The Arizona Cardinals are excited about the upcoming season under new head coach Kliff Kingsbury. However, when it comes where he is ranked among other head coaches in the league, he is bringing up the rear.
The Big Lead’s Liam McKeone ranked all 32 NFL head coaches and, not completely unexpectedly, Kingsbury is ranked dead last.
Kingsbury’s hire is nearly unprecedented. College coaches do make the jump to the pros every now and again, but most have a significantly better resume than Kingsbury, who was fired from his most recent gig as head coach at Texas Tech and went 35-40 over his six years at the helm. His reputation for innovative offensive gameplanning is well-deserved, but everything is different at the pro level. With Kyler Murray as his linchpin, Kingsbury may prove to be well-suited for the job. Until then his lackluster record in college and an absence of any NFL experience will put Kingsbury at the bottom of this list.
There are other first-timers in the coaching ranks this season like the Cincinnati Bengals’ Zac Taylor, the Miami Dolphins’ Brian Flores, the Green Bay Packers’ Matt LeFleur, the Cleveland Browns’ Freddie Kitchens and the Denver Broncos’ Vic Fangio. However, Kingsbury is not a first-time head coach. While he has never spent time in the NFL in the coaching ranks, he already has a lot of experience in managing an entire team.
That said, having zero NFL experience makes him a huge unknown.
Should he be ranked higher? Probably not until we see the Cardinals and how they play once the season begins.
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