So much depends
upon
a red-clad
quarterback
glazed with
sweat
inside the white
lines
— William Carlos Williams, probably
When Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner announced his retirement in January of 2010, he cited a variety of reasons. He was keenly aware of his long-term health risks after the New Orleans Saints battered him in a 45-14 playoff loss. He was ready for a new challenge after crafting a Hall of Fame career. And he was emotionally spent. The job had exacted a mental toll that he was tired of paying.
“The pressure affects you,” he said last week during a phone interview. “I was asked to do so much within our organization so you felt the pressure that if you didn’t play well you were not going to win. Even when you played well and won, it was like you had to turn around and do it all again so it was hard to really enjoy and embrace the moments and the seasons because there was so much on your plate to help lift the guys around you, to help build and grow the offense that you were running, and then to go out and perform at that level, week in and week out.
“It was stress and it was intense pressure. When you didn’t do it to the level that helped your team win, you felt so much of that weight on your own shoulders. It’s heavy. That’s a tough burden to bear and I think it’s especially heavy for a lot of young guys who are still learning how to play.”
For the past five seasons in the Valley, that weight has been Kyler Murray’s to bear, and it will be his burden for as long as he crouches under center. But unlike Warner or many of the other players who came before them, Murray and today’s starting NFL quarterbacks are rarely granted the luxury of learning on the job or serving as an apprentice. They are plugged right in and expected to play well.
After five years of trial by fire under less than ideal circumstances, Murray, who turned 27 on Wednesday, may finally be ready to embrace and master all of the duties that come with his job description. When he reported to OTAs this spring, there was a noticeable difference in the way he talked; a maturity and wisdom that he believes is a natural product of aging.
He gathered his teammates for offseason workouts in the Valley and Los Angeles, both to build offensive cohesion and to build camaraderie. He expressed genuine gratitude for his health after a lengthy rehab process from a torn ACL. And he expressed a belief in the bond he has built with his coaching staff; a staff that appears to have a real plan for maximizing his talents, unlike its predecessors.
“Am I excited?” he asked. “Hell, yeah, I’m excited! Just to be healthy again is a blessing. And then to have the support of your head coach and everybody around you? Yes, yes, for sure. I just believe in what we can do.”
The Cardinals will need Murray to walk that talk. There is no single player who comes close to matching the sixth-year QB’s importance to the Cardinals’ success.
If he stays healthy and plays to his abilities, Arizona could very well challenge for a playoff spot despite lingering questions at multiple other positions. On the flip side, if Murray goes down for any length of time, or if he struggles for any length of time, the Cardinals’ season is toast.
So much depends on Murray and everybody knows it — the fans, the media, his teammates, his GM and his coaches: Jonathan Gannon, offensive coordinator Drew Petzing, and quarterbacks coach Israel Woolfork.
To discuss the ever-increasing importance and the ever-increasing challenge of being an NFL QB, PHNX Sports caught up with two Valley icons and two former Cardinals QBs who led the franchise to the playoffs: Warner and Jake Plummer.
Both offered thoughts on why it is so much harder to be a starting QB than it used to be; why it is so much harder to turn to a backup than it used to be; and what Murray needs to do to climb into the NFL’s elite class.
Warner chuckles when considering his role in making life harder on starting QBs. He led the St. Louis Rams’ “Greatest Show on Turf” to a Super Bowl title in 2000 and another Super Bowl berth in 2002. In so doing, he helped transform the way offenses are constructed.
“When I grew up watching football, the game was so much about three yards and a cloud of dust,” he said. “If you got a two-touchdown lead, you could play defense, you could be physical, and it was tough to come back from that deficit.
“In St. Louis, we showed people that you could win as a throw-first team; a high flying team that pushed the ball down the field and didn’t have to be three yards and a cloud of dust.”
That approach helped spark new offensive philosophies, Warner said, but rules changes also impacted the importance of the QB.
“Those changes didn’t really happen until later in my career, but the number of times we see drives prolonged because of pass interference now, and the defense not being able to be physical, and the rules with press coverage, and the rules protecting quarterbacks — it’s just continuing to get skewed in that direction,” he said.
“The game is set up for teams to be successful throwing the football. That’s why I think the quarterback position has become so vitally important because you need that position to continually make plays for your team to be successful. You can’t just get a big lead and sit on it now. You have to keep making plays throughout the game and that increases the risk of also making mistakes.”
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As the Cardinals break camp on Thursday, one of the top storylines will be the preseason battle for the backup QB role between Desmond Ridder and Clayton Tune. The truth? The backup QB battle doesn’t really matter. Neither Ridder nor Tune will leads the Cardinals to the postseason if they have to play for any length of time.
It didn’t used to be this way. There was a time when backup QBs could fill in for long periods of time; maybe even lead their team into the playoffs. The San Francisco 49ers once had Steve Young backing up Joe Montana. Tom Brady got his chance in 2001 when Drew Bledsoe — fresh off signing a 10-year, $103-million contract — sustained a life threatening injury. Brady stepped in and led the Patriots to the first of six Super Bowl titles.
As late as 2017, Nick Foles replaced an injured Carson Wentz and led the Eagles to a Super Bowl win. But as the game continues to evolve, it is less and less likely that a backup QB can be anything more than serviceable.
“The backup role is a really interesting thing because you’ve still got to do everything you can to prepare as if you’re going to play, but the backups rarely have had an opportunity to have the ball in their hands in that big moment when the team needs you to step up and show them that you can do it and you can earn their respect,” said Plummer, who started nine games in his rookie season of 1997, and then all 16 the following year when the Cardinals made the playoffs for the first time in their Valley tenure.
