Former NFL GM Believes Cardinals Won't Play Kyler Murray This Season

Former NFL GM/VP Michael Lombardi believes the Arizona Cardinals won't play Kyler Murray at all this season.

There's been hefty speculation surrounding the Arizona Cardinals and what lies beyond 2023 - most of which involves the future of quarterback Kyler Murray.

Murray is currently on the PUP list and will miss the first four games of the season at minimum after tearing his ACL in Week 14 of last year.

The Cardinals are under the new guidance of head coach Jonathan Gannon and general manager Monti Ossenfort and have already demonstrated they're not afraid to cut ties if needed, as players such as DeAndre Hopkins, Isaiah Simmons and now Colt McCoy are off the roster. 

With Arizona projected to be one of the worst teams in the league (along with the Houston Texans, who owe their 2024 first-round pick to AZ), noise of the organization further hitting the reset button and drafting a new quarterback has only grown louder.

Former NFL GM/VP Michael Lombardi appeared on the Pat McAfee Show today and said he believes Arizona won't play Murray to preserve his trade value:

"I think this Colt McCoy move here, with cutting him and Kyler Murray being on PUP, I don't think people truly understand what is happening in the desert. Let me just give you a background," said Lombardi. 

"Every contract in the National Football League - with the exception of Deshaun Watson - is guaranteed for injury. No one guarantees for skill and injury because then you have to do what the Browns did with Watson and send the money to the league's escrow account. But if you only put one of those clauses on guarantees, it doesn't have to be funded. 

"So in Kyler Murray's case, he's got $56 million coming and he has a potential to earn $92 million that are only protected by the injury guarantee clause. So they placed him on PUP. My sense of it is, he will not play for the rest of the year because they can't risk putting him back on the field and having him get injured, and now they're on the hook for $56 million, and they're on the hook for $92 million guaranteed.

"I think this gives them the opportunity to continue to examine [Murray]. He's off the field, he can't get any more hurt than he already is and it keeps them from having to injury guarantee it." 

"Kyler Murray has $56M coming & he has a potential to earn $92M that are only protected by the injury guarantee clause..

My sense is that he won't play this season because the Cardinals can't risk putting him on the field & having him get injured" @mlombardiNFL #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/XygAVDSezD

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) August 29, 2023

"If I were Monti Ossenfort and I were Jonathan Gannon, there's no chance I'm putting Murray on the field this year and risking that I'm going to fully guarantee a contract that I'm not sure I want to fully guarantee," said Lombardi. 

"I think somebody might [trade for Murray], at the end of the year teams are desperate for a quarterback and if you can take on the contract it wouldn't as prohibitive for you. He would be in the top-15 paid quarterbacks once you remove what the Cardinals have paid him. They've got to make that decision - they're changing the culture, they've told us that. They got rid of Hopkins. They got rid of Simmons. They're changing their culture, that's really important to their team, and the new staff have no real relationship with anybody else moving forward."