Is hiring an OC in Cards’ near future?
As the Cardinals prepare for the start of free agency next month and then the NFL draft at the end of April, one question seems to keep popping up from the franchise’s fanbase more often than wondering how the team will address various positional needs and whether it ever plans to roll out new uniforms.
More than anything, they want to know if head coach Kliff Kingsbury is going to hire an offensive coordinator.
For now, the answer seems to be a resounding “no.”
That doesn’t mean it might not happen in the future. Kingsbury has never had an official “offensive coordinator” in his two seasons in Arizona. That’s not completely unusual in today’s game, either, especially in the NFC West. Rams coach Sean McVay, for instance, didn’t have one for the 2018 and 2019 seasons until he hired Kevin O’Connell to the position in January last year.
When Kyle Shanahan was named head coach of the 49ers, he went without a true offensive coordinator for his first four seasons (2017-2020) until ultimately promoting Mike McDaniel from run game coordinator to the position last month.
Just because those two young, innovative offensive play callers have added offensive coordinators to their coaching staff, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that McVay or Shanahan are about to give up control over calling offensive plays for their respective teams. They haven’t, and they won’t. Not yet, anyway.
Don’t forget, former Cardinals coach Bruce Arians didn’t give up play calling until he resurfaced with the Buccaneers and handed off the keys to Byron Leftwich. Arians used to say he’d quit coaching altogether if he couldn’t call plays, “but when I came back,” he said this past season, “part of it was that to be a better head coach, I had to relinquish that.”
Those words could be worth remembering considering what Kingsbury said on the Scott Van Pelt podcast with the ESPN host back in October. Kingsbury was asked what it would take for him to ever consider giving up play-calling duties. Kingsbury’s answer wasn’t just poignant, it was definitively profound.
“I would retire,” Kingsbury told Van Pelt.
“It’s part of the game,” he continued. “I couldn’t just sit there and watch it. A lot of people are great at that, managing games, and that’s not my strong suit. My strong suit is calling it and interacting with the quarterback. I’ve got to play to my strengths.”
To that end, Kingsbury sounds more like an offensive coordinator than a head coach. And in the eyes of some critical Cardinals’ fans, that’s probably the role in which he should serve. Based on how the Cardinals and their offense foundered down the stretch last season, losing five of their final seven games in the process, there might be some merit for that debate.
Whether it was his clock management, some of his late-season, fourthdown calls or a series of unimaginative coaching decisions during a crushing Week 16 loss to the 49ers, Kingsbury attracted more than his share of skeptics barking for change
NFL head coaches, of course, never get demoted to offensive coordinator and still retain their title as head coach. They either improve, relinquish their play calling or get fired. Kingsbury’s comment about threatening to “retire” is more than just curious if you consider what were to happen should General Manager Steve Keim or Cardinals Owner Bill Bidwill demand that Kingsbury add an offensive coordinator to his staff.
It’s doubtful they would foist a new voice upon Kingsbury, but it’s worth nothing that after Tom Clements retired upon serving the past two seasons as the team’s passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach, the Cardinals announced that popular offensive line coach Sean Kugler would take on the additional title of “run game coordinator.”
That promotion placed Kugler into a high-profile position alongside Jeff Rodgers, the Cardinals special teams coordinator and assistant head coach, and Vance Joseph, the club’s defensive coordinator. Offensive assistant Cam Turner, meanwhile, has since been promoted to quarterbacks coach. Technically, there still is no “offensive coordinator.”
If there is, it’s Kingsbury and unless something changes between now and training camp, that’s the way it will stay, even though Kingsbury also freely conceded in the interview with Van Pelt that game management isn’t particularly his strength.
Without the benefit of diving into that deeper with Kingsbury – and he’s not expected to be available for comment until closer to free agency and the draft – it would be unfair to make too much more of that in terms of whether an actual offensive coordinator is needed or not. If Kingsbury truly believes he’s not the best in-game manager, it doesn’t mean he can’t be moving forward.
Publicly acknowledging his self-perceived deficiency, however, doesn’t help his credentials. Even if the comment was flippant or made hastily after being presented with the question of possibly being stripped from losing his right to call plays.
If there’s any real meat and bones behind Kingsbury’s words to Van Pelt about game management not being his strength, the Cardinals must seriously consider adding an offensive coordinator the way the Rams did with McVay and the way the 49ers did with Shanahan. It allows innovative play callers to keep calling plays while enlisting trusted help to oversee the dayto-day work as well as ultra-important, in-game situations. It would free up Kingsbury to do what he does best, which is why Bidwill and Keim hired him in the first place.
Since it hasn’t happened yet, however, it probably won’t. Not this year, anyway. That doesn’t mean it’s not possibly coming in 2022, of course, but if or when it does, how will Kingsbury react? Maybe he will accept it. Perhaps he won’t need it at all and the demand will never be made.
The fact is, something needs to change. The Cardinals started out 6-3 in 2020 before things unraveled mostly due to an offense that stalled down the stretch despite improving an overall ranking from 21st to sixth in just one year.
Maybe Kugler, who in 2019 convinced Kingsbury to abandon much of his 10 Personnel packages for a more standard and routine rushing attack, will help make a difference. Maybe he won’t. It’s all a guess at this point.
Until we see the Cardinals on the field in 2021, that’s all it will ever be.