Michael Wilson makes sure his cell phone is on, because he never knows when a text or call is coming from Jacoby Brissett, hoping to outline a play or a route to make the Cardinals passing game go smoothly on game days.

“You get a two-minute phone call,” Wilson said. “(He’ll say) ‘Go to play 56 when Jacksonville played the Bengals, I like how Ja’Marr Chase did this, I see you running it this way.'”

“He does that continuously,” he added.

The quarterback doesn’t want to be a pain in the rear. But then again, it’s necessary in his mind.

“I try to (reach out) as little as I need to, but as much as I can just because I don’t want to interrupt other people’s day,” Brissett said. “I don’t even really care to be honest with you. I just do it. I apologize. I always say, ‘Hey, I’m sorry, but,’ then when it works out in the game, they’re like, ‘Alright, I see why it happens.'”

Brissett has been clicking as a passer, and now it’s locked in – with the news Kyler Murray won’t return this season – that he will start the final five games. But whenever Brissett is going to play, he works to communicate early and often with his pass catchers so that game days go well.

“He’ll send me a clip from like, eight years ago, and be like, ‘Man this is a look we could get, this is something that could come up,'” tight end Trey McBride said.

Brissett said he learned such things from spending time as a backup to Tom Brady and Philip Rivers, and seeing how much communication they had with their pass catchers outside of what the coaches had said – and how much that helped on the field.

Wilson isn’t complaining, even if he has to monitor his phone a bit more.

“I’m a firm believer in preparation,” Wilson said, “and he’s on his ‘p’s and q’s.'”

— Brissett will remain the starting QB the rest of the season because of the official admission from Jonathan Gannon on Friday that Murray will not be playing again in 2025. The way this had been playing out, it is not a surprise, nor was it a surprise that Gannon wasn’t going to get into any discussion of where Kyler might be playing in 2026. There is a lot of time before anything might happen.

The facts are these: Brissett has played well in his time behind center. Murray, who will be going into Year 8 next season, is guaranteed $36.8 million for 2026 and another $19.5 million for 2027 would be guaranteed if Murray is on the roster on the fifth day of the 2026 league year, which would be mid-March. The potential quarterback draft class is not considered one of the stronger ones, and Murray has plenty on his resumé to point to as successes. One more fact: Until his situation is settled, it’ll be the top storyline around the team this offseason.