ARIZONA CARDINALS

Cardinals’ Kliff Kingsbury closes season with another poor finish

Jan 18, 2022, 8:24 AM

Everyone knows the story about Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury’s end of the year struggles, but Monday’s loss to the Los Angeles Rams closed yet another abysmal finish to the season.

From his end of the year struggles dating back to 2013 as head coach of Texas Tech, Kingsbury has posted losing stretches to close his ninth straight season.

In quarterback Kyler Murray’s second year in 2020, the team started off 5-2 before losing six of their last nine and failed to make the playoffs in the last week of the year, finishing 8-8 overall.

The 2021 season saw a 7-0 and 10-2 start become an 11-7 record, including losses to the Seattle Seahawks (7-10) and the Detroit Lions (3-13-1), who finished with the second-worst record in the NFL.

Arizona can find a silver lining in the fact that when Kingsbury took over, the team had finished 3-13 and held the No. 1 overall pick.

He has shown incremental improvement with two or three more wins being added in the win column each season.

Although there were 17 games this year, the 11-win season was the first for the Cardinals since 2015 when the team went 13-3 and only the the third since 1975.

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Cardinals’ Kliff Kingsbury closes season with another poor finish