Revenge of the Birds
Kliff’s brilliant work with rookie QB Jayden Daniels and the Commanders offense is the talk of the NFL
I acknowledge that some of you might question once again, the relevance of articles about Kliff Kingsbury these days at ROTB. I would just ask you to try to understand that Cardinals’ fans bashing and scapegoating of Kliff Kingsbury was still in full-force 7-weeks ago when the Commanders lost three games in a row while Jayden Daniels was trying to play through a painful rib injury. A significant number of Cardinals’ fans were going to the extent of trolling Commanders fans —- “we tried to tell you, Kliff’s offense sucks and is guaranteed to fall apart every season.”
This season Kyler Murray created an added relevance to Kliff Kingsbury’s tenure in Arizona by telling every FOX crew that “I am finally playing in an offense where I don’t have to be Superman running around making plays in order for the team to win.”
Therefore, after watching Kliff Kingsbury and his rookie QB Jayden Daniels win their last six games, including yesterday’s stunning 23-20 “super boink” Wild Card upset of the Bucs, I felt compelled this morning to go back and read the “Final Homage to Kliff Kingsbury” article I wrote on September 28, 2023 —- not just to ruminate on all of the arguments as to why, in my opinion, Kliff did not deserve the extreme level of scapegoating he received —- but just as much, I wanted to go back and read your (ROTB members) comments about what was then a very sore subject, because I have remembered how encouraging so many of your reactions were to Kliff’s situation.
Furthermore, I wanted to read the article and comments again because (on September 28, 2023) after sending the link to that article to a couple of Kliff’s friends, one of them was very kind to pass the article on to Kliff, who then was working as Lincoln Riley’s offensive consultant at USC.
A couple of days later, much to my surprise, Kliff’s friend messaged me Kliff’s reaction to the article:
“What a sweetheart
Let him know he will be proven right soon. And thank you for sharing.
- KK”
To me —- reading Kliff’s message —- made me feel much the same way that I imagine Red must have felt when under that big old oak tree in Buxton, Maine, when he opened up the letter from Andy Dufresne to read “Hope is a good thing, Red, maybe the best of things, for no good thing ever dies.” (Shawshank Redemption)
My hope then for Kliff Kingsbury was never stronger.
And today, after reading all of your comments, the sense of hope that I feel from you the members of ROTB has never been higher. There is some sweet justice going on here —- thanks to how brave so many of you were to take full consideration of Kliff’s demise in Arizona with an open mind and an open heart.
Here is the...
