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Cards add 5 assistant coaches
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Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt is close to filling out his coaching staff after the team officially hired five more assistants Tuesday.
The Cardinals have also already made a change on the new staff, moving recently hired tight ends coach Richie Anderson to receivers coach so that new hire Freddie Kitchens could take over the tight ends.
Former NFL quarterback Jeff Rutledge will coach the quarterbacks.
Matt Raich was brought aboard as a defensive quality control coach, Mike Miller was hired as an offensive assistant, and staff holdover Rick Courtright was offically kept as an assistant defensive backs coach to new hire Teryl Austin.
The choice of Anderson as receivers coach is interesting, since Anderson spent his 13-year NFL career as a fullback and the Cards have a pair of high-profile receivers in Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin. But in 2006 — Anderson’s first as a coach — he was an assistant receivers/tight ends coach with the Jets.
Rutledge has been a high school head coach in Nashville, Tenn., the past five seasons. He coached quarterbacks at Vanderbilt University for five years prior to that stint, although he has never coached in the NFL. Rutledge played 14 years in the NFL.
Kitchens spent his first year as an NFL assistant in 2006 coaching tight ends in Dallas. Miller previously worked as an offensive assistant in Pittsburgh when Whisenhunt was there although he was out of the league last season.
Raich had been Miller’s replacement as offensive assistant for the Steelers, where he worked the past three years.
The Cardinals still need a defensive line coach.
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