THE END: Kyler Murray’s Time with the Arizona Cardinals Seems to be Done

THE END: Kyler Murray’s Time with the Arizona Cardinals Seems to be Done

The official soft close of the Kyler Murray era in Phoenix has begun. Let’s discuss. [Music] You are Locked On Cardinals, your daily Arizona Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Alex Clancy here. Thanks for making Lockdown Cardinals your first listen. part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, the number one sports podcast platform on the planet. Wouldn’t be able to do it without you. Thank you so much for being a part of this journey with me and the platform all together. Got a jam show. Um I’m going to put myself in charge of morale. It’s one of my favorite lines from Newsroom. One of my favorite shows. There’s a positives show that I’m going to be doing later this week. I’m going to preview it in the final segment. Is it possible that things are actually on track? Let me explain what I mean before you scream for the mountain tops. But by and large, the most important part of today era of Kyler Murray is over in Arizona and it’s just in the soft close portion of it. All discussed. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit.com and plays your NFL long. Jonathan Ganon spoke with the media yesterday. He said they will not open Kyler Murray’s window to return from IR quote unquote yet. My fingers are a lot bigger on camera then. Anyways, Kyler Murray gets injured on a downside hike, a snap that hit him in the hit him in the helmet. He stumbled a little bit and now he’s hurt. And we are months removed from that happening. I’m not saying he’s not hurt, okay? I’m sure he is. I’m also saying that if the Cardinals were in playoff contention, I’m assuming he’d be coming back. I I don’t I don’t know that to be certain. I’m not a doctor. I don’t have any insider information. But all of this is lending the idea to think that this is it. And we’ve seen rumblings. Okay. The Jacobe Brassette stuff playing has no actual direct correlative on Kyler Murray’s future here. Okay. I said if Kyler Murray’s healthy, he should start. If Kyler Murray’s healthy, he should start. He’s a starting quarterback, but you’re not not opening his window. Then you get to week 15. Then week 16. Oh, you know what? You’re just going to put him on season ending IR. It’s the path of least resistance, and you’re going to find him a different home in the offseason. I the last glimmer of hope that Kyler Murray was going to be playing for the Arizona Cardinals ended yesterday when Jonathan Ganon said they’re not opening up his window at the first second that they’re able to. I listen I know that players are injured. I know that toe injuries and foot injuries in that area have become more and more prevalent and the actual severity of them had have actually been more pronounced and understood by everybody. You know, Brock Pury, Joe Burrows had it. Like there are guys that have had like turf toe is no longer looked at as like, well, what is that? It’s just your toe. No, no, no. It’s much more painful than that. But with this, it just feels like it’s easier for the Homer Simpson GIF to have GIF to happen where he just fades back into the ivy brush where it’s like, okay, that’s it. That’s what it feels like now. And again, we’ve incrementally gotten to this point, but after that, this was the last chance to be like, “Oh, maybe he is going to play. Maybe he’s going to play this year.” There’s a 1% chance chance he comes back next year. You fire Drew Petting. You I think all of that is done officially. And say what you want about it being fair. Say what you want about it being Kyler’s fault or the team’s fault or personnel’s fault or Drew Petting’s fault. It doesn’t really matter at this point. They’re going to be finding Kyler Murray a new home at the end of this season. And trust me, regardless of what people think, and I’ve talked to a lot of people that I trust and respect in this business, dear friends and people who I don’t know that well, who I’ve just, you know, met over the years and have contact information and have phone calls and text conversations with, most think that you’re not going to get a first- round pick for Kyler Murray. I disagree. I almost vehemently disagree. There are some bad situations with teams that need a quarterback who can make plays like Kyler Murray can. Is it perfect? No. Did he probably get thwarted by the entity of the Arizona Cardinals from reaching his full potential? Yeah. The Kyler Murray guy up until week five of this year. All the way through every single season, I was always defending him. Always defending him. Always defending him. And now it’s like, well, it doesn’t matter how the Cardinals got here. They’re here and it’s time to move. They’re here and the time is expired. But I think the Raiders, you know, Cleveland, they’ve got a million first round picks. All it takes is three or four interested teams and one team that has an extra pick. They’re like, “All right, fine. will give a pick that’s 15 picks higher than our second round pick and the Cardinals get a first. I’d be very surprised if they didn’t get a first for him. I don’t think they’re going to have to cut him. I think he’s plenty talented enough. This isn’t like revision history. Like how did you heat games when they, you know, had a lesser than team and uh for several like I remember all of it. This isn’t revisionist history. This isn’t, you know, recency bias or confirmation bias about I think with optimal clarity when it