Did previous bad business decisions force Cardinals to sign Kyler Murray?

Comparing Kyler Murray to Matthew Stafford

Any career assessment you look at with Murray is kind of unfair, because it will take into account his rookie season. And saying he has not won a play-off game is also at least slightly unfair since he has only been in the league 3 seasons. Let’s compare Murray to a fellow quarterback from the NFC West, Matthew Stafford.

Stafford was traded from Detroit to the Los Angeles Rams on January 30th 2021, but was not given a new contract until he did something, he won a Super Bowl and was rewarded with a 4 year $160M contract. Kyler Murray was rewarded with an even bigger contract, and has not finished a season well, in fact, some would say he has collapsed.

They have collapsed not just once, but 2 consecutive seasons. In 2020 they started 5-2 and ended 3-6. It hurt even more with the final 2 games being division games that knocked them out of the play-offs.

Then, they started 2021 with twice as many wins (10) before they reached their 3rd loss. But, they closed out the final 5 games winning only one. Because of the improved start they did make the play-offs, but got absolutely throttled by Stafford’s Rams 34-11.

Murray is to blame for these finishes, but only partially. There are two other individuals who are to blame, and these are just the start of our bad decisions.