If the Arizona Cardinals decide to shop star quarterback Kyler Murray next offseason, a top NFC club could be among the interested parties.
Last year, Murray and the Cardinals agreed to a lucrative five-year contract extension worth $230.5 million. But the Cardinals are coming off a disappointing season in which they finished 3-14, and Murray will miss a large portion of 2023 as he continues to recover from a torn ACL he suffered last December.
If the Cardinals endure another rough season this year, might the front office look to trade Murray and find a new quarterback in the QB-heavy 2024 draft class? If so, at least one top NFC club will be worth watching in the Murray trade sweepstakes.
On the latest edition of the “The Purple Insider” podcast (h/t Trevor Squire of Heavy.com), Matthew Coller suggested that the Vikings could eye Murray as a replacement to Kirk Cousins, who’s entering the final year of his contract:
“The Kyler Murray thing, I think there’s some potential there if the Vikings are moving on from Kirk Cousins but they win too many games to get a high draft pick.
“It’s not completely absurd to think that could be something of interest for the Vikings. The most likely scenario remains…the Vikings draft somebody (to succeed Cousins). But if they end up with 10 wins and they’re in the playoffs and they can’t get one of the top quarterbacks (in the draft), then what do you do? You start investigating other ways around that.”
USC quarterback and 2022 Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams is the early front-runner to go first overall in next year’s draft. Other highly-touted QBs eligible for the 2024 draft include Quinn Ewers of Texas, Drake Maye of North Carolina, Michael Penix Jr. of Washington and Bo Nix of Oregon.
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So if the Cardinals are in position to take one of those signal-callers in 2024, they’ll have to decide between keeping Murray or taking a new QB and trading away the No. 1 selection of the 2019 NFL Draft.
As for the idea of Murray joining the Vikings? He would be working with one of the game’s brightest offensive-minded head coaches in Kevin O’Connell, with superstar Justin Jefferson and 2023 first-round pick Jordan Addison serving as his go-to playmakers.
