Kliff

Kingsbury

Kingsbury and Brian Johnson, the team’s assistant head coach and pass game coordinator, dismissed any mention of the Air Raid offensive scheme, saying Washington would strive to be balanced in 2024. Last season, only the Chiefs and Bengals had higher pass rates over expected than the Commanders. “We want to be able to run the football and play-action pass and really do whatever it takes to win,” Kingsbury told The Washington Post. Johnson and Kingsbury said the Commanders could use far fewer shotgun formations than they’ve used at previous NFL stops, especially if they’re breaking in a rookie quarterback. In 2022, Kingsbury’s Cardinals led the league in pistol and shotgun usage, as Denny Carter and Patrick Daugherty discussed on a recent Rotoworld Football Show. The 2022 Cardinals were 28th in net adjusted yards per attempt out of pistol and shotgun looks.

Questions arose around Kingsbury’s role with the Commanders after the team hired former Eagles OC Brian Johnson as an assistant head coach. The assistant coach title, according to Jhabvala, is “more to give Johnson more experience with the organizational side and the things head coaches handle that may help set him up for future [head coaching] opportunities.” Kingsbury could have a rookie quarterback operating his offense if Washington uses their first round draft pick on a signal caller following Sam Howell’s disappointing 2023 season.

The Commanders currently hold the second overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft with a new regime holding the reigns. General manager Adam Peters and head coach Dan Quinn are both new and the team is expected to explore quarterback options, including trading up for the No. 1 overall pick. The Commanders also added offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury in the offseason. NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo says the team communicated to Kingsbury that they will do “as much as we possibly can” to get the quarterback he wants. Kingsbury worked with USC’s Caleb Williams last season, but if the No. 1 pick isn’t a possibility, Drake Maye is a potential selection at No. 2.

The hiring of Kingsbury comes just a day after he removed himself from consideration for the Raiders’ offensive coordinator position. The former Cardinals head coach (2019-2022) now joins Dan Quinn’s staff and could soon be in charge of overseeing the development of a young quarterback. Washington holds the No. 2 overall pick in this year’s draft and is widely believed to be in the market for a quarterback — a position they avoided the last time they held the No. 2 overall pick. As the head coach of the Cardinals, Kingsbury’s offenses struggled to live up to the lofty expectations that made him one of the more coveted college coaching candidates in recent memory, but he’ll have fewer responsibilities this time around. His recent ties to USC and quarterback Caleb Williams could be enough to spark rumors about where the consensus QB1 of the class ends up later this spring.

This report comes just hours after Schefter reported that Kingsbury told the Raiders he would not sign his offer to be the team’s offensive coordinator, which had up until that point been considered a formality. Now we know why he withdrew his name for the Las Vegas position, apparently preferring to work under the recently hired Dan Quinn in Washington. No deal has been agreed to but it now appears that Kingsbury will be the offensive coordinator for the Commanders in 2024.

Just days after Schefter reported Kingsbury was expected to land in Vegas, Kingsbury has now opted to withdraw his name from the race. We’ll see in the coming days if this is just a simple change of heart or if Kingsbury had other opportunities he wanted to entertain, but regardless, it’s a tough look for the Raiders, who appeared to have their guy. The Raiders reportedly interviewed UCLA head coach Chip Kelly twice before landing on Kingsbury as their OC, so it’s possible the two sides will reignite conversations in the coming days as Kelly looks to get back into the league.

One hour after NBC Houston’s Aaron Wilson reported Kingsbury was the “frontrunner,” ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported it’s going down. Exiled back to college for only one year after his increasingly-dispiriting Cardinals head-coaching tenure ended, Kingsbury will get to work on installing his “horizontal raid” without really knowing who his 2024 quarterback is going to be. Kingsbury had a world of trouble sustaining offensive success in Arizona, bizarrely seeming better at scheming the run game than pass despite his Mike Leach pedigree and reputation. We can’t say it’s a hire we would have made, but fellow coaches still seem to love Kingsbury. It’s a bonus for first-time boss Antonio Pierce that Kingsbury has NFL head-coaching experience.

Oh dear. Already connected to the Eagles and Bears this offseason, infamous Kingsbury would be saddling up with a head coach in Antonio Pierce with whom he has no previous professional experience. He would also be another former head coach on a staff that just hired Marvin Lewis, surely a key consideration for first-time head man Pierce. The problem is that Kingsbury’s offense tends to go stale faster than a bag of unsealed Cheetos. The Raiders also currently lack a serious quarterback solution. It would be difficult to envision this ending well.

The Eagles parted ways with Brian Johnson after a season, leaving an opening at offensive coordinator. Nick Sirianni is actively finding new coordinators after a disappointing end to the season and Kingsbury is first on the offensive coordinator list. Kingsbury was the Cardinals’ head coach from 2019-2022, spending 2023 as a senior offensive analyst for the USC Trojans. He is known for his aerial attacks in college and would be an interesting fit for Jalen Hurts’ passing development. Kingsbury now completes a virtual interview with the Eagles, his second NFL interview after meeting with the Bears, who hired Shane Waldron for offensive coordinator instead.

The Bears hiring Kingsbury would create an interesting situation as it pertains to the No. 1 overall pick. Kingsbury joined the USC Trojans as a senior offensive analyst and has worked closely with quarterback Caleb Williams, who is the consensus top pick in this year’s draft. The Bears signing Kingsbury would only amplify any rumors of the team considering drafting him in April. Prior to joining USC, Kingsbury served as the Cardinals’ head coach from 2019 to 2022. He finished above .500 just once in his four seasons and flamed out in 2022 after going 4-13. Once thought of as an offensive mastermind, Kingsbury’s teams twice finished in the top 10 in points per game but outside the top 20 in his other two seasons. Long known for his aggressive aerial attacks in the college ranks, the Cardinals never amounted to the high-flying offense many expected under Kingsbury and Kyler Murray. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of this meeting between the two sides.