Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury does things differently than his predecessors. In particular, he isn’t one to get in players faces, yell and curse and engage in power struggles with players. Steve Wilks was intense. Bruce Arians had no qualms with cussing out a player on the field or calling them out publicly.
Starting left tackle D.J. Humphries appreciates the more laid-back approach to handling player interactions.
“I don’t need to be motivated,” he explained on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM. “I’ve been doing this my whole life. You drafted me to do this. I don’t need you to yell to get me excited to do it. That’s just my personality.”
Humphries did recognize “some people need a little fire lit under them but I think when you’re a good coach it’s understanding what kind of guy you have.”
He likes the professional manner in which Kingsbury handles mistakes.
“He knows he doesn’t have to go out here yelling and hurrahing and all that woot woot going on,” he said. “I can tell this guy what he did wrong. If you don’t do it right, I’m just going to take him out. If I tell you two or three times and you don’t do it right, I’m going t take you out, but there’s no need for me to get outside of me and doing something I normally wouldn’t do to make a point.”
Humphries famously was picked on by Arians as a rookie and got the nickname “Knee Deep” because of the amount of berating the former Cardinals coach believed he had to give Humphries so he would do things right. Humphries still gets upset when he is reminded of that.
Will the cooler approach result in better play, even from Humphries? That is what remains to be seen, but it appears the players approach this quieter approach to coaching.
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