No1 overall pick Kyler Murray learning new ways to win in the NFL
Kyler Murray has already played NFL games in which he compiled much flashier statistics, and he will surely play many more big games in the future. But stats were not his goal when the Arizona Cardinals played the New York Giants in the rain on Sunday.
“I’m not too into the numbers,” Murray said after the Cardinals beat the Giants, 27-21.
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Murray, the quicksilver quarterback from Oklahoma who was the No1 overall pick in April’s draft, was asked simply to manage the game – to make smart decisions with the football, to make as few mistakes as possible. And that was pretty much what Murray did, a sign that he can also win games with more than either his legs or his arm.
“He protected the football, and that won us the game,” Kliff Kingsbury, Arizona’s first-year coach, said of Murray. “Zero turnovers for him, that was a hard deal. It was hard to throw it, and like I said, I didn’t want a ton of that going on, but he protected it well, led the team well, got us in some good checks and won the game, which in this weather for a rookie quarterback on the road, that’s huge.”
At 5ft 10in, Murray is small for a quarterback. He passed for only 104 yards against the Giants and rushed for just 28 more, but the Cardinals (3-3-1) efficiently won their third straight game for the first time in four years and matched their victory total for all of last season.
Those might seem like modest accomplishments, especially considering that the three lousy teams that the Cardinals defeated (Bengals, Falcons and Giants) have won three of 21 games combined. But Murray and the Cards are trending in the right direction. Playoffs? Probably not. But the Cards have a good quarterback, and some hope.
Murray is not a prototypical pocket passer – and he happens to be a pretty good outfielder, having been drafted No9 overall by the Oakland A’s in the 2018 MLB Draft. He got a $4.6m signing bonus from the A’s, but he decided to pursue a pro football career.
“He’s a cool kid – hasn’t changed at all,” said DJ Humphries, the Cardinals’ veteran left tackle. “He plays the game the same way he always did.”
Murray has only been around for seven NFL games, but he has impressed Kingsbury and his teammates with the way he has taken on such a big load. He has three 300-yard passing games this season, and has not thrown an interception in his last three games.
Murray also pledged after the Giants’ game to overcome mental mistakes – he made two during Sunday’s game. First, he took a 15-yard sack, back to the Cardinals’ four-yard line, after evading two tackles but trying to make a play instead of throwing the ball away. It led to a blocked punt and a Giants’ touchdown. Then, after the Giants had used their last time out, Murray was forced out of the pocket but ran out of bounds, stopping the clock with two minutes and 13 seconds left. The Cards kicked a field goal to extend their lead to 27-21, but the Giants had one more chance to win the game.
“I should have told him not to step out,” Kingsbury said. “It was a bad play call, and I didn’t even give him a heads up like, ‘Hey, make sure you stay in bounds if it’s not there,’ so that was on me.”
But Murray said: “That was my fault. That was terrible. That was bad by me. But we’ll be better next week.”
This has not been a solo reclamation project, though. The Cardinals were a bottom-three team in defense entering the Giants game, but they forced three turnovers. Their star running back David Johnson was injured, but the reserve Chase Edmonds rushed for 126 yards.
Murray is still very much the catalyst of the Cardinals’ so-called “Air Raid” attack. The Cardinals don’t huddle much, and they line up in shotgun formation on virtually every play, with Murray attempting to wear down opposing defenses with sideline passes galore. He threw 137 passes in the Cardinals’ first three games. He threw just one deep pass against the Giants.
“We just have been adjusting each and every week, getting better each and every week, coming to work and just trying to get better, honestly,” Murray said. “I think we fixed some of those things that we were messing up on earlier in the year. I think you see we’re playing more complementary football. Guys bought in. Guys are trusting each other. We’re just really all in it and doing whatever it takes to win.”
Not that it seemed to matter, but Murray also won the match-up of two first-round rookie quarterbacks with vastly different physiques and styles. Daniel Jones, the 6ft foot 5in, 220-pounder from Duke, had an interception and was responsible for both the Giants’ lost fumbles.
Giants fans, soaked to the bone and detecting a hopeless cause, started leaving at the end of the third quarter, even though the Cardinals led by only 10 points. Although the Giants still had a chance to win, the stadium was all but empty in the final minutes.
Murray had indeed failed to roll up big numbers, but “he was able to find a way to get a win,” the veteran Arizona wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald said.
The Cardinals play the Saints next, then the 49ers, who have a superb defense. So this tidy little run that the Cards have going may be over soon. Murray seems to be enjoying himself. He says he is paying little attention to what is going on in baseball, anyway.
“It’s hard to watch. I kind of get the updates. I saw that Altuve hit the home run,” he said, referring to Jose Altuve’s blast that won the American League Championship Series for the Houston Astros. “Other than that, I don’t really watch the game too much.”
