It’s often said that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Apparently for the Arizona Cardinals, their enemy is also their friend.

The Cardinals hired Kliff Kingsbury as their next head coach on Tuesday, bringing yet another offensive-minded guru to the NFC West. The 39-year-old joins Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan, as well as the oldest coach in the league, Pete Carroll, in the division.

In announcing the hiring, the Cardinals made sure to mention that Kingsbury is “friends with” McVay, for whatever reason. And to take it a step further, the release called McVay a “genius.”

The Cardinals press release announcing Kingsbury made sure to include that he’s friends with Sean McVay. pic.twitter.com/oEqGfkgWdT — Kyle Bonagura (@BonaguraESPN) January 8, 2019

It’s almost as if being linked to McVay automatically makes a coaching candidate that much better. The Packers hired Matt LaFleur, who was McVay’s offensive coordinator in 2017 with the Rams, to be their next head coach, as well.

Shortly after being ridiculed on Twitter, the Cardinals removed the sentence about McVay and Kingsbury being friends.

Rams coach Sean McVay – the 32-year-old offensive genius who has become the blueprint of many of the new coaching hires around the NFL – reached out to Kingsbury after Texas Tech let him go to see if Kingsbury wanted to join the Rams’ staff for the stretch run and postseason as an offensive consultant. Kingsbury considered it but ultimately joined USC.

McVay appreciates everyone crediting him with getting coaches hired, but he said on Tuesday that he hasn’t been around long enough to have a coaching tree.

Sean McVay: "I'm too young to have a coaching tree." 😂 — Cameron DaSilva (@camdasilva) January 8, 2019

The NFC West is certainly heating up … or something.