Improving Kyler Murray’s advanced stats is crucial for Cardinals success

Bad throws (BAD) and passing yards after contact (pYAC)

Now here is the most interesting one of the bunch that will be a factor of improving Kyler Murray’s advanced stats. Bad throws, those of which aren’t catchable with a realistic effort.

Murray logged 88 of them last year, placing him 10th in the league. You can see that there are a lot of successful quarterbacks who’s BAD number is relatively high. Another case where numbers don’t always correlate.

I would assume that Murray’s number on this was influenced by the freakish ability of DeAndre Hopkins. Murray is still learning and mastering the offense, and a lot of times deep passes would be overthrown.

While it’s great to avoid interceptions, it’s another thing to go 3-and-out and put the defense out there more than they need to be. Adding a receiver who can accumulate a high amount of yards after the catch (hence the pYAC) would do wonders for this air raid offense. When route trees are so short, this is just icing on the cake.

Finally, there were times where Murray had thrown the ball behind the receiver, forcing him to make and adjustment and come back to the ball. I believe Dan Arnold had a lot of this late in the season. This is more of a technique issue for Murray, which can actually be worked on pretty easily.

Throwing receivers open is a great skill to have, especially with Hopkins running around. But being able to change a 7 yard slant to a big gain or a house call is what changes games. If there’s improvement here, there’s almost no stopping this offense- unless it’s a false start.

As we head into year 3, this is usually the year quarterbacks earn their second contract. Kingsbury’s mission will be improving Kyler Murray’s advanced stats and also making the correct game time decisions to help put this team into the playoffs.