The big news of this Tuesday is that the Arizona Cardinals announced they are hiring former Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury as their next head coach.
A new King in the Nest.#KardsGotKliff
[https://t.co/bI2zAkAiPh] pic.twitter.com/d6kN6SR41c
— Arizona Cardinals (@AZCardinals) January 8, 2019
Of course, this move came just a month after the coach signed on as the offensive coordinator at USC, and the Cardinals are reportedly dishing out some extra coin because of it.
According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Media, the Cardinals are expected to handle a $150,000 buyout because Kingsbury owes USC due to his decision to resign and take the job in Arizona.
As per the terms of his contract negotiated by @ErikBurkhardt at #USC, Kliff Kingsbury owes the school a $150K buyout to resign and take the #AZCardinals head coaching job. The team is expected to handle that.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 8, 2019
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Kingsbury signed a four-year deal with the Cardinals, so clearly the team is feeling confident about its decision. Therefore, an extra $150,000 really isn’t all that big a burden in the grand scheme of things.
However, the move really was quite risky. As we detailed here, Kingsbury wasn’t a winner at Texas Tech, and it’s quite debatable whether he was able to get the most out of Patrick Mahomes while he was there, too.
This hire will be highly scrutinized in the coming years, to be sure.