Arizona Cardinals: Murray’s poor performances keep outside the top ten

Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray sits 13th in FanSided’s latest quarterback ranking, having played 10 lackluster quarters of football. 

Kyler Murray played in two spectacular quarters this season and in doing so, he did basically everything an NFL quarterback textbook would say not to do. As a result, he led the Arizona Cardinals into overtime, where Isaiah Simmons and Byron Murphy did the rest to secure a big win for the Redbirds.

Unfortunately, that single half of play was an outlier and Murray has seen 10 subpar quarters, including in the first half of Week 2. Somehow, he is ranked 13th out of 32 regular season starters despite the poor performances.

And while Murray played more like Mitchell Trubisky as opposed to Jalen Hurts lately, he owns a unique skill set the Cardinals can use to put him up there with the likes of Hurts, Lamar Jackson, and Josh Allen, who took three of the top four rankings.

Arizona Cardinals have a power play in Kyler Murray

What do Hurts, Jackson, and Allen all have in common? They aren’t naturally talented passers. Instead, their legs always helped them open things up. In college, Murray was more accurate than the trio. Jackson and Allen couldn’t even complete 60% of their passes, while Hurts had just one outstanding season after losing out to Tua Tagovailoa at the University of Alabama.

The trio are also good at extending plays, and using creativity to move the ball downfield, put up big numbers, and win games. For a quarterback with Murray’s unique skill set to succeed, head coach Kliff Kingsbury would be wise to tailor his playbook to fit the quarterback’s skills.

So far, that hasn’t happened in the way John Harbaugh, Sean McDermott, and Nick Sirianni have done with their quarterbacks. Perhaps Kingsbury can take a page from their playbooks? Or revamp the entire thing, as Harbaugh supposedly did while the Ravens transitioned from the pocket passer in Joe Flacco to the dual threat in Jackson.

If Kingsbury somehow comes to this realization, he may just live up to that monster extension he signed early in the offseason. But at this point, I’m expecting little.

Article Source: NFL QUARTERBACK RANKINGS: JALEN HURTS HAS ARRIVED by Matt Verderame