The Arizona Cardinals’ Kyler Murray experiment has had mixed results, typically divided by the midway mark of the NFL’s regular season. For three straight years, Murray has pushed his team above expectations throughout the first half of the season. And for three straight years, his Cardinals have crashed back to Earth and out of Super Bowl contention as the weather grows cold.
There have been several factors at play leading to these annual collapses. In 2019, a team punching above its weight class finally had a mediocre roster catch up to it. In 2020 and 2021, injuries helped turn dominant starts — 13-3 before November 8 those years! — into disappointing finishes.
But the biggest reason for those slides may be the overwhelmed head coach whose inability to make in-season adjustments has allowed the rest of the league to catch up. Kliff Kingsbury’s .500 regular-season record makes him the franchise’s second-most successful coach since 1980. It also obfuscates the fact that, come winter, he typically gets his butt kicked.
On Thursday, with 2022 training camp just over the horizon, the Cardinals made a statement. They committed to Murray, giving him a longterm contract extension that tells the world, “We’re gonna roll with you, no matter who’s coaching.”
Cardinals are giving Kyler Murray a five-year, $230.5 million deal that includes $160 million guaranteed, per source. It gives Murray the second highest paid QB average at $46.1 million per year. https://t.co/tTnUJXGSm3
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 21, 2022
The deal ties Murray to the Cardinals through 2028. It pays him a higher salary than any other quarterback in the league but Aaron Rodgers. It’s an endorsement for a player whose overall level of play has improved in each of his three seasons as a pro.
It’s also an extension befitting a player who looked like an All-Pro over the first half of the season (per RSBDM.com’s advanced stats)…
…rather than the guy who fell to the middle of the pack after returning from injury for the final six games of 2021.
It’s tough to find Murray in that second chart because he slipped from second place in expected points added and completion percentage above expected all the way to 18th (out of 29 qualified QBs). DeAndre Hopkins’ absence played a role. So did Kingsbury’s inability to innovate late in the year.
Kingsbury signed a five-year contract extension back in March, but that doesn’t presage the kind of job security you might expect. His initial contract with Arizona ran through 2022. Rather than string him along as a lame duck, the team locked its head coach — and general manager Steve Keim — into deals that last until 2027 but can be terminated well before then.
Things haven’t gone especially well for the Cardinals this offseason. Hopkins was suspended for the first six games of 2022 thanks to a failed PED test. The team traded its first-round pick for Marquise “Hollywood” Brown, a perfectly fine young wideout who’ll soon command a contract extension nearing $100 million or more because that’s the going rate for promising receivers right now. Brown’s more of a sure thing than any of the rookies Arizona would have picked at No. 23 in this year’s stacked class of WRs, but he’s also significantly more expensive for a team that no longer has a dirt cheap quarterback on its books.
Keim and Kingsbury used their second-round pick on tight end Trey McBride, a very good prospect who plays the same position as Zach Ertz in an offense that rarely uses two-tight end formations. Otherwise, the team’s biggest offseason additions were… Will Hernandez? Nick Vigil? Darrel Williams? Those are the guys who’ll be counted on to help backfill the free agent departures of veterans like Christian Kirk, Chase Edmonds, Chandler Jones and Jordan Hicks.
This all points to a potential decline in 2022 and limited roster flexibility in the years that follow. Murray could get some of the blame for it, but Kingsbury is the more likely scapegoat. Coaches are almost always more ejectable than franchise quarterbacks, but even more so when the passer in question has been deemed worthy of Patrick Mahomes money.
That means the Murray extension isn’t just a Kyler Murray statement. It’s the admission that, when it comes down to it, the Cardinals blame their late-season swoons on factors outside the quarterback who’s been mediocre throughout them.
That limits the options should accountability need to be doled out for another disappointing January. By paying Murray like a franchise cornerstone, Arizona is making the tacit admission that, should push come to shove, they’re gonna rebuild around their quarterback rather than the coach they’d hoped would revolutionize their offense.