comes to Kyler Murray. I think that Kyler Murray should be starting for this team and I 100% think the best move would be to start Jacobe Brassette with this offense. Both can be true. Both can be true. I don’t know who the Eloc is going to be next year. I don’t know who the head coach is going to be next year. I do know in my humblest of opinion that number one will not be worn by Kyler Murray in an Arizona Cardinal uniform ever again. That was it yesterday press conference. not opening the window. Well, what if he’s not ready? What if you wait a week? That’s it. That’s it. It’s been fun. It’s been not fun. It’s been exciting. It’s been frustrating. They’ve won some games. They’ve lost most of them. And at this point, you wish the young man the best of luck. The time is expired. There’s no coming back. Regardless of what side of the aisle you on with Kyler Murray, that’s it. You wish him the best, not have any ill will against him. He’s a good person. He’s a good leader. People really like him. Jonathan Ganon took this job regardless of if you want to believe it or not for Kyler Murray. Like he even said in his introductory press conference, well, people lie during their introductory press conference. Yeah. Okay. Not very often does a team that’s rebuilding have a franchise quarterback on the roster. That’s what he said as an introductory press conference. They believed in him. Things didn’t go to plan probably on both sides. It’s true Ping. It was Kyler. It was other things. It doesn’t matter. It’s over. And I did say this because when Bo used to co-host with me, we both in the 2019 draft mocks everything. We can go back to the tape. I actually want to find a clip that I I’ll find him probably and try to drum up. That was years ago. We thought Nick Bosa was the pick. We thought Quinnon Williams was the pick. I said this on draft day. I said this leading up to the draft and I’m going to try and find the clip. Steve Kim gambled on Kyler Murray and Cliff Kingsbury to save his job. Lockdown Cardinals your team every day. Is it possible that things are on track though with this new regime, this current regime? Let me explain, please. Before flipping your computers or phones, don’t do that. You don’t want to have to replace things just because you disagree with something I say and you don’t even know what I’m going to say yet. I’ll discuss it next. This episode of Lockdown Cardinals is brought to you by FanDuel. NFL Sundays move fast, man. One big play and suddenly everything feels different. And that’s what makes live betting with FanDuel so exciting. You’re not just watching the game, you’re reacting to it in real time. With FanDuel, you can place bets on as the action unfolds. Every drive, every momentum swing, every highlight moment. Live betting is best when the game starts to shift. You know, a receiver gets hot, a defense tightens up, the momentum flips after a turnover, the weather shifts. There’s so many different things. FanDuel lets you jump in on the moment. Live spreads and money lines adjust instantly. Player props update as guys heat up. You can bet next. touchdown scores, drive results, totals, and more. It keeps you locked into every snap, every drive, every possibility. So, if you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fanuel.com and place your NFL live bets all season long. FanDuel, the game move fast and so can you. Please go to the YouTube channel, search lockdown Arizona Cardinals, hit that subscribe button, turn notifications on. We’re not going to slow down just because the Cardinals are losing and it hasn’t been really fun to watch recently. We’ll be all right. We’ll be all right. Watch the off the offseason with free agency and the draft is going to be fascinating. The quarterback situation, the coaching situation, everything is up in the air. And while yeah, now it stings and it’s like, oh well, part for the course. Same stuff, part for the course. Arizona Cardinals, the oldest football franchise in the history of the sport and the losingest. I mean, I think they’ve had like 25 winning seasons out of a hundred something insane like that. But I wanted to do this as an exercise. I wanted to do this as an exercise and let’s explore this together. Okay. So Benjamin Albbright actually front of the show about you know it made me think he’s like the natural progression of a good staff is this is the progression with a bad team starting out. lose big, then lose small, then win small, then win big. Okay, that’s the progression of where you take a team from rebuild to prominence to winning. And it made me think, okay, so the Cardinals in the first year of the Jonathan Ganon regime know Kyler Murray for half the year. They won a couple of games early on. They pro they probably should have started like three or four in one to start the season. And then Kyler comes back. They win a couple games. They beat Philly. They beat the Bears. I think it it doesn’t really matter at this point. And then last year was supposed to be the lose small year. Okay, if you’re going to do that, bing bing bing. Um it was good to start the season by week and then I think week 11 in Seattle everything fell off. They got blown out, but they they won games, they won close, things like that. But this year, so that was the first full year of Kyler Murray. The first half or the second half of Kyler Mur, it didn’t matter. They were out of play of contention. You just wanted to see Kyler Murray come back healthy from his ACL tear. And then last year was the first full year