Arizona Cardinals: Kingsbury, Keim inflate their egos releasing Benjamin

As you now know, the Arizona Cardinals released running back Eno Benjamin, and it turns out a small disagreement with the staff was all it took. 

Just one day after speculating that the Arizona Cardinals underachieving 4-6 season was seemingly more on Kyler Murray than it was on Kliff Kingsbury, the head coach and general manager Steve Keim turned around and redefined the term irrational.

Supposedly, running back Eno Benjamin’s release stemmed not from some off-the-field issue, as it stands anyway, but from a disagreement he had with the coaching staff. Something that became evident when he saw just one snap in the Cardinals Week 10 win over the Los Angeles Rams.

This really defines Kliff Kingsbury’s arrogance, something I was ready to forgive him for following the Redbirds 27-17 win where Colt McCoy ran an efficient offense and put on a clinic for Kyler Murray on how to do so. Perhaps it wasn’t Kingsbury, some of  us, myself included, thought.

We were wrong. We were wrong because it appears that, unless your name is Kyler Murray, if you have a disagreement with the head coach, you’re expendable. Of course, with Keim having the final say in football decisions, the blame goes to him too.

Arizona Cardinals coach and GM once again stroke their own egos

Somehow, this “dynamic duo” managed to fork money out of Michael Bidwill’s pocket and landed contract extensions. Keim hasn’t built a team built for deep playoff runs since 2015. Kingsbury has never won the NFC West nor a playoff game, but somehow, they have done good enough of a job to stick around.

So let’s go ahead and cut the most productive running back on the team because we’re at odds with them! This season, Benjamin had 299 rushing yards on 70 carries, 2 touchdowns, and a YPC of 4.3. He also logged 24 receptions for 184 yards, good for 7.7 yards per target.

At the end of the day, it was an irrational move and it makes Kingsbury less desirable of a head coach to play for. Why would you want to play for a guy who could cut you for simply disagreeing with him?

At this point, I’d probably get into one with the head coach just so it would give him an excuse to hand me my walking papers. There are 31 other teams in the NFL with potentially less toxic environments than the desert now that it’s almost clear Benjamin’s release stemmed from a disagreement that clearly turned into a falling out.

(Statistics provided by Pro-Football-Reference)

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