“It happens occasionally. We saw [ASU alumnus] Brock Osweiler do it in Denver when Peyton Manning went down. Brock won some big games that year to help them get to the Super Bowl, but it doesn’t happen often.”
Changes in the CBA have further impacted backups’ preparedness and opportunity to succeed.
“With practice times cut down, there’s not as many hours spent on the field so how do you establish that rapport with your guys when you may not even get to throw to the starting receivers?” Plummer asked.
“When I was starting — even in the offseason when we were throwing to the receivers — rarely did I ever let the backup throw to my top three guys because that was my time to get dialed in with them. I wanted to be so in tune with them that come the season when all things are going crazy and it’s frantic and you’re under all that stress, we were able to just tap into what we’d put down with the groundwork we laid in the offseason.”
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When Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon was asked how vital it was to have a healthy Murray in this year’s training camp — unlike in 2023 when he was still rehabbing a torn ACL — Gannon acknowledged the obvious.
“I’m not going to hide my excitement,” he said. “It’s awesome to see him lead the offense, lead the team, be in there with his teammates, ask really good questions, get held accountable in front of everyone and take it on the chin just like everybody does.”
Gannon saw enough in two weeks of camp to believe that his QB is ready for the regular season. He announced this week that Murray will not play in any of the Cardinals’ three preseason games, which begin with a game against the Saints at State Farm Stadium on Saturday. A good part of that decision was based on his conversations with Murray and the other coaches, but it was also based on concerns for Murray’s health.
It’s debatable whether those concerns are warranted, but Murray missed 17 games over the past two seasons and three in 2021; the only year in his career in which he has made the playoffs. Gannon isn’t risking even the slimmest of chances and it’s not hard to understand why.
The Cardinals are starting to garner some national hype because of Murray’s health and the array of offensive weapons he has at his disposal, but Murray’s ceiling is still unknown and his health is paramount in reaching it. We saw long stretches of his potential in his first two NFL seasons, and he was in the MVP conversation midway through the 2021 season, but Murray believes there is another level to his game.
“Drew, Izzy, even JG in a sense, those guys haven’t been around me my whole career,” he said. “They played me maybe once so they got a glimpse of it, but do they really understand what type of player I am and what I can fully do? That’s what I would like to do is surprise them on how good of a player I can be.”
To do so, Murray will have to handle the immense pressure that comes with being an NFL QB. No sport garners greater attention in the United States than the NFL, and there is arguably no position more difficult to master than quarterback. Consider that when passing, NFL QBs must make multiple reads and a decision in about 2.5 seconds — with massive players bearing down on them and multiple teammates impacting every throw they make.
“It’s hard to do because he’s still learning how to play the position, learning how to be a franchise quarterback and that’s not even just defined by what he does on Sunday afternoons,” Warner said. “It’s every day. It’s how he leads. I think we’re seeing a young guy that’s growing up in front of our eyes, and sometimes he’s being forced to because he’s in a position now where, for the first time in his life, he hasn’t had unlimited success.”
Plummer admits that he never had the talent of Murray or Warner. Instead, he relied on a personality trait that served him well at Arizona State when he led the Sun Devils to within seconds of a national championship.
“I wasn’t making crazy plays every single time I grabbed the ball, but I feel like my guys respected me and wanted to play hard for me because they knew I was with them,” Plummer said. “I was down and dirty; doing the things they were doing and I wasn’t putting myself on a pedestal even though everybody else wanted to.
“It’s pretty wild the amount of money QBs are making, but so much is riding on the guys around them and how much they like you and want to play hard for you. You can be the quarterback and be a leader and really be one of the guys. Or you can set yourself apart and think or act like you’re bigger and better than everybody. If you do that, you’d better back that shit up with some really solid play and playmaking ability.”
Plummer said that leadership goes beyond getting the guys together in the offseason or going out to dinner with teammates.
“It comes with how you act in pressure situations,” he said. “If you have a tough day, how do you respond? Are you throwing guys under the bus? Are you putting your hands on your hips and acting like, ‘Poor, pitiful me?’ Or are you taking it for the team by saying, ‘I gotta play better,’ whether your left tackle was dogshit that day or not? You’ve got to take it on your shoulders and say I can play better, I can do better, I can do more. You’re the guy. You’re getting paid to be the guy so you better embrace all that means.”
A lot has been said and written about Murray’s past body language when things weren’t going well. The 2024 season will show whether his maturity extends to those situations, but in order to reach his full potential, Warner believes Murray must master a more tactical aspect of the position.
“I had a big Twitter conversation with people the other day about the layup quarterback versus the playmaking quarterback,” Warner said. “By layup quarterback, I mean the guys that have the ability to know how their play connects to the defense, to get the ball out on time, to get it to the right guy, to make the right decision, to play on schedule.
“Can you make those plays that are right in front of you and not have to rely on your playmaking ability too often within a game? Kyler and Lamar [Jackson] and Josh [Allen] have the ability to be playmaking quarterbacks more than others, but it’s a hard way to play no matter who you are. It’s just so hard to live in that other world. You have to learn how to be able to take the layups.
“To me, that’s what’s going to ultimately determine who Kyler Murray becomes. He’s been more of a playmaking quarterback than a layup, on-schedule quarterback. He’s done some great things and he’s been in the MVP conversation because he is such a great athlete, but those things always come back to bite you against really good teams that force you to play the game in front of you. To me, that’s what he has to learn if he ultimately wants to take that turn and grow — if he wants to become that guy.”
Top photo of Kyler Murray at Game Four of the 2024 NBA Finals via Getty Images
