The Arizona Cardinals have been in quite the hurry in filling out their coaching staff following the hiring of head coach Kliff Kingsbury. After being the first to officially name the head coach, Arizona was the second team to find their coordinator opposite their new head coach. And within the same day or two, the staff was packed with new faces as well as familiar ones.

Vance Joseph, defensive coordinator

Joseph, who was let go by the Denver Broncos as their head coach for two years, took the defensive coordinator job in Arizona after interviewing for head coaching vacancies, such as with the Miami Dolphins and the Cincinnati Bengals.

Arizona general manager Steve Keim, along with Kingsbury, made it clear at the beginning of this process that the team was looking to go back to an aggressive and attacking defensive philosophy with the 3-4 defense as the base, hearkening back to Arizona’s days with Todd Bowles as defensive coordinator in 2013-14.

Joseph has a track record of success with attacking defenses, especially in his sole season as defensive coordinator with the Miami Dolphins prior to his stint in Denver. In 2016 with Miami, Joseph’s defense forced the sixth most negative plays in the league and had 21 takeaways over the final 11 games of the season, a rate that would rank 2nd in the league if stretched over the full 16-game season. After moving on to his head coaching position in Denver, he kept a similar track record of success. In 2017, Denver ranked 10th in defensive efficiency and 5th the following year.

All three years, Joseph ran a 3-4 as his base defense, which will be the base in Arizona going forward. Chandler Jones, Arizona defensive lineman and arguably the team’s best defender, has already voiced his approval of the hire over Twitter through emojis and gifs.

Personally, I love the hire for the same reasons Steve Keim, Kliff Kingsbury, and Chandler Jones all love the hire. The personnel on this defense need a coordinator like Vance Joseph who’s going to demand a ball-hawking, aggressive nature out of this defense that Steve Wilks was never able to get out of them, and Joseph’s system plays directly into the strengths of guys like Jones and Patrick Peterson and allows them to do what they do best.

Steve Sarkisian, offensive coordinator (Sarkisian pulled from the job)

Sarkisian, despite only three years of NFL coaching experience in his 18 seasons as a coach, has a very colorful, scandalous, and generally successful track record as an offensive coach in football. Sarkisian spent all of the 21st century – save for one season as a quarterbacks coach with the Oakland Raiders in 2004 – coaching college until 2016. Nine of those years were spent coaching USC, though not over one continuous stretch. Sarkisian also spent time at the University of Washington and Alabama with Nick Saban before ending up in the NFL, serving as offensive coordinator of the Atlanta Falcons for the past two seasons.

The general consensus over time is that when Sarkisian is focused (he’s had a few alcohol issues in the past that directly interfered with his ability to coach, but he seems like he’s past that stage), he can coach with the best of them on offense. His problem, especially in Atlanta this past season, has been his play-calling, namely the predictability and conservative nature of it. Lucky for Arizona, Sarkisian won’t be calling plays here. Instead, he’ll just be around to help Kingsbury lead the offensive personnel as well as determine what from Kingsbury’s playbook at Texas Tech can actually translate into the NFL’s game.

One would assume that Kingsbury’s offense will stay relatively pass-heavy, though he mentioned after being introduced to the press on Jan. 9 that he does like to incorporate a lot of the run. Sarkisian led the Atlanta offense to a top-10 placement in passing both years he was there, though Atlanta certainly has more proven commodities to work with in the passing game with the likes of Matt Ryan and Julio Jones.

I like the Sarkisian hire, too, but only because of the limited role he’ll be in. It scares me a little bit to think of the possibility of Sarkisian getting too much reign over Josh Rosen and the rest of the Arizona offense, but knowing how adamant Kingsbury will likely be about the offense being his baby gives me comfort.

Stump Mitchell, running backs coach (Mitchell pulled from the job)

Mitchell is one of the familiar faces returning to the valley. He coached the running backs in Arizona from 2013-16 before leaving for the New York Jets to coach the same position. Mitchell oversaw the atmospheric rise of David Johnson and most notably said Johnson had the “tools to be… one of the best to play.”

This is a solid hire after two less-than-stellar seasons in a row from Johnson, though granted the first of the two was largely due to injury. In the Kingsbury offense, he’s going to have to be able to utilize Johnson in all his versatility and explosiveness. Who better to help get the most out of Johnson than the coach who did it first, and most successfully?

Bill Davis, linebackers coach

Davis is another familiar face, making his return for the first time since 2010. Davis was on the Arizona staff during the Ken Whisenhunt era, including during the team’s Super Bowl run in 2009, but not during Whisenhunt’s downfall a couple years later. Davis has spent the past 26 seasons bouncing around holding linebackers coach positions and defensive coordinator positions for many teams in the NFL, except for the past two seasons which he spent as the linebackers coach for Ohio State.

Davis is another solid hire because he brings that NFL experience that otherwise might not be around with all the college coaches – like Kingsbury and Sarkisian – coming to the Arizona staff. He also brings an element of being a proven commodity to a position that the team has struggled with at times recently.

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I still expect Keim to make a splashy hire – or as splashy as this hire could be – at the offensive line coach. It’s a position group that very clearly has been the Achilles’ heel of the offense these past few years, but especially in Rosen’s rookie year. But other than that being yet to come, this staff seems like it’s coming really well so far. So much of this is still going to be speculation for months, or even the first year or two, but my speculation is this is going to work, and it’s going to be fun.

UPDATE: Jan. 13, 2019. 2:30 p.m.

Sarkisian (returning to Alabama for the same role) and Mitchell (reportedly returning to the New York Jets for his same role) have pulled from Arizona after reports turned out to not come to fruition.

Arizona is now interviewing former Philadelphia Eagles QB coach and Minnesota Vikings offensive coordinator John DeFilippo. He’s got a similar track record as Sarkisian as far as great coach – especially in player relations in DeFilippo’s case – but not a great playcaller, which is just fine since Kingsbury will be responsible for that.