Cardinals new head coach Kliff Kingsbury made a lot of eyes roll when it was revealed this spring that he plans on giving his players regular “cell phone breaks” so they check in with family and friends or scour their favorite social media sites.

It’s something he allowed back in college when he was the head coach at Texas Tech and he said it not only helped break up the monotony of team meetings, it served as a way to improve his players’ attention.

Well, maybe there’s a secret reason why he’s letting his NFL players have the same privilege.

During an August 2016 appearance on “The Hawkcast” podcast with then-Atlanta Falcons linebacker A.J. Hawk, Kingsbury openly revealed he and his Texas Tech coaches would set up fake social media accounts using “cute girls” as avatars to spy on their players.

That’s right, spy.

“We have fake accounts with cute girls that they add right now so we can see what’s going on, who’s tweeting what,” Kingsbury said at the time. “Those are heavily monitored, for sure.”

As weird as it may sound, the tactic isn’t that unusual. Coaches in football and other sports have been known to do the same thing as a way to watch how their players are presenting themselves on Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook.

The strange part is that Kingsbury admits to doing it.

When asked if he thought his players at Texas Tech might have been aware of the spying, Kingsbury told Hawk, “I think they do, but they can’t resist that. Friend requests from cute girls are an automatic follow.”

To be fair, Kingsbury also revealed his secret ring of social media spies were actually deployed for a grander purpose – to liven up an end-of-the-season team meeting in the film room.

“Once a year, we’ll capture the most absurd posts our team makes and we make a big presentation and have a lot of fun with it,” he said, laughing.

It’s too bad Kingsbury decided to end Arizona’s mandatory mini-camp a day early because if we had heard about this story on Thursday, we would have grilled Kingsbury about it.

That aside, here’s a special note to Cardinals players: Be mindful of your actions on social media and who you follow. Coach Kliff and his cronies are probably watching you.

Have an opinion on the Arizona Cardinals? Reach McManaman at bob.mcmanaman@arizonarepublic.com and follow him on Twitter @azbobbymac. Listen to him live every Tuesday afternoon between 2-5:30 on AM 1060/SB Nation Radio on Calling All Sports with Roc and Manuch and every Wednesday afternoon between 1-4 on Fox Sports 910-AM on The Freaks with Kenny and Crash.

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