Cardinals’ Kyler Murray among top 5 QBs in multiple PFF passing metrics
Jun 26, 2022, 6:45 AM
Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray’s accuracy was on point in 2021.
Completing a career-high 69.2% of his passes, only Cincinnati Bengals signal caller Joe Burrow had a better percentage (70.4%) last year.
Looking closer at Murray’s pass attempts, Pro Football Focus’ Bryant Horn found that the QB was among the best in the league in a handful of passing categories.
Taking into account ball location, the specific throw type, primary coverage type and level of receiver separation, Murray reigned supreme when it came down to the deep ball (throws of 20 or more yards) behind a 48.5% accuracy-plus throwing percentage.
When chucking it down the field, Murray went 35-for-71 for 1,125 yards and nine touchdowns. He also recorded a 6.4% turnover-worthy play percentage, which ranked 11th-lowest.
Horn added that Murray completed 49.2% of his deep ball attempts, which boosted his passing grade up to a near-perfect 99.3, tops among qualifying signal callers.
And while Murray excelled with his deep ball accuracy he was just as lethal in the intermediate passes category as he finished with a 58% completion percentage on passes traveling 1-9 yards.
Murray tied for second with Teddy Bridgewater in intermediate passes placed in a “good” radius for a reception (58.0%). Murray threw for 848 yards and seven touchdowns on intermediate attempts, going 54-of-90.
Murray will now be tasked on replicating or improving upon those numbers without his No. 1 receiving option in DeAndre Hopkins for the first six games of the year. Hopkins violated the league’s performance-enhancing drug policy.
With Hopkins on the shelf, the Cardinals’ wide receiver room features A.J. Green, Rondale Moore and newly acquired Marquise Brown.
Brown reunites with his college QB in Murray hoping to help alleviate the loss of Hopkins to begin the year.
He can lean on the familiarity with Murray to do so. Brown was Murray’s favorite target at Oklahoma, with the wideout racking up 1,318 yards and 19 touchdowns on 75 catches during their final college season together in 2018.
