At a time of year when NFL teams are either looking to charge forward into the winter months, aiming for the Lombardi, or side-eyeing college ball to prepare for the 2026 draft, the Arizona Cardinals sit in purgatory.

Although they sit at 2-5 and look up at three strong teams in the NFC West division, the Cardinals only look downtrodden on paper. In actual practice, they’ve been middle of the road, only being a single point negative in their overall differential and losing several games on last-second field goals. They’re a team that can hang around some of the best in the league, but don’t know how to get over the line, and are so inconsistent that they can drop games to weaker teams than them.

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It all points back to the team’s starting quarterback, Kyler Murray. A player who personifies the Cardinals as a whole. In his seventh year as the man in the desert, he’s been good. Not great. Not awful. Good. There have been years when he’s looked like the supernova, game-changing athlete the Cardinals selected No. 1 overall, throwing aside Josh Rosen, who they drafted in the first round prior. But then there’s the injuries. There are the unforced errors. There is the Kyler Murray who will run around in a circle and then heave a ball into no man’s land with two opposing safeties laughing at him as they intercept it.

Prior to their game on Monday against the Dallas Cowboys, the team announced that Murray would remain sidelined with a foot injury. Although he will be active and might see time, the Cardinals will start Jacoby Brissett, who has done well as an understudy over the past two weeks. Even if a playoff position in the NFC would be improbable at this point, the Cardinals will be riding Brisett in what is effectively a do-or-die game for a team hanging on by a thread of hope.

Which leaves the question: what is Murray’s future in Arizona? He has a club option in two years and three until he would be a fully unrestricted free agent, but we’ve reached a point where the Murray saga in Arizona has felt more like an intermission than anything else. It is unlikely that the Cardinals would field any offer for their franchise quarterback unless it was for an obvious overpayment. But heading into an offseason without postseason success with Murray, when does the franchise stop building around him and look at the foundation they’re building on?

The Baltimore Ravens were in a similar position earlier this week with Lamar Jackson, who returned after missing a month and led his team to a blowout win over Miami that has reignited their season. Murray can play and could come in for Arizona against the Cowboys, but would he even be an upgrade over Brissett at the moment?

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A franchise quarterback is the type of player who, when all the chips are down, you cross your fingers and hope he can play, even if not at 100% of their power. As the Cardinals stare down the possibility of another lost season and stare out into the wasteland that is football mediocrity, it might be time to ask the hard questions.

Is the Kyler Murray era in Arizona worth another chapter?

This article originally appeared on Touchdown Wire: Are we coming to the end of the Kyler Murray era in Arizona?