Kliff Kingsbury is leaving his job as Washington Commanders offensive coordinator to “pursue other opportunities.” One of those opportunities is likely to be with the New York Giants, where Kingsbury is expected to interview for the team’s vacant head-coaching position.
Kingsbury was offensive coordinator with Washington the past two seasons. His parting with the Commanders was described as a mutual decision between Kingsbury and Washington head coach Dan Quinn.
Kingsbury was praised for his work with the Commanders during Jayden Daniels’ 2024 rookie season as Washington went to the playoffs and had one of the league’s better offenses. With Daniels suffering through an injury-plagued 2025, the Commanders won just five games and Kingsbury’s offense was not nearly as prolific.
Daniels and other Commanders players are apparently not happy with Kingsbury’s exit.
Kingsbury was head coach of the Arizona Cardinals for four seasons, from 2019-2022. He compiled a 28-37-1 (.432 winning percentage). His best season was 2021, when the Cardinals went 11-6 and lost in the Wild Card round of the playoffs to the eventual Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams.
Prior to Arizona, Kingsbury went 35-40 (.467) in six seasons as head coach at Texas Tech.
I discussed Kingsbury with David Harrison, Commanders insider for Locked on Commanders, recently. Harrison said he would “lean to the side of no,” when I asked him if he thought Kingsbury should be in the conversation for the Giants.
“I think that to be fair, like I don’t get to see, and you know this obviously, but to those who don’t, I don’t get to see Cliff do his day-to-day job and and all those things and full interaction with the players. So there there’s got to be a big grain of salt taken with I think any media member’s opinion on whether or not a guy would be a good head coach,” Harrison said. “But just looking at some of the things I can look at, Cliff still seems to be a guy who is very much kind of stuck in his way.
“Kliff Kingsbury at the end of the day when he feels the he has the excuse, when he feels he has the reason, he’s going to revert back to what he wants to do. It’s not really about what is best for my team. It’s not and and don’t me wrong, like he thinks it’s best for his team, right? I should I should definitely put that in there. It’s not like he’s saying, “I don’t care that that’s what’s best. I want to do what I want to do.” Like, he thinks it’s best for his team. But what he doesn’t have is the situational awareness to understand that like, ‘No, it’s not’.
“… until the head man says, “Hey dude, this is what we’re going to do.” He’s not going to see it himself. And if I’m hiring a head coach, I need a guy that can see the picture for what it is, not see the confirmation bias, that he wants to tell himself that he’s right all the time. And I just don’t think that Cliff is there.”
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