Arizona Cardinals have everything riding on Kyler Murray

The Arizona Cardinals have put the collective future of a general manager and a head coach in the hands of rookie quarterback Kyler Murray.

You would think that after drafting the Heisman Trophy winner, the Arizona Cardinals would be riding high. That’s just not the case in the desert. The afterglow of adding quarterback Kyler Murray has been short-lived, especially for general manager Steve Keim.

Keim, and maybe even first-year head coach Kliff Kingsbury, look to be on the hot seat without so much as a 2019 regular season game in the books. Murray, who may be the franchise savior or a bust of epic proportions, has the collective futures of both his GM and his head coach squarely on his shoulders.

Is that a lot of needless pressure for the rookie quarterback? It could be, especially if the Cardinals get off to a slow start, playing four teams who are shaping up to be better than last season.

Arizona opens with three of their first four games at home. In Week 4, they play division rival Seattle Seahawks who were in the playoffs last year. They have a road game against the Baltimore Ravens (also in the playoffs) in Week 2 followed by a home game against Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers. They open with the Detroit Lions who should be improved after a disappointing 2018.

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Opening the 2019 campaign at 2-2 would be an absolute gift. The more likely scenario is either 1-3 or possibly even 0-4. In all four games, Murray will be not just a rookie on the field, but something of an experiment for Kingsbury trying to prove a point. He also won’t be the better quarterback in any of those contests.

While it’s entirely premature to see Kingsbury in trouble in 2019, Keim is a different story. He botched the whole Josh Rosen situation by misreading the league landscape before the NFL Draft. Rosen, who was a top-10 selection only a year ago, returned what was essentially pocket change. With some off-field baggage added to the equation, a bad season or even a bad start could end Keim’s run in Arizona.

As intriguing as the Kingsbury and Murray potential could be, the downside could be very steep. The NFL is stuck in the next “Sean McVay” mode that yielded the current situation for the Arizona Cardinals. Murray, through no fault of his own, is the gatekeeper to two high profile people keeping or losing a job. Win and it’s all good — lose and heads will roll.

It’s hard to imagine a 3-13 team that presents more potential, good or bad, based on the ”Hail Mary” attempt of this organization. Catching lightning in a bottle is more organic than planned, and while Murray lit it up for one season at Oklahoma, Kingsbury was the very definition of mediocre in his career at Texas Tech.

Murray will be 22 years old when the 2019 NFL season begins. In his hands, he’ll hold the future of an entire organization needing to hit a home run beginning Week 1 against Detroit. While he’ll have an opportunity to succeed and fail, Keim likely won’t, and Kingsbury will only get a little while longer.

That’s a tall order for someone who might still be a better baseball player than he ever will be at football.