The evolution of Cardinals’ QB Kyler Murray: A better scheme and more wisdom. Now he has to win
GLENDALE, Ariz. — One year ago, there was still plenty for Jonathan Gannon to sort through. Especially when it came to Kyler Murray.
Six months into his job and weeks from his first game as the Arizona Cardinals' head coach, Gannon had seemingly heard it all about his quarterback. From the outside looking in, Murray was billed as a ticker tape of problems. He was called aloof and accused of being disconnected from teammates. There were concerns about his study habits and he was injury prone. His recently signed contract extension? A mistake.
For anyone with ears in 2023, it was a lot to absorb. And for a new coaching staff and front office, difficult to navigate without wondering: Will the Kyler Murray headlines match up with the Kyler Murray the new regime was inheriting?
One year of assessment later, Gannon’s answer to that question is as salty as it is emphatic.
“[Expletive] no,” he said. “One thousand percent.”
Gannon’s tone was rigid, almost annoyed at the rehashing of Murray’s alleged reputation one year ago. Because it simply hasn’t been the player the new regime has experienced. If anything, it’s been the opposite, with Murray being the locker room’s most engaged player this past offseason, having spent nearly every day since early February studying in the team’s facilities, working in the weight room or at practice during voluntary workouts. And when he wasn’t on site, there were a pair of trips to Oklahoma and Los Angeles with teammates on offense, which Murray essentially billed as bonding opportunities.
“I think it’s an underrated thing, the camaraderie off the field,” Murray said. “Just loving each other, being together, spending time together getting to know each other. The teams I’ve been on that have been the best, we were tight off the field. It allows you to go harder for each other.”
This is the development that could come to define the Cardinals in 2024 and beyond. More than a young and reshuffled offensive line that could be a very important part of the team’s foundation moving forward. More than a defense that’s continuing to get sorted in Year 2 under Gannon, with new infusions of young, drafted talent. And even more than the arrival of rookie wideout Marvin Harrison Jr., whose performance will be a constant focal point of expectations from the moment the season kicks off.
With all due respect to those other variables, Murray’s recalibration — in almost every way — is the project that carries more importance than anything else in the organization. After all, he’ll turn 27 next month and is entering his sixth year in the league, with the two most consistent aspects of his career having been injuries and a 28-36-1 record (plus one playoff loss). It's a reality that even Murray himself can’t help but recognize.
“I’m not used to losing — I know it sounds cliché,” Murray said. “It’s been five years, going on six [and] I haven’t won yet. So yeah, the sense of urgency is definitely there.”
This sense of urgency and declaration of change — coming from both Murray and the Cardinals' staff — has seen the QB take the positive momentum of last season’s late flashes of dynamism and carry it into his offseason. Part of that effort has been poured into mastering the offense of rising coordinator Drew Petzing, whose goal is to move Murray away from excessive (and inconsistent) improvisation and into a structure that will allow for consistent and replicable success because as much as the first half of Murray’s 2021 season is often looked upon as his peak, it was achieved in a way that invites boom or bust outcomes.
“A lot of that was off schedule, which is very high variance,” Petzing said of Murray’s early 2021 dominance. “It’s inherently dangerous [too], but you’re going to get exactly what they did that year [in terms of results]. You’re going to win a ton and then you’re going to lose a ton and you’re not really going to be in control of it. It’s him making things happen, but nothing else [in the scheme] is really getting him there.”
The fix? More on-time, on-schedule play inside Petzing’s scheme, and likely fewer designed runs for Murray early in the season.
“He actually is very good when he plays on time, when he’s on schedule, when he’s in the pocket,” Petzing said. “He sees the field really well. He’s accurate. He can make all the throws. That is the part to me that maybe allows him to sustain that type of 2021 early success.”
The boiled down message about improvisation to Murray: “When a play call is bad, do you. When it’s good, do the easy thing.”
That sharpened philosophy — along with young additions to the skill pieces around Murray — has been one portion of his offseason tuneup. The other has been Murray’s continued development as a Cardinals leader, which has been an evolving process of self-evaluation and critical conversations with Gannon.
“Anything I’ve asked him to do to help the team — not himself — he’s went above and beyond,” Gannon said. “And I give him some s***. I give him a lot. I put a lot on his plate. … I feel like he’s matured a little bit. I think ultimately it was always in him. How the team was built [when Murray came into the league], he was the young guy and it’s like, ‘Can I really dog-cuss this 10-year vet right now?’ Now he’s kind of middle-aged [in his career], a little older now playing with some younger guys.”
The result: Murray’s comfort level connecting with teammates and leading them has changed. In fairness to him, that's something many young quarterbacks go through during their careers. Not everyone comes into the league at 21 or 22 ready to be a leader of a veteran roster. Let alone one who has experienced a consistent swath of losing, which typically prioritizes job and family preservation over bonding with the new young quarterback. Six seasons later, that dynamic flips. That seems to be one of the aspects Murray is pointing to when it comes to how he and his relationship to teammates is changing.
“It goes back to being 21 [as a rookie] and now being a little older and having guys around my age,” Murray said. “It’s a little easier to give them game on what I experienced and bring them up and we grow together. I came into the locker room with — no offense to the guys that I came in with, I love them — but I came into the locker room with a lot of really old, old guys. Some of the guys it was maybe their last year, [and they] probably [or] maybe shouldn’t even have been playing anymore. But they loved the game. That’s just kind of the locker room I was in. I’m already a lead-by-example type of guy anyway, so I had to prove myself to veterans. And I’ve always been a guy [who has thought] ‘how can I tell you what to do if I’m not doing it myself?’”
Clearly, that has shifted. The coaching staff sees it. The front office and general manager Monti Ossenfort has seen it. And most importantly, Murray has seen it. But revelations — in scheme and attitude — mean little if they don’t lead to meaningful and sustained changes to the power dynamic inside the NFC West. And the Cardinals haven’t seen that during Murray’s first five seasons.
That’s what has to change in 2024 and beyond. As much as Murray might grow or change, if the team’s success doesn’t follow him down that path, it won’t matter what his reputation might have been or how it has changed. The only calculation will be whether Murray is a quarterback capable of elevating Arizona into a playoff caliber — and eventually, Super Bowl-caliber — franchise.
