Cardinals rookie tackle Josh Jones shares a history with Kliff Kingsbury
TEMPE, Ariz. — Whenever the Arizona Cardinals get back to work, rookie offensive lineman Josh Jones won’t have the same steep learning curve that his fellow first-year players have.
Sure, he’ll have to learn about life in the NFL and how to take care of his body, but Jones is already intimately familiar with the Cardinals’ offense. He ran an extremely similar scheme as a left tackle under coach Dana Holgorsen at the University of Houston last season — a version of the Air Raid that relied heavily on the run in the same way the Cardinals do.
Kingsbury and Holgorsen both come from Mike Leach’s coaching tree. Kingsbury played for Leach at Texas Tech while Holgorsen played under Leach at Iowa Wesleyan and then coached with him at Valdosta State and Texas Tech. In fact, Holgorsen hired Kingsbury to be an offensive quality control coach at Houston in 2008, kickstarting Kingsbury’s coaching career.
“There’s a lot of good synergy there,” Kingsbury said after Jones dropped to the Cardinals unexpectedly in the third round. “We’re so thrilled it worked out. We did not expect him to be there.”