with expectations and things like that. I’m working through this with you. And then now this year, this is the lose small year, right? I mean, that’s statistically what’s happening. outside of Seattle and San Francisco a few weeks ago. This has been the lose small year. And yeah, the negative side of it is they probably should have won many more games than they’ve won up until this point. This is the lose small year and next year is the win small year where you have a full year last year, a full year this year, a full year next year with this team. The first the first year was just I mean it was only green ribbon ceremonies. This I mean they barely fielded half of the roster that they that they were rolling over from 2022 the last year of Cliff and Steve Kim. So while this sounds like an excuse for this team and the coaching staff that’s not what this is meant to be. And I’m not saying oh next year’s the win small year so bring everybody back. No, no, that if you take the first year as a throwaway year, new coach, new coordinators, never held that role before. New GM, never held that role before. Had a couple little pieces that they drafted. Okay, last year, same thing. Couple little pieces that they drafted. Added a couple vets. That was supposed to be the lose big year. They won more games than they should have early on. And then obviously crater down the stretch. This year was supposed to be the lose small year and that’s what it is. They’ve lost small all of the games that they’ve lost small. So does that mean when you bolster the offensive side of the the ball this off seasonason probably out of do you win small in 2026? Is that the progression? because that’s what we’ve seen staring us in the face. Jonathan Ganon even said it yesterday. We know how to compete. We just don’t know how to win. Are these all experiences that Jonathan Ganon just never experienced as a head coach before? Are these things first timing head coaches in their third year are supposed to know? Or is it just those 1enters that get it right away who have been, you know, in the league since they were 21 like Shanahan and uh, you know, Shawn McVey, all the Vunderans, Mike Tomlin, you know, he’s a head coach. Like, are they just they just get it? I don’t know. I just think it’s it’s fun to discuss. It’s fascinating to discuss. It’s like, are we looking at this all wrong? And is this the natural progression of what should be happening just in a wildly demented in I think demented in a like abstract way because you miss Kyler Murray for the first half of the tenure. You missed Kyler Murray for the entirety pretty much of the third year of the tenure. You had one good year of him being healthy and he’s been hurt. This isn’t meant to be an excuse for anything. It’s just a brain exercise that’s you know kind of an escape from well let’s break down the numbers that don’t really matter at this point. You’ve got to you got to get the takeaways of what’s important moving forward for next season and determining who your stars are going to be, determining if the coaching staff should come back, things like that. Like I don’t care that Jakob has thrown for over 250 yards in, you know, seven G or whatever it is, six games in a row, whatever it may be. He’s going to be under contract next year, so it doesn’t matter. It’s not like, okay, he’s going to start cool. He may not like whatever they’re going to do. Like it’s TBD. But with this, this is storyline stuff. This is timeline stuff. More timeline than storyline. This is timeline stuff. First year, half of it without Kyler Murray. The first half with Josh Dobs, who had been with the team for two weeks before starting week one. Last year they had a winning record going to the by-week, then they fell off. And then this year is the loose small year. So many games, one scores, new experiences. And I know it comes off as excuses, me defending the coaching staff. That’s not what it’s supposed to do. It’s just factual that the Cardinals in all but three games this year, one win and two losses, they’ve been one-score games. And they lost seven of them. Six of them. It just makes me question if this is in a kind of roundabout way really just the second year of what the Cardinals are trying to do here because the first year started with Kyler Murray on the shelf. could 100% be wrong. The numbers show win loss and how they’ve won and lost that this is the loose small year and next year is when they turn the curve, turn the turn the corner, which is what everybody wants to hear. Oh, it’s next year. It’s always easy to say next year. I get it. I get it. It’s just fascinating. just fascinating to me when I realize, huh, maybe this is actually that part of the journey and we’ll see that growth next year. I don’t know. I just thought it was fun to discuss. Lockdown Cardinals, your team every day. Um, I put myself in charge of morale. Shout out Jeff Bridges newsroom. One of the best lines ever. I’ll discuss that next. This episode of Lockdown Cardinals is brought to you by our friends at Aura Frames. The holidays are officially here, which means gift hunting season is on. And if you want something meaningful, personal, and guaranteed to get a reaction or a far or frames is the gift that delivers every time. It’s not just something you wrap. 