Washington Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury said on Thursday that he would like another opportunity to be a head coach “at some point,” per ESPN’s John Keim. The success of the Commanders offense this season, as well as the rapid development of rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels, is probably going to get him that opportunity, whether it be this offseason or in a future season.
But NFL teams should be skeptical about giving Kingsbury another opportunity to run the whole show given what we have seen from him in the past in that role
It is not that Kingsbury is a bad football coach or doesn’t know what he is doing in designing an offense or calling plays.
He has done a tremendous job with both elements this season and helped build a Commanders offense that has been one of the best in the NFL. That has helped the team make its first trip to the playoffs since the 2020 season and dramatically change the long-term outlook of the franchise.
The problem is Kingsbury’s two attempts at being a head coach — one in college with Texas Tech and one in the NFL with the Arizona Cardinals — did not go particularly well.
In six seasons with the Red Raiders, he had just two winning seasons, never won more than eight games in a season and finished with three consecutive losing seasons. Overall, he was 35-40 in running the program.
Things did not get much better in the NFL, where he had just one winning record in four seasons with the Cardinals, compiling a 28-37-1 record.
Between the two head-coaching jobs, his overall winning percentage is only .446 over 10 years, while his teams developed a bad reputation for getting off to fast starts and then consistently fading in the second half.
That is not exactly a small sample size of games, either. It is a full decade as a head coach with identical results.
Kingsbury addressed that on Thursday and acknowledged there were things he could have done differently in Arizona, and he cited some lessons he has taken from Commanders head coach Dan Quinn this season.
“I don’t think I set the foundation [in Arizona] the way I would do it after watching DQ and how he set the foundation from day one,” Kingsbury said, via Keim. “These are the standards, this is what we want, this is what we’re going to be. I definitely could have done a better job of that and kind of once you don’t lay it out like that, it’s hard to put it back in.”
It is true that coaches can learn from their mistakes, and that experience can make a world of difference. Maybe he did take something away from those experiences at Texas Tech and Arizona, and from this experience under Quinn.
It is also true that some coaches are better off in more specialized roles instead of running the whole show.
Some people are meant to be Batman, and some people are meant to be Robin. Being a head coach is not just about schemes, X’s and O’s and playcalling. You need to have a hand in all three phases of the game, set the tone, manage the locker room, manage personalities and make every big in-game decision and pregame decision. It is a lot, and not every coach can make it work. Even if they are great at one specialized area.
NFL history is loaded with coaches who excelled consistently as coordinators but simply could not make it work as head coaches.
It is understandable as to why Kingsbury wants another chance. He might get it. But NFL teams should be aware of the risk they are taking when they do it.
