a new offense and a struggling organization.
His firing came a day after the Cardinals lost their season finale 38–13 to the 49ers, completing a 4–13 season. Kingsbury finished his Cardinals career with a record of 28–37–1.
He experienced moderate success, helping Arizona improve win totals in his first three seasons – from 5–10–1 in 2019 to 8–8 in 2020 and then a 2021 season in which the Cards went 11–6 and reached the playoffs. However, Kingsbury’s tenure with the Cardinals was marred by a late season drop-off, underachievement, and four years of undisciplined football.
It concluded with the results of the previous season.
Although Kingsbury had to coach without a team deandre hopkins for the first six matches, without kyler murray For the last five games, without a tight end zach ertz For the last seven games and without four of the Cardinals’ five starting offensive linemen this season, he was still relieved of his duties as the Cardinals set out to find their third head coach in the past six years. Despite being in existence for over 100 years, the Cardinals have never had a head coach on the job for more than six years.
Whatever success the Cardinals had achieved under Kingsbury was marred by back-to-back late-season collapses in 2020 and 2021, but it was also a trend. Dating back to his time at Texas Tech, Kingsbury’s teams had been able to stave off second half slumps early in the season.
As of 2021, Kingsbury’s teams have gone 42–20–1 in the first seven games and 17–44 thereafter. The season didn’t start off as impressive, but things fell apart in the backstretch. Arizona went 3–4 in its first seven games, then went on a 1–9 run.
Kingsbury believed that this season would be the reverse of the previous season. He said several times early in the season that 2022 could be the opposite of 2021 – with the Cardinals hoping to come out stronger after a slow start, not having Hopkins for the first six games because he was fined for violating NFL rules. was suspended. Performance Enhancing Drugs Policy.
Arizona has also struggled to win at home, losing six straight in late 2021 and early 2022.
A consistent issue with Kingsbury’s plan was its inability to adapt.
After a Week 6 loss to the Seahawks, Murray said that the teams were playing the Cardinals’ offense soft, that they were “moving the ball methodically.”