The Arizona Cardinals under head coach Kliff Kingsbury are a very good football team. Until roughly December.

That’s when the wheels come off for Kingsbury. The common thread between each of the three seasons he’s spent in the NFL is a start that exceeds expectations and a finish that falls astonishingly short of them. And that slingshot between overachieving and underachievement has left Arizona lifeless each holiday season.

His Cardinal teams are 16-8-1 at the midway point of the season (counting the ninth game in 2021’s 17-game schedule) and 8-17 after it.

That perennial collapse was on full display as the Cardinals backed into their first playoff appearance under Kingsbury with a 1-4 record to finish the regular season. They wilted under a national spotlight in a 34-11 Wild Card loss to the rival Los Angeles Rams — a team Arizona beat by 17 on the road back in October.

The Cardinals gained -1 net yards across their first five drives to start the game. Their offense was responsible for -7 points in that span.

PLAYMAKERS.

📺 @ESPNNFL | @troyreeder9 x @davidlongjr pic.twitter.com/mndV6a1k3W

— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) January 18, 2022

Arizona didn’t earn a first down until more than halfway through the second quarter. With less than five minutes to play in the first half, Kyler Murray was responsible for -22 expected points added and an astounding -1.3 points each time he touched the ball, per NextGenStats’ EPA metric:

The Cardinals had a two percent chance to win this game after 25 minutes on a night where Matthew Stafford was mostly average. The Rams didn’t capitalize on all the opportunities Arizona gave them and it did not matter. Los Angeles fans didn’t worry about the drives that wandered into Cardinal territory before ending in a punt because there was no threat of Murray taking advantage of their miscues. The fact this game was only 21-0 at halftime felt like an act of mercy from Sean McVay.

The question the Cardinals now have to figure out is what their ceiling actually is with Kingsbury and whether they’ve already hit it.

In 2019, his rough finish could be attributed to a roster devoid of talent left over from the Steve Wilks/Josh Rosen era (one year, three wins). In 2020 if could be chalked up to a midseason Murray injury that limited his offense. Murray was ostensibly healthy Monday night and in the weeks that preceded it, but was also playing without his top wideout DeAndre Hopkins. While that certainly had some impact on his passing, it doesn’t excuse plays like this:

He slumped after returning from an ankle injury that cost him to starts in the middle of the season. Murray averaged 303 total yards per game and scored 20 touchdowns against seven turnovers in a 7-1 start to the season. He came back to the lineup in Week 13 and averaged 276 yards per game and scored seven touchdowns while committing five turnovers in a 2-5 finish that included Monday’s playoff loss (this, wildly, made him the second-best quarterback on his own roster behind Colt McCoy and his 101.4 passer rating in three games).

What’s the verdict? Murray was actually sacked less over the back end of the season thanks to his scrambling ability but opponents leaned into his tendencies and shut off his open targets that followed the inevitable rolls out to his right. The budding QB struggled when pushed off schedule — not having Hopkins’ velcro hands definitely hurt — and ultimately knocked what had been the league’s No. 2 scoring offense out of the top 10 entirely.

Kingsbury shoulders much of that blame. For the third straight season he’s been unable to handle adversity. Opponents have adjusted to his gameplan and he’s been powerless to find answers to these counter punches.

It’s unlikely he’ll be fired after guiding his team to its first postseason appearance since 2015, but Monday’s loss certainly chips away at his future job security. What could have been written off as late-season coincidence is now undeniably a trend. The Cardinals built their offense to match Kingsbury’s vision, pairing up highly-regarded young prospects with former All-Pros in hopes of instilling the Air Raid-style offense that made the young coach a commodity. It’s worked in stretches. It’s never lasted.

That’s Kingsbury’s NFL legacy after three seasons — the kind of coach who can build a contender so long as nothing changes.  There’s still time to rewrite that narrative, but ultimately he’s going to be judged by how he finishes races rather than his starts. If that’s the case, Kliff Kingsbury is one hell of a sprinter in a league filled with marathoners.