Feelings are raw. Anger and disappointment are at an all-time high. A once-promising season filled with much hope and happiness is now gone.
The Arizona Cardinals community watched in disbelief as their beloved franchise looked unprepared and outmatched by the Los Angeles Rams in a 34-11 season-ending loss in the first round of the playoffs. After a 1-5 finish to the season including the loss on Monday night, the team that started the season 7-0, looks unrecognizable.
What now?
The answer lies solely on the shoulders of team president and owner, Michael Bidwill.
There are two paths Bidwill can take.
The first path is to stay the course with the current regime, sell the fan base and season ticket holders the team is forging the right path and citing, as they did last spring, how the season win totals have improved each year under Kliff Kingsbury.
Former NFL head coach Bill Parcells had a saying, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
The second path is a total reboot, one starting with the team’s general manager and its head coach.
This May, the Cardinals will undoubtedly elect to pick up Kyler Murray’s fifth-year option. Financially speaking, that is just good business. The team can continue to build pieces around the former Heisman trophy winner while keeping him under a more manageable pay scale.
More importantly, however, is to evaluate whether Murray can indeed be the franchise quarterback this organization has sought after for decades.
General manager Steve Keim has had ample time to right the ship. His tenure with Arizona is mired in poor free agent signings, terrible draft classes and one winning season since head coach Bruce Arians’ retirement following the 2017 season. Only two drafted players remain from the 2015 team — tackle D.J. Humphries and linebacker Markus Golden, the latter of whom Keim had to reacquire via trade for a fifth-round pick last season.
The team’s head coach, Kliff Kingsbury, might make an excellent NFL head coach one day, but not with this team and not with this quarterback.
It is clear that whatever message Kingsbury is conveying falls on deaf ears late in the season. For the second consecutive year, a competitive Cardinals team could not clinch a playoff spot on its own and faltered down the stretch of a long NFL campaign.
Under new leadership, the Cardinals will have two full seasons to evaluate Kyler Murray before paying him upwards of $30-$40 million a year.
Murray has shown flashes of brilliance in each of his first three seasons as a pro quarterback. However, like his coach, his shine comes primarily in the first half of the year, leading many to wonder, whether it is the coach, the quarterback or the combination of both.
With the likes of Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, and Justin Herbert ascending, the noise surrounding Murray is becoming louder. Can he be a leader of men to take them to the next level? Can he make them a yearly contender? If I were Michael Bidwill, I would want to know this, and with confidence.
Murray is a good quarterback, dripping with talent. But, he is far from a great one and still has a ways to go. New leadership may help him get there.
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