Kliff Kingsbury fired as Cardinals coach, GM Steve Keim steps down
The Kliff Kingsbury and Steve Keim era is over in Arizona.
The Cardinals fired Kingsbury as their head coach on Monday, less than 12 months after he signed a multi-year extension with the team. Kingsbury was 28-37-1 in his four seasons at the helm in Arizona.
Additionally, the team announced general manager Steve Keim would be stepping down from his position to focus on his health. Keim had held the role of GM since 2013.
Kingsbury, the former head coach at Texas Tech University, arrived in Arizona in January 2019. Although the Cardinals had a solid season in 2021, reaching the wild-card round of the playoffs, they stumbled out of the gate this year and finished the season at 4-13.
Leading up to Sunday’s season finale in San Francisco, in which the 49ers blew out the Cardinals, 38-13, speculation mounted that Kingsbury could be on his way out.
In December, the 43-year-old Kingsbury addressed rumors that he was “miserable” amid a challenging season. He was asked about a pointed ESPN article, which speculated if his relationship with quarterback Kyler Murray has soured, and if he was considering walking away.
“No, I haven’t seen that,” Kingsbury said, per The Arizona Republic. “But no.”
The 50-year-old Keim also received a contract extension last season. He’s been with the Cardinals since 1999 and served as the team’s general manager since 2013. He took a medical leave of absence in December, but the team didn’t elaborate on the reason.
The Cardinals released a statement to their social media accounts on Monday morning:
“We have announced that head coach Kliff Kingsbury has been relieved of his duties,” the statement read. “In addition, General Manager Steve Keim has decided to step away from his position in order to focus on his health. The team wishes them well and thanks both of them for their contributions.”
Kingsbury joins a long list of names who couldn’t win enough games for one of the NFL’s least-successful franchises. The Cardinals haven’t won a championship since 1947 and have never had a coach last more than six seasons in more than a century of existence.
The low-key Kingsbury was owner Michael Bidwill’s surprise choice to lead the franchise back in 2019, replacing Steve Wilks. A few months later, the franchise selected Murray with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.
A former quarterback himself, Kingsbury had developed a reputation for working with young quarterbacks, including Patrick Mahomes, who played for Kingsbury at Texas Tech and went on to lead the Kansas City Chiefs to a Super Bowl win.
For a while, the Kingsbury-Murray pairing looked as if it would succeed. The Cardinals went 5-10-1 in 2019 before improving to 8-8 in 2020. The Cardinals started last season with a 10-2 record, emerging as a Super Bowl favorite, but lost four of their final five regular-season games.
They still made the playoffs, but lost to the Los Angeles Rams 34-11 in the wild-card round.
The Cardinals started this season with high expectations, but nothing went as planned. The first bad omen came when three-time All-Pro receiver DeAndre Hopkins was suspended for the season’s first six games after violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancers.
Murray signed a $230.5 million contract with the Cardinals before training camp that could keep him with the franchise through 2028. Instead of being a celebratory moment, a strange clause in Murray’s contract that mandated four hours of independent study on game weeks drew criticism.
The clause was eventually removed, but the damage to Murray’s reputation was done.
Hopkins returned after his six-game suspension in October, but the season had already gone sideways. An avalanche of injuries to the offense didn’t help: They lost starting tight end Zach Ertz to a season-ending knee injury and four offensive linemen missed significant time.
Then Murray was lost for the season after tearing ligaments in his knee against the Patriots on Dec. 12.
Kingsbury stayed stoic, even as the season was crumbling. There were plenty of off-the-field issues as well. Assistant coach Sean Kugler was fired after an incident in Mexico City and Keim’s leave of absence was another surprise.
— With AP
