Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray has taken a lot of heat over the course of his career for a number of things. One thing he has been known as in the past is a bad leader. That seems to no longer be the case, if it ever truly was.
The whispers of lack of leadership have disappeared and now teammates are publicly saying things that say he has taken strides in that area of being the team’s starting quarterback.
“He’s a leader,” said running back James Conner via AZCardinals.com. “I say that because he’s coming into it. When I got to Arizona (in 2021) it was kind of, ‘Who is the leader here?’ Sometimes that’s the product of the environment. That’s no longer the environment here. He’s making the effort to bring the guys close.”
This echoes what safety Budda Baker said about Murray earlier in the offseason.
Baker said, “It’s night and day from his rookie year until now. Always a great player. (But now) a guy you can talk to, any of the players can talk to whether it’s the practice squad guys or the best players on the team. He’s around us. He jokes, cracks jokes, he talks. He’s a great leader, so definitely excited for him to continue to grow, continue to get better and lead this organization.”
Head coach Jonathan Gannon has done nothing but praise everything about Murray, and Gannon has challenged him since his hiring as head coach. “Everything that we’ve asked of him, he’s went above and beyond,” Gannon said back in March.
Whether it was an actual lack of leadership before or simply him maturing naturally into the role, it is clear that the locker room and coaching staff is behind Murray 100%, which is necessary if the Cardinals are going to continue in the direction they want to go.
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