The Arizona Cardinals fired head coach Kliff Kingsbury after a 4-13 2022 season, one year removed from an 11-win season and first playoff appearance since 2015. It was less than a year after Kingsbury signed a five-year contract extension.
While they have not yet named a head coach and are not expected to until days after the Super Bowl, they did attempt to woo Sean Payton, the new head coach of the Denver Broncos and former head coach of the New Orleans Saints for 15 seasons.
After a long and positive interview with the Cardinals, Payton was hired by the Broncos. Whether it was a case of Payton liking the Broncos more than the Cardinals or whether it was about the compensation required to give the Saints for the right to hire him, we won’t know.
But Payton did have an interesting comment about the Cardinals when he spoke with Kay Adams on “Up & Adams.”
“I think (the Cardinals) have some of the same challenges there that we have in Denver,” Payton said. “I think they are very similar challenges. The culture in the building has to be better, it just does.”
Both the Broncos and Cardinals had young coaches in Kingsbury and Nathaniel Hackett. “It got away from them,” he said. “It happens.”
Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill and new general manager Monti Ossenfort referenced the need for greater accountability and less ego.
It has been reported that quarterback Kyler Murray’s negativity has been an issue.
But it is hard to have a good culture when a team is decimated by injuries, the general manager leaves the team, two coaches are dismissed during the season and it loses seven in a row and nine of 10 to end the year.
Saying the culture in the building has to be better is a given. That is what the Cardinals’ next head coach will be charged with.
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