When the Arizona Cardinals fired Kliff Kingsbury in January 2023, the coach who went from the college game to an NFL head coach had developed a reputation.
He was a sharp player with creative attacks that helped revive the career of 2019 No. 1 overall draft pick Kyler Murray. Opposing coordinators wondered how to stop the looks he gave them at the start of each season as time passed. in the academic trenches fueling Kingsbury’s creative and diverse schematic wrinkles.
But midway through the season, a change would occur. Opposing coordinators competing at the highest level of the game would begin to solve the problems the Cardinals gave them. One team would successfully counter Arizona’s game plan, and the next team would follow that plan – often adding their own advantage.
The result: In four years with Kingsbury as head coach, the Cardinals’ winning rate has consistently declined in November and December. Arizona has won 56.9% of its first nine games in those years (20-15-1). After: They only won 26.7% (8-22) to close the season.
The discrepancy and repeated nature of the annual decline has tarnished Kingsbury’s coaching reputation, whether fair or not. He sat out the 2023 season before Dan Qunn hired him to coordinate the Washington Commanders’ offense during a cycle in which Kingsbury had numerous suitors.
Kingsbury deserves some credit for the remarkable rookie year of Jayden Daniels, who the Commanders drafted second overall before getting off to the best start of his career. But the coordinator also can’t escape the reality that followed him from Arizona to Washington.
The Commanders’ production and ability to win games is declining after a strong start to the season. Their third straight loss, a 34-26 loss to a reeling Dallas Cowboys team, reflected that.
And while the blame goes well beyond Kingsbury, Daniels’ postgame sentiments eerily reflected the tropes that shaped Kingsbury’s tenure in Arizona.
“Defensive coordinators look at teams that are successful against [their next opponent] and how can they incorporate that into their projects,” Daniels said. “You start seeing trends and watching films, but you have to be able to adapt on the fly. We were able to adapt as we went along, but we didn’t do it soon enough. And it starts with me seeing it, the receivers seeing it, everyone seeing it in one accord.
In back-to-back NFC East games, Commanders’ performances plummeted
The 2024 Commanders significantly exceeded preseason expectations.
Their head coach, general manager, quarterbacks and two coordinators are all first-years at Washington. Even the team’s ownership remains the newest, in year two. And yet, through their first nine games, the Commanders’ 7-2 clip has matched or exceeded the franchise’s win total in eight of their last 11 seasons. Washington took the lead in the NFC East, then had a chance to reclaim it last week in a Thursday night visit to the Philadelphia Eagles.
Instead, the Eagles have now reeled off seven straight wins to sit comfortably atop the division with a 9-2 record. The Commanders have lost three games in a row, including two straight division games, and fell to 7-5.
“When you have a home game and you’re going for the division, you want to take advantage of it,” Quinn said. “When we miss them, it stings.”
Against the Eagles and Cowboys over the past two weeks, Washington has managed to stay close despite scoring low through three quarters. The Commanders led 10-6 heading into Game 4 in Philadelphia; hosting Dallas, they trailed 10-9 after three quarters.
Each time, the fourth quarter got out of control and a culturally young Washington team struggled to keep up.
The Eagles outscored Washington 20-8 in the fourth quarter, with the Commanders’ only contribution being a last-minute touchdown to tight end Zach Ertz. The Cowboys outscored the Commanders 24-17 in the fourth period during a period most appropriately and professionally described as crazy.
The Cowboys scored a 99-yard touchdown on a kickoff return, then the Commanders followed up a field goal with an 86-yard touchdown run that Terry McLaurin took 58 yards after the catch. Washington kicker Austin Seibert – whose field goal attempt 71 seconds earlier was good – missed the tying extra point, and the Cowboys then returned Washington’s onside kick attempt for a touchdown before intercepting the Daniels’ final Hail Mary. (No guarantees after the Commanders beat the Chicago Bears in a Hail Mary last month.)
The play – featuring several missed field goals, a blocked field goal, a blocked punt and a missed extra point attempt – required both emotion management and schematic adjustments.
“As I’m learning, you don’t ride the roller coaster, you stay steady through it all because it’s a long season,” Daniels said. “A lot of things can happen in an NFL game. So man, just try to stay balanced and control the things you can control.
Commanders controlled their offensive possessions and end-game scenarios much more reliably to start the season. As the defenses intensified their exotic pressures and stifled Washington more effectively at the first setbacks, commanders were unable to respond.
Washington’s playoff hopes are still viable – and would be significant
Regardless of how the next few weeks play out in Washington, there will be reason to consider 2024 a success for the franchise. The team’s functionality and efficiency are better than they have been in years, its culture under Josh Harris’ ownership group seemingly light years removed from the era of his predecessor Dan Snyder.
Commanders discovered a courage and tenacity that would lay the foundation for Quinn’s tenure. They created a framework for their franchise quarterback’s success from the first weeks of his rookie year, giving them the opportunity to continue postseason success while exploiting the best market hack of the salary cap era of the NFL: a quarterback’s rookie contract.
Even though Daniels’ performance has declined in recent weeks – he has three touchdown passes and three interceptions in the last two weeks after starting his career with a 9:2 ratio – he continues to create explosive plays like the McLaurin’s 86-yard chance to save the game and Daniels. ‘ own 17-yard rushing touchdown that gave Washington a lead in the third quarter.
The quarterback will be fine. The coordinator could be too. But as Kingsbury’s late-season ghosts begin to reappear, Washington’s coordinator and entire staff have a chance to reverse the trend he began his NFL career with.
Quinn touched on that lesson when he praised his team’s effort and process while acknowledging that it would be nice to have a need for late-game heroics less often. Commanders can’t keep learning lessons, Quinn said. They must also put into practice what they have learned. How can they exploit the belief they create?
“Because we went into these competitions, being tested as a freshman group more than most,” Quinn said. “And you want to be able to [not just learn] these moments of end of game and victory. It’s about winning them over. And we won.
Washington currently occupies the final wild-card spot in the NFC, with a 60 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to new generation statistics. Games against the Tennessee Titans and New Orleans Saints await them on either side of their bye.
They will finish their year with another set of Eagles and Cowboys games on either side of the Atlanta Falcons.
Quinn will encourage his players between now and then to dig deeper into execution and attention to detail. He will continue to preach confidence and attitude, he said. The hope: The many positive notes from the Commanders season will begin to round out into a more coherent form.
Kingsbury hopes so too.
“I don’t want it to go up and down, up and down,” Quinn said. “Every time we go there: this is the limit, this is where we are going, this is the time to go and capture it.”
