As Kyler Murray navigates his first full season back post-knee injury, there is talk about him as NFL Comeback Player of the Year (his odds are moving up, and he was ninth in last year’s voting) and even potentially MVP (odds, yes, moving up). But ask Jonathan Gannon about what is the biggest impression his quarterback has left on him 10 games into this season, and the coach doesn’t hesitate.
“That he doesn’t throw it to the other team,” Gannon said.
For all the strides Murray has made in terms of throwing from the pocket and rediscovering downfield passes, it is his lack of turnovers that resonates. Murray has only thrown three interceptions and lost three fumbles, and together with the relatively few penalties the Cardinals commit (The Cardinals have been flagged a league-low 49 times), it goes a long way in giving the team a chance to win.
“Taking care of the football is something that’s kind of a non-negotiable,” Murray said. “It’s something you have to do when you play this position. You want to play it at a high level. (If) you want to be who you want to be in this league and go where you want to go, you have to take care of the football. I understand that if I’m giving the ball away I’m putting my team at a disadvantage.”
Turnovers are turnovers, but only one of Murray’s picks could be chalked up to a poor decision. The Lions got him in the end zone when Murray tried to get Marvin Harrison Jr. deep on a play in Week 3 (and Murray looked like he had an open man 15 yards downfield on the play.) But the other two came on a tipped line of scrimmage pass against the Chargers and an amazing play by Nick Bosa on a screen pass in San Francisco.
Even the fumbles lost have caveats — one did come on a strip-sack against Buffalo, but the other two were funky handoff issues with rookie Trey Benson.
“He knows that the ball is a winning stat and there’s times that he probably wants to try to thread it a little bit but understands when to pick and choose his spots,” Gannon said. “I think he’s done a phenomenal job with that and there are a lot of times throughout the game where you could say we like to put it in the quarterback’s hands, and you trust him to make the right decision for that point in the game, ‘This is something you can’t do.’
“There’s never typically times where I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I hated that decision.'”
Murray has thrown 276 passes with his three picks. The only QBs with better ratios are the Chargers’ Justin Herbert (277 passes, only one interception), the Commanders’ Jayden Daniels (294, 3) and the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson (321, 3).
Murray has never been a player who threw a lot of picks, although his interception percentage, which has been between 1.8 and 2.2 in every season of his career, is down to 1.1 this season.
“I think in playing the position I’ve always tried to pride myself on taking care of the ball,” Murray said. “I think (it’s just) not playing scared or anything like that, just being smart with the football and understanding where your outlets are whenever those situations come up. Maybe scrambling, whatever it is and just being careful with the ball.”
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