It was always a longshot, but for those fans who wanted to see Kliff Kingsbury back with Patrick Mahomes this year, the dream is over.
The idea was always a pipe dream. But as a section of Chiefs Kingdom watched and waited to see where Kliff Kingsbury might land for the foreseeable future, it’s now clear that it won’t be in Kansas City to work, once again, with star quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
It was several months ago that the Arizona Cardinals made Kingsbury a free agent after firing him as head coach following four mostly frustrating seasons in the desert. The Cardinals finished as high as second place in just one of those seasons and were largely relegated to the NFC West basement during his tenure.
Kingsbury was, of course, Mahomes’ college coach at Texas Tech, and that sort of familiarity as well as the respect held by many for Kingsbury’s offensive mind made the idea of a potential reunion an exciting one. Since his firing, Kingsbury had taken his time to jump into anything new and it seemed as if he might be available as a consultant or assistant coach only to find zero activity around Kingsbury’s future for most of the winter.
Then earlier this week, the latest news about Kingsbury finally came through the pipeline. He’d decided to rejoin the college ranks as part of Lincoln Riley’s staff at USC to work with quarterbacks there.
The move is a big deal for USC and should allow Kingsbury to rehab his image a bit while he looks for the next head coaching opportunity. That said, it would have been interesting to see what Kingsbury would have brought to a Chiefs team that was reshuffling their own offensive coaches with the loss of Eric Bieniemy to the Washington Commanders and Greg Lewis to the Baltimore Ravens.
Kingsbury might one day get the chance to work with Mahomes again, but for now, the Chiefs seem just fine promoting some coaches from within. Meanwhile, Kingsbury can only hope working with Caleb Williams brings a new round of opportunities his way around this time next season.
Here’s what’s trending in Chiefs news:
Chris Jones and Tyreek Hill to square off in sport fishing competition The Catch (KMBC)
Given where we are in the offseason, we’re here for any competition at all involving the Chiefs. Also, we’re pretty sure that sport fishing on this level is going to be a lot of fun to watch! However, if I was Stone Cold in this instance, I’d put my second Super Bowl ring on the end of my line and say, “Hey, look what I brought in.”