Cardinals HC Kliff Kingsbury Sounds Less than Confident Heading into Week 1 vs. 49ers

Wednesday morning, Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury gave one of the least-confident, least-inspiring press conferences I’ve ever heard in 10 years covering the NFL.

Listening to him answer questions, you’d think there’s no possible way the Cardinals can beat the 49ers on Sunday. Kingsbury launched into a series of excuses for a game that hasn’t happened yet during his first answer:

“There will be a settle-in period,” Kingsbury said. “As a coach, you’re worried about the limited tackling, you’re worried about the limited game-like simulation, whether it’s your operation from the sideline, your personnel, things of that nature. We’re hoping it goes as smooth as possible. We’re playing the best team in the NFC. They were 10 minutes away from winning the Super Bowl, so we know we have a huge challenge. But I like how we’ve progressed.”

According to Kingsbury, the 49ers are the best team in the conference, and the Cardinals are merely a “progressing” team that hopes it’s able to tackle and substitute personnel correctly on Sunday. As if the Cardinals never played football before.

Strange answer, considering lots in the media predict the Cardinals will make a big leap this season and earn a spot in the playoffs after winning just five games in 2019, because they have a terrific young quarterback, Kyler Murray, plus they traded for All Pro wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins.

But apparently, we should lower our expectations for the Cardinals and for Hopkins, too.

“It will be a process continuing to get on the same page with Kyler, and as far as offensive staff finding ways to use him,” Kingsbury said. “It’s our first time really seeing him in the flesh, and so how do we maximize him as a player? That will be a continuing process that we’ll be working through throughout the season as well.”

Translation: The Cardinals don’t even know how to use Hopkins yet. And he might not know their offense completely. They may have to give him a limited route tree for Week 1, just to keep it simple.

It seems Kingsbury wants to drastically lower people’s expectations of the Cardinals this season. As it stands, if they win nine games and miss the playoffs, that would be seen as a disappointment.

But nine wins would be a big step for Kingsbury, because he hasn’t had a winning season as a head coach since 2015 when he was 7-6 at Texas Tech. The following three seasons, he had losing records even though Patrick Freaking Mahomes was his quarterback.

Kingsbury needs to lower the bar for himself as much as possible.