By The Numbers: What Arizona Cardinals QB Kyler Murray is stepping into

Arizona Sports’ Bickley & Marotta Mornings co-host Vince Marotta brought up some numbers that illustrate just how bleak the Arizona Cardinals quarterback room has been in the 13 games since Kyler Murray has been out.

Murray tore his ACL in week 14 of last season vs. the New England Patriots, which marked Arizona’s ninth loss in 13 games and the first three-game losing streak of the season to that point. The streak would extend to seven as the team failed to win a game the rest of the way.

Marotta had the numbers for how the five quarterbacks in his place did over those final four games in 2022 and the nine games so far in 2023.

Life without Kyler Murray (13 games): Colt McCoy, Trace McSorley, David Blough, Josh Dobbs, Clayton Tune.@Vincemarotta has crunched the numbers: 266-of-433 (61%) for 2,448 yards, 10 touchdowns and 14 interceptions.

QB rating aggregate: 71.06, which this year would rank in… pic.twitter.com/sgpnJdbfVW

— Arizona Sports (@AZSports) November 8, 2023

Those numbers feel bad on their own, but under the scope of the rest of the league, they look even worse.

• 266-433 (61.4%) — That would rank between the Tennessee Titans (27th) and Pittsburgh Stealers (28th) over this season.
• 2,448 passing yards (188.3 per game) — The yards per game would rank between, funny enough, Josh Dobbs (29th) and Ryan Tannehill (30th).
• 10 touchdowns and 14 interceptions — In just eight or nine games (six for Justin Fields) this season, 19 quarterbacks already have the 10 touchdowns that Cardinals quarterbacks accumulated in 13 games; none of the 19 have even double-digit interceptions yet.
• 71.06 passer rating — Marotta mentioned Ryan Tannehill at 71.9 who ranks 36th, but it’s also lower than Chicago Bears quarterback Tyson Bagent at 37th, who has a 71.4 rating over five games.

No one’s expecting Murray to be perfect in his return, but the bar he has to clear to be better than what this team has become accustomed to is by no means unachievable.

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