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Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. All right, lockdown cardinals your I know it’s not super fun to have that conversation from the last segment, but it’s just like I don’t know. I’m trying to uncover anything I could possibly look at angle-wise with this team, you know, timelinewise because so many things could change and things could stay the same. Like it sound that sounds super uninformed and unimportant or not unimportant but like, you know, frivolous at this point, but it’s not. It’s like we could be looking at so many different possibilities with makeups for this team, for the coaching staff, personnel, things like that. But with that, this is what I do this sometimes. This is gonna this is a preview segment because I’m going to do full segments, full shows on positives to look for for the rest of this season. And these are important things, you know, like these are important things. We need to know what the building blocks for this team are going to be. And as the wins and losses have waned, Cardinals out of playoff contention. It doesn’t really matter if they win or lose games for the rest of the year. It doesn’t matter. You want them to win in my opinion. You always want them to win. Control what you can control. Say you lose out, but you like obviously everybody’s going to try and win games. Everybody’s trying to save their job or, you know, hit incentives and things like that. So the Cardinals are not going to slow down. But you got to look at the positives and what could be positives. There are still some things that are brewing. We don’t know. Like the only real like 100% positives that we know about this team. Trey McBride. Okay. Set and forget. Paris Johnson Jr. has gotten better this year. He’s given up some sacks. He’s had some penalties. Okay. I am a firm believer that a left tackle can only reach his pinnacle if he has a left guard that’s worth his weight and Evan Brown isn’t it. It’s not his fault. It’s not a personal attack. They need an upgrade. So that directly affects Paris Jr. but Paris Johnson by all by all intents and purposes positive. Okay. Joshu 10 sacks positive. Garrett Williams, Will Johnson together positive. And then say what you want about Buddha Baker and Jaylen Thompson, they’ve been fine this year. They haven’t been a reason why they’ve lost games. They were the I mean Jaylen Thompson was the reason that New Orleans didn’t tie the game at the end of at the end of the game in week one when he hit Jawan John hit the ball at Jawan Johnson’s hand and Buddha Baker was right there. Like it could be so much worse than Jaylen Thompson and Buddha Baker. Positives. M. Wilson when healthy. Positive. And the rest is kind of TBD. Walter Nolan I’m sure is going to be great. Darius Robinson question mark Collins who Delvin Tomlinson’s been okay but they haven’t they’ve you know they haven’t been great against the run which is part of the reason why he was brought in. And Kas Campbell’s Klayas Campbell. Okay. We’ll see if he comes back next year. I like the backwards way of looking at this is I think they’ve shown enough that will make Kas want to come back. But that’s just me. We can talk about that. That’s that’s for a different day. That’s for a different day. But the Arizona Cardinals as a whole have positives to look at moving forward. Okay? And it’s not something to be like, “Hey, listen. It’s been, you know, raining all season. Here’s some sunshine. Here’s some sunshine that’ll dissipate into the night immediately.” No, these are longlasting things that will make the Cardinals effective in specific position groups. And obviously like Marv, Michael Wilson, those are ones you’re going to watch for the rest of the year and see will these guys be positives. Is it just the offense? Is it that they have no run game or not a great run game? I know Bam had was better this past week. I think he had more rushing yards himself than the entire team had the week before, but you know, like the positives, the pillars that, you know, will be a part of this team next year, it’s, you know, it’s not as great as you’d expect it to be, but they are still there and they all still need to be watched and to see if the the maturation level can can can really hone in this season like with Marv and with Michael Wilson. We’ll see if Trey Benson comes back. You hope he does. You hope he’s back next week. So, you can start to add it. You can add him to the list. You can see if Walter Nolan comes back, if Max Melton can is completely going to get, you know, fall out of favor or if he can have a resurgence towards the end of the year even though they’re out of playoff contention. With DBs, it doesn’t really matter like win loss doesn’t matter. It’s not offense where it’s like, okay, these are the direct outputs necessary to show positive game or negative game, you know, whatever it is. Max Milton’s fallen out of favor. If he can get back into favor regardless in the playoff, the Cardinals are in playoff contention or not, that will carry over or they may have to draft another corner or sign one. But regardless of where the Cardinals are right now in the win loss, there’s so many positive things to follow for the rest of the year to see how solidified they can be to bank on starting in 2026, which will be part of the coordination of who they target in free agency and in the draft. So even though the Cardinals are out of playoff contention now, that by no means these games are not meaningful. Every snap is meaningful for this team moving forward. And I will do a much deeper dive into that later this week. Lockdown Cardinals, your team every day. Remember, without you, there is no. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

