OPINION:
The great Texas coach Darrell Royal once said about throwing the ball, “Three things can happen when you pass and two of them are bad.”
Consider it your assignment for the day to figure out which is which.
Apparently, there’s a fourth thing, and that’s bad, too.
You can lose your job.
The celebrated and heralded Kliff Kingsbury was fired this week as the Washington Commanders offensive coordinator, one day after general manager Adam Peters and coach Dan Quinn held a celebrated and heralded 35-minute press conference to answer for a lost 5-12 season.
Quinn said this when asked by reporters about Kingsbury at that Monday event: “We’re going through all of all the coaches. Kliff offensively, defensively, on the team’s side. And so, that’s really what we’re digging into to find what’s best, how do we do it, you know, where do we find spaces to improve? And you know, for Kliff, for (defensive coordinator) Joe [Whitt Jr.], for (special teams coordinator) Larry [Izzo], for all of us. Like that’s our main focus, so we’re never in this space again, and that’s what we want to dig in hard on.”
It may not have been “tell the truth Monday.”
Whitt was a dead man walking, relieved of his duties during a season of horrific defense but remained on board because the team had an extra set of headphones. But Kingsbury was a surprise, though the idea had been gaining steam in the hours after the Commanders’ season-ending 24-17 win over the Philadelphia Eagles scrub team.
Last season Kingsbury’s touch was gold. He was the architect of the NFL’s seventh-best offense and the mentor to star rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels.
The problem this year may have been that Kingsbury tried to run 2024 back with a team crushed by injuries and put his mentee young quarterback at risk in the process, with Daniels missing nine starts with various injuries.
At times Kingsbury seemed to run the offense as if Monk, Clark and Sanders were out there, instead of Moe, Larry and Curly, sometimes with receivers that had just been pulled off the street.
One of the reported reasons that Kingsbury was bounced was that the offense relied on the pass too much.
That is curious, since the Commanders were ninth in rushing attempts in the league in 2025.
Maybe it was three particular pass attempts that got Quinn worked up — the three failed passes at the goal line early in a 31-0 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, who turned around and went the length of the field to take a 14-0 lead.
“That was the game, I thought, honestly, where it shifted the most,” Quinn said after the brutal defeat.
Kingsbury’s apology later that week — “weren’t a lot of great plays called in that game, and that’s one on me” — apparently didn’t cut it.
Jordan “Coffee Boy” Schultz — a self-described online “NFL insider” — suggested that the Commanders had a whiff of Dan Snyder dysfunction.
“Part of the issue the Commanders have had in the building is the front office meddling with the coaching staff on personnel and which players to use — an ongoing problem dating back to 2024 when they were having success,” he posted on social media. “With the team struggling this year, it reached new heights and there were notable disagreements. Moreover, I have not gotten the impression Dan Quinn wanted to move on from his coordinators.”
I find it hard to believe that Quinn wasn’t ready to move on from Whitt, no matter how close they were. But then I don’t do impressions.
All this may be moot if the firing mechanisms in the NFL lead to someone more valued than Kingsbury filling the job — like Mike McDaniel, the offensive guru who was let go Thursday as the Miami Dolphins head coach.
He is close to Quinn, having worked for him in Atlanta.
A year removed from a stunning 12-5 inaugural campaign and a trip to the NFC title game, Quinn is on the hot seat now, to be judged by jettisoning two coordinators after just two seasons and who their replacements will be.
As the aforementioned Royal once said, “If worms carried pistols, birds wouldn’t eat them.”
Who can argue with that?
• Catch Thom Loverro on “The Kevin Sheehan Show” podcast.
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