Cardinals Head Coach Kliff Kingsbury – Postgame Media Availability – January 3, 2021

 

Cardinals Head Coach Kliff Kingsbury – Postgame Media Availability – January 3, 2021

(On what his take is on everything and if he will look back and wonder what could have been)

“Today there was quite a few unfortunate events out there, but you got to give LA credit. I thought they had a good plan with the quarterback (John Wolford) and executed it. They have a very good defense and made plays when they had to. I thought our guys played hard all year, we’re competitive and played to win. Just came up short today and like I said, got to give LA a lot of credit.”

 

(On how serious (QB) Kyler Murray’s injury was and why he didn’t come in earlier)

“Yeah, I think it was pretty significant. We’ll see how it feels moving forward, but he just needed to loosen it up. He hurt it and wasn’t able to push off there for a while. He continued to work on it, the trainers continued to work with him and he got to a point where he felt it was bearable and came back in, which was impressive. You saw when he got back in the spark he gave us. We were able to move the ball some. Obviously, we weren’t able to finish like we needed to but I was really proud of him. That’s gutty, especially for a guy who uses his legs like he does, to hop back in and try to help his team make the playoffs.”

 

(On his thoughts on not having (QB) Brett Hundley on the active roster)

“Yeah, that’s how it’s been every game this season, so we continue that. We told (QB) Murray he was good to go, had a good week at practice. It wasn’t the same injury.”

 

(On if there was any thought on putting Kyler Murray back in the game with playoffs on the line)

“Ultimately, he did. We made sure that he was in a place that we didn’t feel like he could injure himself further. He started feeling better and so he wanted to go and give it a try.”

 

(On what he had seen from (QB) Chris Streveler from camp and practices that might not have been apparent today)

“He had just made plays and handled himself really well. This is a tough spot to be thrown into the game obviously without ever having any preseason football, not getting in a ton of reps throughout the season and zero game reps. But I thought it was an unfortunate event that at the end of the half we thought they jumped, we thought it was a free play, still got to protect the ball but we’ll have to look at that and see there. But we had our opportunities and I thought he came in and handled himself.”

 

(On what the message was in the locker room after the game)

“I’ll leave that in the locker room, but obviously incredibly proud of that group. We made strides. There’s no question as an organization, we are not where we want to be, but the competitiveness from year one to year two definitely stepped up and I thought, like I said earlier, each and every week we had a chance and the guys believed we could win the games, we just didn’t get it done enough as a group and we have to keep pushing and keep getting better.”

 

(On what kind of carry over the end of this season will bring to next season)

“I don’t really understand your question, but like I said, we made strides and that’s in the right direction and we have to continue to get pieces around (QB) Kyler Murray and continue to build it the right way. A couple games here and there we were right where we wanted to be, we just have to learn from these and keep moving forward.”

 

(On what he saw from (QB) John Wolford)

“I thought he played tough. Made enough plays to win the game. When he had to use his legs, I thought Rams Head Coach Sean McVay had a good plan for him. It was impressive to see him handle himself like that in his first start.”

 

(On how he evaluates what the offense does when multiple players are missing)

“You just got to find a way. We all knew it was by any means necessary and unfortunately, we didn’t make enough plays. Had some tough calls go against us that ended up being huge plays in the game, but we have to find a way to make enough plays. We gave them nine points offensively with that interception returned and Safety, it just wasn’t good enough.”

 

(On what his level of disappointment is with the season)

“I’m just proud of our guys and their effort all year. I thought they fought their tails off and gave us everything they had each week.”

 

(On if he had any regrets with not going with (QB) Brett Hundley)

“Not at all.”