The Great irony About Kliff Kingsbury

In one of Kliff Kingsbury’s most candid moments as the surprise Cardinals’ head coaching successor to Bruce Arians and Steve Wilks, he told the media after his first NFL game that during Kyler Murray’s and his abysmal performance in that first half, he worried that he was that he was going to get fired and lose the expensive house he just had bought in Paradise Valley.

Well, if you know Michael Bidwill’s pattern with regard to head coaches, whenever his head coach leads the Cardinals to a double digit winning season, Bidwill will back up the Brinks trucks and lavish him with a lucrative multi-year contract extension,. Bidwill did so for Ken Whisenhunt and Bruce Arians.

The pattern continued this past spring when Bidwill signed GM Steve Keim and Kliff Kingsbury to their lucrative contract extensions. In Kliff’s case the contract was fully guaranteed for 5 years at $7.5M annually.

Now that Kliff Kingsbury has been ‘“relieved of his duties as head coach”, Bidwill’s subsequent pattern of having to pay contracts for years after those coaches and assistant coaches were fired has perpetuated, Which, by the way, should also include the final three years of Steve Wilks’ contract. Remember him?

Thus, the great full-circle irony for Kliff Kingsbury, who as early as 10 minutes into coaching his first NFL game was worried about getting fired and losing his house, is that on the very day that he is fired, thanks to Michael Bidwill’s generosity, he can afford an upgrade on his mountainside villa and has the wherewithal to pay it off in full —-whether he works, or not.

It makes one wonder who is laughing harder on the way to the bank these days, Kliff Kingsbury, Kyler Murray or Erik Burkhardt?

Now, am I intending to insinuate that the Kingsbury and Murray contracts, as negotiated by their shred agent, Erik Burkhardt, were some sort of a masterfully planned heist of $270.5M dollars?

Well, until the Paparazzi happens to click photos of Kyler Murray and Kliff Kingsbury puffing on Cubans and slurping back Margaritas on the shores of Zihuatanejo, all bets are off.

Note: I felt compelled to write this satire today because, in truth, I am feeling very emotional about Kliff getting fired. I thought the character he displayed this season was extraordinary. And I am repulsed by the thought of Kliff Kingbury’s firing being the coda of the HBO Hard Knocks In-Season finale. How much can one good man be dragged through hell for all the world to see?