A lot of “nonsense” and controversy has surrounded the Arizona Cardinals and their franchise quarterback, Kyler Murray, this offseason. With the struggles in the second half of the season and the embarrassing playoff loss, people are upset and want to find blame.
While there is a healthy share of criticism that is being directed at Murray, it is important to know this — while some of his volume statistics do not suggest he is one of the NFL’s best passers, many other important metrics show that he is, and the fact of the matter remains is that, even only three seasons into his NFL career, he is one of the best quarterbacks in franchise history.
Pro Football Focus’ Ian Hartitz shared some notable quarterback metrics on Twitter. These are from PFF and include the Cardinals’ playoff game, which was awful.
Murray’s PFF passing grade was 87.5, the fifth-highest among qualified quarterbacks.
He was third in the NFL in completion percentage, and he led the league for much of the season.
He was sixth in the league in yards per attempt at 7.6, an important metric for how impactful a quarterback is in his passing game.
He was No. 1 in big-time throw rate at 7.8%.
He had the fourth-lowest rate of turnover-worthy plays at 2.2%.
These are metrics that show he is one of the best passers in the league, even though he has yet to throw for 4,000 yards in a season or 30 touchdown passes.
And within a historical context, he is already one of the best in franchise history.
They have only won 11 or more games in a season three times since coming to Arizona and six times in its entire history.
Murray has three of the 10 highest single-season passing yard totals in three seasons. His three seasons rank sixth, ninth and 15th in touchdown passes in franchise history. He has the two highest single-season completion percentages. His 5.0% touchdown percentage in 2021 was the same as Kurt Warner’s in 2008 and 0.1% lower than Warner’s in 2009.
His 7.9 yards per attempt is behind only Carson Palmer’s 8.7 in 2015 and Neil Lomax’ 8.2 in 1984.
He has gone to more Pro Bowls (and it is important to note he has never been a replacement Pro Bowler) than Warner or Palmer did and the same number as Lomax.
Murray has played only three NFL seasons. He is 24 years old. He has improved every season and he is already one of the top three quarterbacks in franchise history.
He is one of the best passers in the league and one of the best quarterbacks in franchise history.
Let us remember that and keep it in context when his flaws are brought up. Even with his flaws, he is doing more and leading the team to do more than pretty much every other guy to play the position in franchise history.
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