Kliff Kingsbury’s dissidence cost Cardinals NFC West crown

After the team got off to a great start this season, head coach Kliff Kingsbury has cost the Arizona Cardinals too much during the last few weeks.

When is it going to end? All the Arizona Cardinals have done three consecutive years is choke down the stretch. Even when the San Francisco 49ers gift-wrapped the division title for the Cardinals on Sunday, Arizona still couldn’t get it done.

Kliff Kingsbury is the mass-chaos catalyst in this Cardinals “car” which thrives on double standards.

Kingsbury drives this car that gets out to a hot start, then historically falters and becomes the first team in NFL history to lose six games after starting 7-0. Kingsbury also made two costly mistakes during Arizona’s loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday on top of the scrap heap of bad play-calls earlier this season.

Kingsbury electing to kick a field goal when trailing seven points instead of attempting a shot at the end zone from 12 yards away midway through the fourth quarter is a wimpy, pathetic bow-out strategy. It echoed the choice made by Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur during the 2020 NFC Championship when his team was down by eight.

Arizona cut the deficit to four points with the field goal, and then on Seattle’s very next offensive possession, Seahawks running back Rashaad Penny then took one 62 yards to the house. That’s right, Rashaad Penny did that. That’s the equivalent of letting the broken body guy from “SpongeBob SquarePants” score on you.

The Cardinals did, indeed, get the ball again and they cut Seattle’s lead down to eight points with another field goal by Matt Prater. After that offensive possession, Kingsbury still had all three timeouts, and instead of kicking it deep to the Seahawks to try and force them to go 3-and-out, he opted for the onside kick, which was just seconds before the 49ers ended up beating the Los Angeles Rams.

That was a microcosm of Arizona’s season. All flash, little grit, no depth, no change, no adaptation, no efforts to acquire a defensive tackle at the trade deadline, and neglecting to get adequate cornerback help when needed (where was Bashaud Breeland today?).

Arizona Cardinals played scared in season finale vs. Seattle Seahawks

It’s all been one considerable embarrassment for Kingsbury and Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray this season. This is supposed to be the regime that’s supposed to win Arizona a Super Bowl, but they can’t even beat the Detroit Lions in three tries?

Do you know who the Cardinals get to play next week in the first round of the playoffs? That would be the Rams, on the road. Unless Arizona gets healthy in the blink of an eye, there’s a severe chance that the 2021 season will be over after next week’s game in Los Angeles.

Honestly, the Cardinals may be more of a No. 6 seed than a No. 5 seed at this point. If it weren’t for the 49ers and Philadelphia Eagles, Arizona would be the worst team in this season’s playoffs.

However, the result of Sunday’s game against Seattle is exactly what the Cardinals get for settling the field goal in the fourth quarter when their defense couldn’t stop anything.

This insanity ride of thinking that Kingsbury has what it takes is starting to get insufferable to handle as Cardinals fans. Of course, his achievements are well-known, but at what cost is Arizona just becoming the new version of the Cincinnati Bengals during the Marvin Lewis era that went 0-7 in the playoffs in his tenure?

Crank the heat up on Kingsbury, and as fans, we demand answers as to why he can never get the team to perform down the stretch. Unfortunately, it appears that Christmas forgot about the Cardinals, as “decent crunch time decision-making head coach” is still on their wish list.