Eric Williams
NFL Reporter
GLENDALE, Ariz. — Will the real Kyler Murray please stand up?
The Arizona Cardinals started last season 6-4, won four in a row heading into the bye week and looked like a playoff contender. Murray played like an MVP candidate during that stretch, completing 69% of his passes for 2,058 yards, with 12 touchdown passes and just three interceptions for a 100.8 passer rating.
Then the Cardinals dropped five of their last seven games to finish the year, missing the playoffs for a third straight season. Murray’s play dipped as well, as he posted nine touchdowns and eight interceptions over that stretch for a mediocre 85.9 passer rating.
Entering his seventh NFL season, Murray remains a polarizing figure in Arizona. After winning a Heisman Trophy at Oklahoma, he was the Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2019 and went to the Pro Bowl the following two seasons. But overall, he’s just 36-45-1 as Arizona’s starter and has never won a playoff game.
With the 28-year-old Murray playing out a five-year, $230.5 million deal that ends in 2028, the Cardinals could use more evidence that he’s still the team’s quarterback of the future.
“This city, this team, this organization, everybody’s ready for us to make some noise and finally take the next step,” Murray said.
Despite last year’s disappointment, Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort and head coach Jonathan Gannon decided to run it back offensively, keeping all their playmakers. The headliners include Murray, 2024 first-round pick Marvin Harrison Jr., veteran running back James Conner and emerging tight end Trey McBride.
That puts the onus on Murray and offensive coordinator Drew Petzing, in their third season together, to make it all work. The expectation in the desert is for the Cardinals to reach the postseason for the first time since 2021, and Petzing is under pressure to generate a top-10 offense.
“I don’t know in 13 years if I’ve ever walked in with the same continuity player-wise, which could be good and bad,” Petzing told me. “But I think it’s does give us a sense of who we need to emphasize and how, based on what their skill sets are.”
Petzing and the Cardinals created an identity on offense built on a bruising running game led by Conner and a passing game highlighted by Murray and playmaking tight end McBride. The Cardinals averaged 144 rushing yards per game last season, No. 7 in the NFL. Conner’s 2,134 rushing yards over the past two seasons is tied for seventh in the league. McBride’s 192 catches are tops among tight ends over that same period.
However, the Cardinals have had trouble generating big plays, making it harder to get into scoring position. Arizona finished with just 43 plays of at least 20-plus yards last season, No. 25 in the NFL. Then, when they reached the red zone, the Cardinals had trouble putting the ball in the box in 2024. They averaged just 23 points a game last season, No. 21 in the NFL, in part because they finished 56.14% in the red zone, No. 17 in the league.
“We weren’t as explosive as we wanted to be last year or the fans wanted us to be as far as going downfield. But as far as making explosive plays, there was explosive plays all over the field,” Murray said. “We ran the hell out of the ball. If you look at the first half of my career, I don’t think we had issues as far as explosives downfield.”
One way Petzing and the Cardinals hope to increase explosive plays is by letting Murray use his legs more to get out of the pocket and put stress on defenses.
As an example of the QB using his unique skill set in critical situations to create big plays, Petzing pointed to a critical play in the fourth quarter of Arizona’s 17-15 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers last season. Murray escaped the pocket and ran for a 44-yard touchdown.
Watching practice over a two-day period at Cardinals training camp, I saw Murray working on bootlegs and throwing on the run during individual work.
“It’s a comfort thing you have to find,” Petzing told me. “In critical situations, in big moments early in games, the leash is off. But if we’re up by 21 points, I’m not calling a quarterback run necessarily with 10 minutes left.
“That’s part of the balance. The other thing is when we talk about balance, a lot of those runs are read runs, and the defense doesn’t want him to have the ball either. So they’re making him give it up, which is also why James [Conner] has gone for 1,000 yards in the last two years. Those things play off each other. Yeah, Kyler didn’t get the carry, but James had a really clean look because there were two guys sitting back there hoping Kyler didn’t keep it.”
Murray rushed for 572 yards last season, a far cry from his career-high 819 yards in 2020.
“I’m not worried about what happened in the past or what’s going to happen in the future. The goal is always to win a Super Bowl,” Murray said about his team’s outlook this season. “And that’s going to continue to be the goal. … For me personally, we’ve shown flashes and obviously the highest of the highs with the best of them, but we’ve got to continue to do it each and every game.”
Petzing spent four seasons as an assistant with longtime NFL offensive guru Norv Turner and considers him one of his main influences on how he puts an offense together. Turner calls Petzing conscientious and hard-working and someone with an intimate understanding of how to apply schemes.
He also said that while it’s on Petzing to put a scheme in place that gets the most out of the players available, it’s up to the players to produce.
“Your system can only take you so far,” Turner said. “Your players have to take you to the next step — learning a system, gaining experience and becoming outstanding at the things you are doing. That gives you the best chance of being successful.
“People want to think there’s some magic play. No, you need to do things over and over again, so your players can get really good at it. So, when the pressure’s on and you are in tight situations, they know exactly what to do. They know how to execute it, and they go and perform. And I think Drew has a really good understanding of that.”
Petzing says it’s up to him to create the framework for players to have success, making it simple for his offense to execute but hard for the defense to figure out. Harrison is expected to take another step in development, as well as No. 2 receiver Michael Wilson. Trey Benson and Emari Demercado will fill complementary roles in the running game behind Conner. And tight ends Tip Reiman and Elijah Higgins will be used in heavy personnel groupings, allowing Petzing to create diversity within his scheme.
“For us, whether it’s the quarterback run game, motions and shifts or continuing to mix personnel … we do things out of a million different looks,” Petzing said. “So, you’re not just defending it in nickel, you’re not just defending it in base, you’re not defending it out of a lot of different formation. But to us, it all feels the same.
“And for the quarterbacks and players, they’re doing a lot of the same tasks, and they can get really good at them.”
More than ever, Kyler Murray needs to be really good at them this season.
Eric D. Williams has reported on the NFL for more than a decade, covering the Los Angeles Rams for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Chargers for ESPN and the Seattle Seahawks for the Tacoma News Tribune. Follow him on X at @eric_d_williams.
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