COVID sidelines Cardinals’ Kingsbury, QB coach
Arizona coach Kliff Kingsbury, quarterbacks coach Cam Turner and defensive tackle Zach Allen will miss the Cardinals’ game Sunday at Cleveland after testing positive for COVID-19.
The news adds to the virus woes for the NFL’s only unbeaten team, which also put star linebacker Chandler Jones
on the reserve/COVID-19 list Tuesday.
Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph, who has head-coaching experience in Denver, and assistant head coach/special teams coordinator Jeff Rodgers
will split head coaching responsibilities for Cardinals, who are 5-0 for the first time since 1974. Additional offensive duties will be assumed by other members of the offensive coaching staff, the team said Friday.
Kingsbury said earlier this week that the team has been 100% vaccinated for quite a while, but that hasn’t stopped the virus from upending their plans.
“It’s just the way it goes,” Kingsbury said Wednesday, one day after Jones was put on the list. Kingsbury said Jones was experiencing symptoms.
The third-year coach did his usual Friday morning media availability at the team’s practice facility, several hours before the news came that he’d tested positive.
The Cardinals should be in good hands with Joseph and Rodgers. Joseph was the Broncos’ head coach in 2017 and 2018 and has helped Arizona make steady improvement on the defensive side of the ball. Still, the team will likely miss Kingsbury’s playcalling, which has been among the league’s most creative since he came into the league.
Allen — a third-year pro — is a key piece to the Cardinals’ defense and had a sack last week in a win over the 49ers. Jones was the NFC Defensive Player of the Week after a five-sack performance in the season opener against the Tennessee Titans.
ELSEWHERE
NFL: The NFL has found no other current team or league personnel to have sent emails containing racist, homophobic or misogynistic language similar to messages written by Jon Gruden that led to his resignation as Las Vegas Raiders coach, according to a person familiar with the documents.
The person familiar with the investigation as well as emails told The Associated Press that the league “did not identify other areas and other individuals it has to contact at club leadership or league leadership levels.” The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the league has not publicly released what is in the 650,000 emails the independent investigators collected during an investigation of sexual harassment and other workplace conditions at the Washington Football Team.
“The NFL did not identify any problems anywhere near what you saw with Jon Gruden,” the person said. The person did not address any other areas of potential issues found in the emails beyond similarities with Gruden's comments.
Gruden resigned Monday as Raiders coach after the denigrating comments expressed in emails written from 2011-18 to thenWashington club executive Bruce Allen were reported. Gruden was not in the NFL during those years, when he was an analyst for ESPN.
The NFL would conduct a probe of Allen, who was fired in December 2019, should he attempt to return to the league, the person said.
Seahawks: Seattle placed quarterback Russell Wilson and running back Chris Carson on injured reserve Friday, a move that will keep both players out until at least mid-November.
Coach Pete Carroll had said earlier in the day that Wilson would be placed on IR, and the team was considering a similar move with Carson due to a lingering neck issue.
Both players will be unavailable at least until Seattle's game on Nov. 14 against Green Bay.
Wilson is recovering from surgery on his right middle finger. Wilson has started every game of his career — 165 games regular season and playoffs combined — until now. Geno Smith will start this week for the Seahawks.
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