5 things to watch for during the Cardinals 2021 preseason
By Kyler Burd
Will the Cardinals show their true offense?
Infamously, in his first year with the Arizona Cardinals, head coach Kliff Kingsbury did not run his signature offense during the preseason because he didn’t want to tip his hand to his competition. Instead, he called basic plays that did not do much to show what he wanted his offense to be.
He received a fair amount of criticism for this after the team started off slow in 2019. Later, he admitted that not allowing his players to get live practice in his scheme during the preseason hindered their ability to pick up its complexities until later in the season.
Kingsbury has been adaptive as a head coach and, though he still calls more 10 personnel than any other coach in the league, he has shown a great willingness to change his offense depending on need or to take advantage of strengths.
So what will Kingsbury do this season? It seems like his best bet is running what he would during the regular season and relying on an improved roster to outperform opponents rather than deny rookies the chance to get valuable reps in order to hide certain play calls.
However, Kingsbury can be unpredictable at times, so tune in to see how Arizona’s head coach handles these three tune-up games.