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.
Jacoby Brissett has been named the starting quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals’ upcoming game against the Seahawks.The decision comes as starting quarterback Kyler Murray continues to recover from a foot injury sustained in Week 5.Coach Jonathan Gannon stated that Murray will continue to focus on his health while Brissett leads the team.
Jacoby Brissett has been announced as the starting quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals when they play the Seahawks on the road on Nov. 9.
It seems to me that the decision is about more than just Kyler Murray’s injured foot. It’s about saving jobs and keeping the franchise from a (yet another) potential reset in a year or two.
Officially, Murray and the Cardinals have been consulting with doctors who say his timetable for return could be as long as eight weeks and that there’s an increased chance of a setback until he’s fully healed. At least that’s what ESPN’s esteemed insider Adam Schefter had to say on X, formerly Twitter.
“Jacoby will start,” coach Jonathan Gannon said Nov. 4, a day after snapping a five-game losing streak with a win over Dallas on Monday Night Football.
“Kyler will keep working on his health bucket.”
We don’t know exactly what Murray’s injury is, by the way. We just know he hurt his foot in a loss to the Tennessee Titans in Week 5.
Since then, the Cardinals’ offense has soared with Brissett under center.
“I do like what the offense is doing right now,” Gannon said. “We’ve operated well, and we’ll go from there.”
Reading between the lines, it seems to me that Kyler Murray is getting benched, and rightfully so.
Under Brissett, more guys are getting the ball. (Michael Wilson and Zay Jones have combined for more catches and yards in the last three games than they had in the first five.)
The Cardinals are scoring more points. (The team had been averaging 20.6 points per game with Murray. They’re averaging 25.6 with Brissett. If Arizona, 3-5, had been scoring that much all season, the team’s record would be 6-2.)
And Arizona’s third-down conversion rate is higher than a bad gambler’s blood pressure.
Why has the offense performed better?
“Any time you can stay on the field … it leads to points,” offensive coordinator Drew Petzing said.
Petzing said the offense has had a third-down conversion rate near 50% the last few games.
“You’re staying on the field,” he said. “You get more opportunities to play, more plays being called, which is huge.”
He refused to give sole credit to Brissett.
“It takes everybody,” Petzing said.
Still, the third-down success rate has been “great to see,” Petzing said. “It needs to continue.”
Let me step in and say what Gannon and Petzing won’t.
If the Cardinals had kept on losing, somebody was going to get fired. (Maybe several somebodies.)
The offense looked awful. I mean, 15 points against San Francisco?! Did Murray think he was playing the ’85 Bears?
That type of production (unproduction?) would put Petzing’s job on the line.
Gannon had been supporting Petzing, so that would have put the head coach in a cinch.
Arizona Cardinals’ Zaven Collins addresses state of team
At 2-5, the Arizona Cardinals are trying to turn things around and get a much-needed win coming off their Week 8 bye in the 2025 season.
Vibes changing
Fans were starting to turn on Marvin Harrison Jr. (He’s been great with Brissett at quarterback, too.)
The offensive line was getting heavy criticism.
And the stench was seeping under the door and getting on the defense. That unit looked good for three quarters every week, but they just couldn’t keep opponents off the scoreboard all game long without any help from the offense.
How long before the mess landed at the door of General Manager Monti Ossenfort?
Now? Brissett, mostly by virtue of his poise, has infused the entire team with confidence, and it looks like the Arizona Cardinals might have the makings of a contender with the right signal caller.
There’s a case to be made that the Cardinals should be loyal to Murray as a former No. 1 pick and the face of the franchise.
But loyalty can only last so long. (Ask Drew Bledsoe and Tom Brady or Matt Leinart and Kurt Warner.)
There’s also the reality that Murray is entirely too expensive to be sitting on the bench at roughly $46.1 million a year.
And finally, how much upside does anyone think Brissett actually has? He’s in his 10th season, after all.
But for me, none of that matters as much as a coach doing all he can to win games.
When losses pile up, people get fired, players get released, and franchises have to start over.
New GM. New coach. New quarterback. New rebuild. Same-old frustrated fanbase.
Gannon owes it to himself, his coaches, his players and his fans to stick with Brissett at least for as long as he keeps winning, regardless of Murray’s health.
Let next year worry about itself.
Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore, Instagram, @SayingMoore, and TikTok, @SayingMoore.
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