Newest ‘Cardinals Flight Plan’ covers Kingsbury’s upbringing, new coaches

The newest episode of “Cardinals Flight Plan” covered a variety of different topics, including new head coach Kliff Kingsbury’s upbringing and journey in football, the Cardinals’ presence at this year’s Senior Bowl, the introduction of the new coaching staff and the signing of cornerback Robert Alford.

The episode opened with a heavy focus on Kingsbury, starting with a couple of interviews with his father and high school coach Tim and his brother Klint, who both praised his work ethic and devotion to the game of football since a very young age.

Kingsbury’s visit with Doug and Wolf last Friday as part of Newsmakers Week on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station was touched upon next, followed by a discussion with the new Cardinals coach about some of the people who helped get him to where he is now, including his late mother and some of his former head coaches such as Mike Leach and Bill Belichick.

“I was fortunate to play for a lot of remarkable coaches, whether it be in college or the NFL bouncing around all the different teams,” Kingsbury said. “Being a coach’s kid, you grow up around coaches that you trust and love and become family to you, and so more than anything it’s been a coach-driven advice tree.”

The episode then moved to the Senior Bowl, and followed former Cardinals safety and current team scout Adrian Wilson during his time there.

Wilson talked about many different things, including the importance of the Senior Bowl in the scouting process, the challenges of scouting for the No. 1 overall pick and his role in the Cardinals’ head coaching search.

“We are in a unique situation with the first pick, but me personally, I’m not putting any more added pressure on myself to do anything differently than I’ve done in years past, whether we’ve had the 15th pick or the 29th pick,” Wilson said. “You just have to keep doing your due diligence in terms of gathering information and making sure you bring the information to the table for [GM] Steve [Keim] and [Director of College Scouting] Dru [Grigson] and [VP of Player Personnel] Terry [McDonough].”

Next came the introductions and media availabilities for the team’s new coaching staff, which included defensive coordinator Vance Joseph, offensive line coach Sean Kugler and defensive backs coach Marcus Robertson. This then transitioned into Alford’s contract signing, where he spoke about why he decided to become a Cardinal.

“Just being close to Patrick Peterson, who’s a close friend of mind, and just being able to be on the other side of him and learn from him was the main thing that pushed me to be an Arizona Cardinal,” Alford said.

The episode wrapped up with Patrick Peterson’s time at the Waste Management Phoenix Open Pro-Am, where he made his apology to Cardinals fans about his October trade request and reaffirmed his commitment to the organization.

The next episode airs on March 14, and it will be all about the upcoming NFL Combine.