PFF ranks Kyler Murray near bottom of lowest tier of quarterbacks list

Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray has a wide, wide range of projections for his second season.

Some, like Mike Clay and Marcus Spears, have called him an MVP candidate. Coaches and evaluators who participated in an Athletic survey viewed him in the middle class of quarterbacks.

Pro Football Focus is a lot lower on the reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year.

PFF listed Murray near the rear of the fourth tier of quarterbacks, ranking him as the No. 29 QB going into 2020. He was above only the New York Giants’ Daniel Jones, Washington’s Dwayne Haskins and the Chicago Bears pairing of Nick Foles and Mitchell Trubisky.

Analyst Steve Palazzolo writes:

We’ve seen enough to be excited about Murray heading into Year 2, but there are plenty of concerns, as well. He ranked last in the league in clean-pocket passing grade and just 27th out of 39 qualifiers at avoiding negatively graded throws, two areas that remain stable for quarterbacks.

The addition of DeAndre Hopkins should allow Murray to play more aggressively at all levels of the field while opening up the rest of the receiving corps to play to their respective strengths. Murray’s athleticism brings a baseline of production to the offense in the running game, and the better supporting cast should lend itself to a better season in Year 2.

In Palazzolo’s end-of-2019 review, he also wrote that Murray needs to cut down negative plays, as too many sacks were his fault and not the result of poor blocking from the offensive line.

That much is true — Murray still needs to improve on decision-making in the pocket, but there was obvious growth there throughout the season.

And while he ranked low in the negatively graded throws, Murray did quite a bit with his deeper and riskier passes — In May, PFF published an article ranking him as the sixth-best deep passer in the league.

Even with negatively graded throws, Murray largely limited interceptions. In the middle of the season, he had a seven-game stretch in which he threw only one total interception.

So as of now, Murray is projected to be either one of the better quarterbacks in the league, a middle-tiered quarterback, or among the worst.

Only Murray and hindsight will be able to show which of those is right.

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