Cardinals keep playoff hopes alive; QB controversy at forefront
Jacoby Brissett stunned the Cowboys on Monday Night Football, but coach Jonathon Gannon remains insistent that Kyler Murray is the starting QB.
Head coach Jonathan Gannon cited the offense’s current performance as a reason for the change.The decision has significant long-term financial and roster implications for the Cardinals and Murray’s future with the team.
This week, at last, there is no quarterback controversy in Arizona. Jacoby Brissett will start for the Cardinals in place of Kyler Murray against the Seattle Seahawks in Week 10 — and perhaps much longer.
Head coach Jonathan Gannon announced the change in his news conference on Tuesday, Nov. 4.
“Jacoby will start,” Gannon said. “And Kyler will keep working on his health bucket. I do like what the offense is doing right now, we’ve operated well and we’ll go from there.”
It’s a marked departure from how Gannon has operated over the past three weeks, when he has left his quarterback question open much later into the week.
“With the clarity that it provides, game-planning for our team, I think that’s important,” Gannon said.
The switch comes just 16 hours after Gannon said “nothing has changed” regarding the Cardinals quarterback position. But after the Cardinals returned from Dallas, Gannon had a conversation with Murray about the situation, ahead of his public announcement later in the day.
When pressed directly on whether the decision is still fully related to the health of Murray’s foot, Gannon said that it is. But later, when he was asked what has changed since the Cardinals win over Dallas on Monday Night Football, Gannon pointed to performance, not health.
“I do like where we’re operating, how we’re operating as an offense,” Gannon said. “So that has, in my mind, I take all the variables that I have to make a decision and make the decision when I need to. And I think we’re doing a pretty good job on offense. I like what the offense is doing right now.”
Then, shortly after his news conference, Gannon was asked on Arizona Sports 98.7 whether the Cardinals would make this decision if Murray were healthy.
“Yeah,” Gannon responded. “I like where we’re at with the offense moving forward.”
In his news conference, Gannon was asked whether the plan is still to return to Murray at some point this season. He declined to address the question.
“Seattle,” Gannon said, taking the Bill Belichick approach of focusing only on the upcoming opponent.
Put it all together and the message in Tempe was clear, despite Gannon’s mixed messaging. This is a change at the most important position in sports. And for the first time in seven years, Kyler Murray is not the Cardinals’ starting quarterback.
The long-term ramifications are massive and multiple.
First off, there’s the financial aspect. Murray carries a dead cap hit of $54.7 million if the Cardinals release him this offseason.
There are some salary cap workings that the Cardinals can use to their advantage, namely the possibility of releasing Murray with a post-June 1 designation. That would lower his dead cap hit to $47.5 million and spread the money over two seasons — but his $53.3 million 2026 cap number would remain on the books through free agency, hampering the Cardinals’ ability to spend.
By moving Murray to the bench, the Cardinals are also decreasing the likelihood that they could find a trade partner in the offseason — though given the value of quarterbacks in the NFL, nothing is impossible. Murray, just 28, still possesses a tantalizing skill set. Perhaps the Cardinals can find a team that believes in its coaching staff’s ability to maximize his strengths.
Then, there’s what it means for the Cardinals’ future at quarterback. Brissett is a 32-year-old journeyman who has played for six teams in six years. He’s still under contract next year, at a bargain-bin $7.2 million. But he is unlikely to be more than a bridge solution, meaning Arizona will almost certainly have to, once again, search for a signal-caller.
That, though, will be an enticing opportunity for Gannon and general manager Monti Ossenfort. Gannon and Ossenfort arrived in Arizona in 2023, a year after Murray signed his current five-year extension. They will likely finish their third season in charge without a single playoff appearance, but they can now sell owner Michael Bidwill on a change at quarterback as the key to the organization’s salvation.
All of those issues, though, now can move to January. In the short-term, the Cardinals have a season to save.
“The fact of the matter is we’re still in the hole,” Gannon said. “And going to play probably the best team in the NFL right now.”
Over the past three games, Brissett has proved that he is the best option to climb out of that hole. He’s now averaging 286.7 passing yards per game on 7.7 yards per attempt in his three starts. Murray had averaged 192.4 yards per game on 6.0 yards per attempt in five games before his foot injury.
One key to the Cardinals’ success with the 6-foot-4-inch Brissett has been his ability to line up under center. That’s a luxury they didn’t have with Murray, who is officially listed at 5 feet 10, and almost exclusively passes out of shotgun formations.
Brissett has dropped back 44 times from under center, compared with 16 for Murray. That, in turn, has created multiple advantages for the Cardinals defense. They’re using significantly more play action with Brissett and forcing opponents into base defense far more often.
“(Offensive coordinator Drew Petzing) is doing a good job of calling them in different situations that you might not be thinking that’s the play type,” Gannon said. “And then it gets really challenging when you don’t think that’s the play type. It can keep a defense off balance a little bit. So, just think it’s good. It kinda firms up the pocket a little bit, it lets our guys get down the field a little bit.”
That success pushing the ball down the field has been another glaring difference in Brissett’s three starts. On passes that travel more than 10 yards downfield, Brissett is 21 of 37 for 472 yards. On those same attempts, Murray was 19 of 43 for 393 yards.
The most telling moment of Gannon’s news conference, though, had nothing to do with schematics. It came when he was asked whether Murray’s injury had progressed more slowly than he expected.
“It never goes,” Gannon said with a chuckle, “how you think it’s gonna go.”
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