Kyler Murray’s Injury Puts the Cardinals in Survival Mode

From questionable drafting and free-agency acquisitions, Arizona’s twisted version of patience and pragmatism left the team stranded without enough life preservers.

The Cardinals lost quarterback Kyler Murray on the third play of the game Monday night to a torn ACL. While there has been a heroic run of players coming back dramatically early from noncontact knee injuries in recent seasons, it would be irresponsible for the Cardinals to expect Murray to start the regular season next year.

No one is going to blame Arizona for this particular development. Heck, the Cardinals even play on a natural grass field. But it’s what will take place in the proceeding weeks and months that we wonder about. A kind of exposure.

Maybe it’s just me (Cardinals fans seem to think so), but since the end of the Bruce Arians regime, Arizona has had the feel of one of those tech start-ups bound for a Netflix docuseries. There was a cool-sounding idea in principle that kept mysteriously getting funding and resources, while, all along, the actual product was never getting developed. Beware if anyone in a Cardinals uniform asks you for a blood sample, I suppose.

Murray is carted off the field after suffering a significant noncontact knee injury.  :: Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports

Forgive this summation if it feels a little personal and redundant to Cardinals fans coming to this site, but: First, it was let’s trade up for Josh Rosen. Then it was oh, never mind, let’s draft this other guy and hire the guy who can run the offense he ran in college and get these particular receivers in here to make it work. Then they stopped running that offense (the Cardinals now are so much closer to the Sean McVay system than the Mike Leach–ian Air Raid)! They never played one of those wide receivers! They kept trading for and accumulating more expensive wide receivers such as DeAndre Hopkins, rifling through one of the most costly positions in football like they were swapping out their vintage wine collection. They spent multiple first-round picks on non-difference-making defensive players and had to bracket those decisions with more free-agency spending in 2021. They made the playoffs last year buoyed by unfathomable luck throughout the regular season and got demolished by the Rams in the opening round, then extended coach Kliff Kingsbury and general manager Steve Keim, whose most noteworthy accomplishment was building one of the three oldest rosters in the NFL (and one, the Buccaneers, has a 45-year-old quarterback weighting the average).

Let’s take a look at the starting lineup for Monday night’s game sans Murray:

Offense:

• Hopkins: 30 years old, signed through 2024, acquired via trade (second-round pick, fourth-round pick, plus running back David Johnson).
• Trey McBride, 23, signed through ’25, acquired via draft (second-round pick).
• Josh Jones, 25, signed through ’23, acquired via draft (third-round pick).
• Cody Ford, 25, signed through ’22, acquired via trade (fifth-round pick).
• Billy Price, 28, signed through ’22, acquired via free agency (interestingly enough, the corresponding move for signing Price was to cut Andy Isabella, a former Cardinals second-round pick).
• Max Garcia, 31, signed through ’22, acquired via practice squad signing (Giants).
• Kelvin Beachum, 33, signed through ’22, acquired via free agency.
• A.J. Green, 34, signed through ’22, acquired via free agency.
• Marquise Brown, 25, signed through ’23 (Cardinals exercised his fifth-year option), acquired via trade (first-round pick).
• James Conner, 27, signed through ’24, acquired via free agency.

Defense:

• J.J. Watt, 33, signed through ’22, acquired via free agency.
• Zach Allen, 25, signed through ’22, acquired via draft (third-round pick).
• Ben Niemann, 27, signed through ’22, acquired via free agency.
• Isaiah Simmons, 24, signed through ’23, acquired via draft (first-round pick).
• Zaven Collins, 23, signed through ’24, acquired via draft (first-round pick).
• Markus Golden, 31, signed through ’23, acquired via free agency.
• Myjai Sanders, 24, signed through ’25, acquired via draft (third-round pick).
• Antonio Hamilton, 29, signed through ’22, acquired via free agency.
• Marco Wilson, 24, signed through ’24, acquired via draft (fourth-round pick).
• Jalen Thompson, 24, signed through ’25, acquired via supplemental draft (fifth-round pick).
• Budda Baker, 26, signed through ’24, acquired via draft (second-round pick).

In looking at the roster, one might think Arizona placed a great deal of equity in its secondary and linebacking corps and are banking on the success of those position groups in the future. However, the Cardinals are last in the NFL in points allowed, 25th in passing yards allowed, 29th in passing touchdowns allowed and 19th in passing yards per attempt allowed. One might also think their strength is against the run. Indeed, they are eighth in rushing yards allowed in 2022, although they are 23rd in rushing touchdowns allowed and 22nd in yards per rushing attempt allowed (they are 24th in rushing success rate allowed and 19th in rushing EPA per down surrendered). Last year Collins played roughly 20% of the team’s defensive snaps, up to 98% this year. Simmons is playing 76% of the team’s snaps, down from 92% in ’21 but up from 34% in his rookie season.

Offensively, they are noticeably devoid of building blocks. Justin Pugh (torn ACL) is not signed for 2023. Rodney Hudson, the stalwart of their offensive line, will be 34 next season as he has not played a full season since arriving in Arizona in ’21. Of their two drafted players starting games, McBride has 12 catches this year and is spelling the 32-year-old Zach Ertz (who is out for the season with a knee injury and signed through ’23). Rondale Moore was hampered by a groin injury, though he was on pace to slightly improve upon his rookie season from ’21.

Conservatively, the Cardinals have some work to do to patch up their offensive line and supplement their starting lineup with a number of young developing stars on rookie contracts. They have about $24 million in current cap space for next year.

You can look at this a bit like a kaleidoscope and see traditional team building à la Pete Carroll or Bill Belichick (draft status doesn’t matter, and we’ll reward those who produce). There is a way to stare at the Cardinals, for long enough and see a team that just doesn’t quit, that is behaving the way any sensible person might in the same situation. You can see pragmatism, as we argue all the time for other coaches and GMs to receive more time.

Or you can look at it the way we might see it in the coming weeks or months: Where is the homegrown talent on this team? What was the plan to build around Murray, outside of frantically scouring free agency and trade markets? What is the bedrock of the Cardinals, and how far away are they from becoming a team that can be bigger than the heroics of their young star quarterback and the sure-handedness of Hopkins, whom they are paying more than all but two receivers in football?

Again, perhaps just me, I thought that between 2019 and ’22—a lifetime in the NFL—I would have been able to tell you what the Cardinals were all about beyond being the team with Murray at quarterback, a little like how we can tell you what the 49ers or Seahawks are beyond whomever is under center.

It certainly looks like we’re about to find out.

While the waning moments of a lost game against the Patriots isn’t exactly a fair assessment given the proximity to Murray’s injury and that Colt McCoy was never really in the game plan, we already know that they’re in too deep, that there aren’t many more life preservers for them to grasp at anymore. Their twisted version of patience and pragmatism left them stranded out here.