Arizona Cardinals quarterback is horrendous in latest outing

Arizona Cardinals signal-caller Kyler Murray was downright awful during the club’s second preseason game on Thursday night

Fans of the Arizona Cardinals appeared to be shell-shocked. Quarterback Kyler Murray was impressive last week against the Los Angeles Chargers, and the club’s loyalists were expecting more of the same on Thursday night. What they got instead was a downright ugly follow-up performance from the Cards new starter.

It would be completely unfair to judge Murray, the top-overall pick of this past April’s draft, on just two preseason games. After all, the exhibition matchups offer just a watered-down version of what the Cardinals will look like this fall. However, Murray’s play versus the Oakland Raiders was bad enough to at least raise the eyebrows of those of us who follow the team.

Murray’s numbers against the Raiders (3 of 8, 12 yards) don’t even begin to describe how awful he was during the contest. The 2018 Heisman Trophy winner’s passes were consistently off of the mark throughout the evening. In fact, the misfires were dire enough to raise questions about how accurate of a passer Murray really is.

A particular play involving Murray in the second quarter was alarming as well. The 22-year old willingly gave himself up for a sack that resulted in a safety for Oakland. The fear of absorbing a hit that Murray displayed was almost laughable, and certainly will not win him any respect in the Cards locker room.

If all of that isn’t enough to be concerned about, there’s also another issue surrounding Murray. The youngster was called twice for “false start” penalties, thanks to some goofy pre-snap clapping he does from the shotgun position. Perhaps head coach Kliff Kingsbury and his prized pupil should’ve known by now that such a movement is not permitted at the professional level.

Murray’s demeanor after the defeat was just as bad as what he showed on the field during the matchup. Instead of simply owning up to the fact that he stunk up the joint, all that the 5’10, 207 pounder could do was offer up excuses. Murray put most of the blame on the fact that Kingsbury was running a “vanilla” offense, but would a couple of first downs have been too much to ask for?

As bad as he was in his latest outing, Murray still has time to improve before the regular-season gets underway. Another week of practice could do wonders for Arizona’s new face of the franchise. Murray needs to raise his level of play quickly before the doubts really start to creep in for the Cardinals rookie.