Is Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray ready to speak up in next step as leader?
From the time he started playing quarterback as a kid, Kyler Murray’s primary goal hasn’t changed.
“I’m not trying to be average,” he said. “I’m always striving to be perfect.”
Entering his third season with the Cardinals, it’s time for Murray’s objective to be altered slightly. The pronoun needs to go from singular to plural.
This isn’t just about him any longer. If Murray is sincere about his pursuit of perfection – and there’s no reason to think he’s not – it’s time he convinced his teammates to join him.
Because the Cardinals were far from perfect last year, especially on offense. They led the NFL in penalties, including 32 false starts, and in stalled drives, which the NFL defines as possessions that ended mostly because of penalty flags.
“If we don’t hurt ourselves, we’re hard to stop,” Murray said two weeks ago, the only time in training camp he has been available to media.
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The Cardinals still finished sixth overall in yardage and 13th in scoring last season, so the potential is obvious, provided they can do things like not move before the ball is snapped an average of twice a game.
That lack of discipline is a reflection on coach Kliff Kingsbury. The Cardinals have led the NFL in penalties in both of his seasons as head coach. But Kingsbury’s voice can’t be the only one players hear. These are the issues a quarterback must speak up and speak out about.
Murray didn’t do that much in his first two NFL seasons, which is understandable.
“You’re 22 years old, first year in the league and trying to hold on to your own ass, it’s hard to lead grown men,” Kingsbury said, a few weeks after Murray’s rookie season ended. “You’re just trying to survive.”
But Murray’s 24 now. He has 32 starts on his resume. He knows the offense “damn near like the back of my hand.” His physical skills will never be greater, and prior to a shoulder injury last year at mid-season, Murray was displaying them weekly.
The next step for him is to become a leader of grown men, to ask and occasionally demand things of others.
That’s what leadership is at the professional level, not delivering rah-rah pre-game speeches or pithy quotes in news conferences, although the folks who cover the Cardinals daily would welcome the latter.
Former Cardinals receiver Larry Fitzgerald once was asked if he and quarterback Kurt Warner had developed an unspoken chemistry when it came to passing and receiving.
Fitzgerald smiled and said nothing with Warner was unspoken. Warner, he said, told receivers exactly where he wanted them, when he wanted them to arrive there and the shoulder upon which the ball would arrive.
Mental mistakes were not ignored, and more than one teammate felt Warner’s wrath on the sidelines.
That doesn’t mean Murray needs to pretend he’s someone he’s not. He is never going to be as personable as Warner, who once stopped by the press room at the end of the day to apologize for having to cut an earlier session short and ask reporters if they needed anything else from him.
Murray is not going to be former Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer, who could give you an enlightening anecdote about nearly any teammate, almost on demand.
But Murray does need to follow their path to becoming a starting quarterback who lets everyone know what the expectations are. And when they’re not doing enough to meet them.
“Those type things, if you force them, it usually doesn’t work out,” Kingsbury said. “It’s got to be authentic and organic. He feels like this is his team now. That’s what a quarterback does, continue to evolve each year.”
Not all of them do, obviously. Just the great ones.