Here is Stephen A. Smith yelling about the Kliff Kingsbury hire
Jan 9, 2019, 2:43 PM | Updated: 2:54 pm
You may or may not agree with the man, but you definitely want to hear Stephen A. Smith out.
It will either give you a chuckle or make a fire of hatred burn deep in your chest.
Yes, Stephen A. does has an opinion on the Arizona Cardinals’ hiring of head coach Kliff Kingsbury. Surprise! It’s just as you would expect.
“This dude Kingsbury that just got hired by the Arizona Cardinals! I mean my goodness!” Smith says, seriously not acting like a caricature of himself. “He got an offensive coordinator’s job at USC and before he had a chance to take a leak, this brotha’s got a head coaching job in the National Football League?
“HE DIDN’T EVEN HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO GO TO ROSCOES FOR CHICKEN AND WAFFLES. I MEAN, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?”
This DUDE Kliff Kingsbury looks like a better candidate to be on the BACHELOR than a head coach of a football team, DAMNIT! pic.twitter.com/WYOG3DRRM8
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) January 9, 2019
Smith has a few valid points.
“HE’S PHOTOGENIC. IN SOME PEOPLE’S EYES, HE LOOKS LIKE A MODEL,” Smith continued.
Kliff should have hit up Roscoes. And sure, Kingsbury didn’t have any NFL coaching experience on his resume. In his one college stop as a head coach, he led Texas Tech to a 35-40 record.
But it’s clear Kingsbury knows his record is an easy target for criticism before he’s coached an NFL game.
“There’s nothing I can say that’s going to change that,” Kingsbury said at his introductory press conference. “I know it’s about the work that started yesterday and what we do from this point forward. That’s how I’m attacking that.”
Smith was hardly the only pundit to lay into Arizona’s hire (though he was certainly the most lively).
NFL analyst Mark Schlereth told 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station’s Bickley & Marotta Tuesday that he believed the Cardinals had gone too far in following the NFL trend.
Sure, constructing their coaching staff like the successful Los Angeles Rams under head man Sean McVay works … if you have Sean McVay.
“What are his degrees of separation from Sean McVay?” Schlereth said of Kingsbury with sarcasm fully implied. “I fist-bumped Sean McVay and I haven’t washed that hand since. So I am now currently in line to be a head coach. I got McVay on me. It’s still stuck on me. I think the whole thing is asinine, I think it’s ridiculous because a dude is young and he sends out emojis on his texts that he can communicate with people.
“I’ve been around Sean and Sean is a different cat, man. He is one of the most dynamic personalities I have ever been around. He walks into a room and it completely energizes the room, and the guys love playing for him. It doesn’t mean that anybody who’s ever been around him has the same football essence and that same personality and that same ability to communicate.”
Schlereth, Stephen A. and others aren’t necessarily betting against Kingsbury’s abilities.
But yeah — with the Cardinals roster as-is, it could be a tall order for Kingsbury to find success without huge hires to his coaching staff and positive roster churning by general manager Steve Keim.