Kyler Murray wasn’t dealt at the NFL trade deadline, but ESPN’s Dan Graziano said cutting the quarterback during the offseason could be on the table if the Arizona Cardinals look to move on and a trade opportunity doesn’t surface.
The franchise signal caller has $36.8 million in fully guaranteed money for 2026 and $19.5 million guaranteed for 2027 if he is still with Arizona by the time March rolls around.
Graziano said the play of the Cardinal’s backup QB in Jacoby Brissett will determine if Arizona moves on from Murray.
But if at the end of the season the Cardinals still feel they’ve been better with Brissett than with Murray, they’ll surely consider a change. That would mean either absorbing some of the $36.8 million for 2026 or releasing Murray and taking on $54.7 million in dead money.
That’s a lot less than the $80 million the Broncos took on when they cut Russell Wilson in 2024, and the Broncos have a 17-10 record since then, made the playoffs last season and look to be headed that way again.
Arizona is 1-2 in Brissett’s three starts and 2-3 with Murray under center. The offensive cohesion and output, however, are observably different.
With Brissett, the Cardinals have averaged 356.7 yards and 25.7 points per game, good enough for 10th and 12th in the league, respectively. With Murray, and a healthier supporting cast, the offense has averaged 288.4 yards and 20.6 points.
Though the financial picture doesn’t seem an ideal one for Arizona, Graziano said the dead money involved with a potential move off of the former No. 1 overall pick “isn’t likely to be an obstacle.”
The bigger question is whether some team — the Jets or Dolphins? — would trade for Murray, who’s still only 28 years old and has obviously shown flashes of being a good starting NFL quarterback, even if he hasn’t shown the consistency.
NFL analyst Peter Schrager also added Wednesday on The Pat McAfee Show that “in a post-Russell Wilson era where teams just say ‘rip the Band-Aid off,’ that might be the move,” concerning Arizona and Murray.
Arizona coach Jonathan Gannon got ahead of things this week by naming Brissett the starting quarterback for an upcoming road game against the Seattle Seahawks (6-2).
It will be Brissett’s fourth consecutive start and might not be the last this year, as Murray’s foot injury might sideline him “anywhere from four to eight weeks,” according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Even if Murray is deemed healthy enough to play and does, Graziano believes Gannon and general manager Monti Ossenfort will likely have “a chance to stick around” and draft their own QB, as Murray was selected in 2019 by the previous regime of general manager Steve Keim and coach Kliff Kingsbury.