The outcome for the Cardinals‘ 2023 season was pretty much already decided by the time the team finally was able to return quarterback Kyler Murray to the roster. Murray has now missed 18 games over the past three years, and even when he’s been available, Murray has a 5-10 record during the most recent two seasons.
Still, Cardinals offensive coordinator Drew Petzing has full confidence in Murray as a franchise quarterback in Arizona, according to Bob McManaman of the Arizona Republic. Petzing, who worked with Kirk Cousins during his tenure in Minnesota, points towards Murray’s first three years in the NFL, which resulted in an Offensive Rookie of the Year award and two Pro Bowl selections in the years following.
Petzing claims that, if it were up to him, he wouldn’t look at drafting a quarterback in the first round with one of their two Day 1 picks this April. Unfortunately for Petzing, it’s not necessarily up to him. With the recent major injury to Murray and his lack of success since the 2021 season, the rest of the team brass may deem it necessary to bring in a Day 1 passer to expand their options.
Here are a couple of other rumors coming out of the NFC West, starting with another note out of Phoenix:
- When Arizona traded quarterback Joshua Dobbs to Minnesota along with a seventh-round pick, there were conditions in place that would allow for the Cardinals to get that pick back if Dobbs met certain milestones. Well, according to Howard Balzer of PHNX, despite Dobbs recently being benched in favor of Nick Mullens, the fact that Dobbs started four games for the Vikings will send Arizona’s seventh-round pick back to the Cardinals.
- In a recent Q&A with Michael-Shawn Dugar of The Athletic, Dugar addressed the possibility of Seattle moving on from former All-Pro safety Jamal Adams after this season. While that seems like a real possibility with massive cap hits of $26.9MM and $27.9MM over the next two years and Adams’ recent drop in quality of play, it wouldn’t benefit the team as much as you might think. Releasing or trading Adams would result is a charge of $20.8MM in dead money for the Seahawks while only saving $6.08MM in cap space. Designating the move as a post-June 1 release would spread the dead money over the 2024 and 2025 seasons and increase the cap savings for 2024 to $16.5MM, but that still holds quite a heavy cost. Dugar believes that Adams may receive the benefit of the doubt, given the organization knows that he’s been limited with a knee injury. The high costs with that benefit of the doubt may be enough to keep Adams in green and navy for a couple more years.
IMO, Jamaal Adams trade was one of the worst, if not the worst, Seahawk’s ever made in franchise history. Ok, thanks for the sacks, but he is a horrible DB, injury prone, loose-cannon, overpriced, and over-rated.
I wouldn’t go that, but it looks pretty bad now. Adams was perfect in the Jets’ man heavy system, in both coverage and in the box. While he’s actually had good moments in coverage in Seattle-2021 being an example, before he got hurt-he’s also had bad ones, too. And injuries. Overall, the good has been too spotty to validate what the Seahawks gave up to get Adams. They should have expected that, though, in my mind. Their scheme was completely different than what Adams excelled at in New York.
Dobbs will be a free agent in 2024 and will be available to any NFL team. Sometimes, people with high intelligence are not able to translate that into physical success.
Dobbs’ arm is a huge issue, in terms of his athletic ability. He can decently with his legs, but his arm and decision making leave a lot to be desired.
Pro Bowl is misleading!
The press needs to label a players original ranking when talking Pro bowl. All we know Murray was 9th in voting one of those years and made it due to all of the opt outs.