Kingsbury: Kyler Murray ‘up for the challenge’ in road back from ACL tear

TEMPE — The Arizona Cardinals are in the early stages of preparing for life without Kyler Murray for the remainder of 2022 and potentially into next year following the quarterback’s season-ending knee injury on Monday Night Football.

Head coach Kliff Kingsbury on Tuesday couldn’t give much when it came to the severity of Murray’s injury, a recovery timeline or even which knee it was. But what he did know was that Murray is more than capable of tackling yet another form of adversity.

The next few days should shed more light after Murray and his team get different opinions and undergo more testing to decide the best plan of attack moving forward.

“He’s never been through this type of serious injury, so it’ll be a new challenge for him but … he’s up for the challenge,” Kingsbury said.

“It’s unfortunate and tough to see,” the head coach added. “Talking to him last night — it was a tough night.”

While it’ll be by far the steepest injury mountain Murray has had to scale in his football career, he’s been no stranger to overcoming obstacles, especially this season.

From dealing with a wrist issue during training camp, getting COVID-19, picking up a hamstring injury midseason and turning in subpar offensive performances, Murray had already been through the wringer before the Monday night mishap.

Now, not only does Murray face an uncertain road to recovery, any of the positive momentum the offense was having behind the signal caller is now kaput.

“A difficult year obviously from the beginning with not doing much at training camp with the wrist and then COVID and then having a tough stretch offensively, not playing as well as we thought we could,” Kingsbury said.

“I really thought against the (Los Angeles Chargers) our rhythm was a little bit better and was excited about these last five games and so to not be able to kind of build off that was disappointing and just tough for all parties involved.”

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