In this deeply insightful episode of Locked On Cardinals, Alex Clancy dives headfirst into the pivotal turning point marking the “soft close” of the Kyler Murray era in Arizona. With his signature candor, Alex Clancy unpacks the writing on the wall about Murray’s future, dissecting recent comments from head coach Jonathan Gannon and the ripple effects on the team’s direction. Through balanced analysis, he explores why the decision not to open Murray’s IR window signals an imminent quarterback change, and debates the likely trade value Murray could command this offseason.

But it’s not all about endings. Alex Clancy shifts gears to examine whether, despite tough seasons, the Cardinals are actually on the right rebuilding trajectory. He refers to NFL insider wisdom about the natural progression for developing teams—losing big, losing small, winning small, then eventually, winning big. Using this framework, Alex Clancy reframes the team’s frustrating record as potentially necessary steps toward a brighter future.

Throughout the episode, Alex Clancy highlights emerging positives for the Cardinals’ roster and coaching staff. He celebrates standouts like Trey McBride, Paris Johnson Jr., and the reliable safety duo of Budda Baker and Jalen Thompson, and ponders which of the team’s young talents and veterans could serve as foundational pieces moving forward.

Peppered with honest reflection about the franchise’s recent struggles and the weight of frequent changes, the show doesn’t shy away from the hard questions. Yet, Alex Clancy also injects hope, promising to focus on the building blocks and flashes of promise as the season finishes out—even with the playoffs out of reach.

Listeners can expect a blend of rigorous, numbers-backed football talk, sincere morale-boosting moments, and Alex Clancy’s trademark willingness to challenge both the team and the fanbase to see the bigger picture. Whether you’re hopeful or heartbroken over the Cardinals’ current state, this episode delivers the nuance, context, and straight talk fans crave as the team looks toward a critical offseason and a future beyond Kyler Murray. Let’s discuss.

The Best Daily Arizona Cardinals Podcast. Host Alex Clancy (@ClancysCorner) take an unbiased approach covering the biggest Cards stories.

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