Kliff, the good: players seem bought in. Even with rookie QB last year, improved a historically bad offense to middle of the pack. Has taken the next step this year. Some of that is personnel, but coaching as well. Flexible in approach -- who would have guessed when he was hired that his offense would lead the NFL in rushing. Kliff, the bad: team still feels a little disorganized in substitutions, etc. Penalties are an issue still. The biggest: still finding his way to close out games / playcalling at that spot / some clock mgmt issues.
I feel like most of these are legitimate concerns. 1 - Penalties 2 - Substitutions - Mostly seen when we try to go fast, but then substitute which causes the refs to hold up the snap so the other team can substitute. 3 - Four minute offense at half and end of game - I feel like we are still looking for a signature strategy for these situations. Go to play concepts, formations, and personnel groupings in those circumstances. You don't want to be too defined and predictable but you also need to cut your call sheet significantly.
One thing that has been pissing me off about Kliff is his lack of pre-snap motions trying to catch the defense off guard. He called it a lot last year with much worse personnel, but has barely called it this year. Don’t understand it at all.
We have the top-ranked offense in the NFL, so I don't see how that can be much of a complaint. The penalties are personally my biggest issue.
Oh...good one. I forgot about that. Drives me crazy as well. Leverage advantages are so big in the NFL, especially for teams trying to get the defense to move laterally instead of downhill.
The KK hate is unreal. I think KK and Murray are the two biggest reason the Cardinals are 6-3 right now.
Agree. KK does have room to grow but the guy designs some great plays and is a big part of why we often sustain drives every time we have the ball, which even Arians had a hard time doing when he was here. I like him. I almost think that he’d be better off having a different coach consult on the penalty issues and have someone responsible for also watching the game clock with him for when he has brain farts
I think the penalties are a byproduct of the team STILL having imperfect players for the system, basically players being asked to do things that they aren't particularly good at. Maybe I'm wrong on it, but so many other things work well with this team. Kingsbury's Cardinals offense runs better than any other Cardinals offense of this era. There are things I'd like to see them implement, like adding more motion to the offense like @DVontel stated, but I'm a big believer in metrics being proof enough.
I just can't wrap my head around the consternation over KK's playcalling. Even the best playcallers have games that they lose because of a myriad of factors. I'm obviously a big Murray fan, but the kid is both a blessing and a detriment to KK's playcalling. You can find entire games where KK schemed up NUMEROUS open receivers that Murray missed. BUT. BUT....Murray also gets the team out of multiple jams a game with his running ability. That's why I think if you threw a big pocket passer in Kliff's offense, the results would be fairly similar, but the methods to those results would look different (i.e. a lot more passing yards, but quite a few less rushing yards). I give Kliff a lot of credit for basically changing big chunks of his offense to fit the personnel and character of this team. THE CARDINALS ARE THE #1 RUSHING OFFENSE IN THE NFL!!!! Kliff has been helped a lot by Kugler, but he calls the plays and they work fairly well.
