Kyler Murray’s tumultuous 2022 campaign ended in gruesome fashion, with the Arizona Cardinals quarterback suffering an ACL tear in mid-December.
The very next month, the Arizona Cardinals fired Kliff Kingsbury as their head coach, which came less than 12 months after he signed a multi-year extension with the team. Murray was likely not unhappy about this as ESPN reported that the head coach and franchise quarterback had grown “increasingly distant” over the course of a lost year for the team.
Among the issues that had divided them were Murray’s desire for “wanting more freedom at the line of scrimmage, particularly with running plays,” but plays designed to get the ball into the hands of Arizona’s playmakers didn’t come to fruition “either due to miscommunication, a play breaking down or Murray improvising, and the disjointed attack created unpredictability for some of the team’s pass-catchers.”
The report led to questions on whether Murray was coachable or not.
The young quarterback was a guest on the team’s “Flight Plan” podcast and stated he feels as if he has grown “wiser” since his rookie season. He added, however, that part of leadership is about confronting things that are not working.
“I’ve got to respect the person or understand the ins and outs or the rhymes and reasons for what we are doing,” Murray said, via Darren Urban of the team’s official website. “I’m going to listen. I’m going to be coachable and I’m going to do it to the best of my ability, but if the (expletive) ain’t working, at some point, we all have to look in the mirror.”
It become obvious to anyone watching Cardinals games last season that Kingsbury and Murray weren’t on the same page. They were involved in a shouting match on the sidelines during an Oct. 20 win over the New Orleans Saints.
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The Cardinals have a new head coach in Jonathan Gannon so a strong dynamic between the two is necessary if the Cardinals expect to be good in 2023 and beyond.
The franchise has just one winning season since 2016.
