5 reasons to worry about the Arizona Cardinals in 2019
By Avery Duncan
4. The possibility of the Kliff Kingsbury offense crumbling
From Houston to Texas A&M to Texas Tech, offensive-minded Kliff Kingsbury has seen success with his high-profile passing attacks. But, now, with the Cardinals, he faces the biggest challenge of his career; bringing the vaunted, yet the often dubbed gimmicky Air Raid attack to the NFL.
Kingsbury is expected to bring the full-form of the Air Raid to the desert. That means we will see a lot of shotgun sets, five-wide formations and route concepts that include verticals, mesh, stick, crossing, along with several gadget plays. Although we’ve seen each of these sets, formations, and concepts in the NFL on a weekly basis, we haven’t seen it at the level Kingsbury’s offense.
Whether or not that’s a good thing will be known by the end of the ’19 season. However, what we do know is, Kingsbury will have a challenge bringing his offense to the forefront. The coach will need to account for the narrower hashes on the field, more advanced defenses, and bigger, faster defenders.
The Air Raid is efficient, and Kingsbury does have an ideal quarterback to run it in Kyler Murray. But, again, we’ve never seen it in the NFL. The closest thing to a true Air Raid attack was offensive coordinator Todd Monken’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers last year that scorched defenses but struggled to run the ball.
Kingsbury’s offense is boom-or-bust in every sense. If it’s the latter, the Cardinals will struggle mightily next season.