{"id":520097,"date":"2026-03-13T00:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T00:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/520097\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T00:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T00:07:08","slug":"kyler-murray-joins-vikings-whom-2-time-pro-bowl-qb-grew-up-rooting-for-following-release-by-cardinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/520097\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyler Murray joins Vikings, whom 2-time Pro Bowl QB grew up rooting for, following release by Cardinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray is out of the desert and in the Midwest. Murray has agreed to a contract with the Minnesota Vikings, the team announced Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He inked a one-year deal that includes a no-tag clause, which will allow him to hit free agency next year, according to<\/a> multiple reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Murray met with the media for a brief news conference<\/a> after the news of his signing broke, and the Allen, Texas, native revealed that he grew up rooting for the Vikings, a fandom that began when he started playing tackle football.<\/p>\n

“I was 7 years old,” Murray said. “Genuine, genuine fandom. Ran deep. Vikings gear through and through. A lot of purple in my household.”<\/p>\n

“I cried real tears whenever Brett threw that interception. I cried real tears that day,” Murray added, referencing Brett Favre’s fateful interception near the end of regulation in what became an overtime loss to the New Orleans Saints in the NFC championship during the 2009 season.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals released Murray after failing to deal the 28-year-old dual-threat quarterback earlier this offseason. Murray’s hefty contract, strapped with guaranteed money remaining from his lucrative 2022 extension<\/a>, made finding a trade partner more difficult.<\/p>\n

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Arizona will pay the bulk of Murray’s $36.8 million guaranteed salary next season, while the Vikings will reportedly pay him the veteran minimum.<\/p>\n

Had he remained on the Cardinals’ roster by March 15, $19.5 million of his 2027 salary would have become guaranteed as well, according to The Athletic<\/a>. With his departure an inevitability<\/a>, Murray preferred to be released, per ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He’s now paired with Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell, a vaunted quarterback whisperer who has helped not only Sam Darnold but also Daniel Jones revive their careers. Murray will bring stiff competition to a Minnesota quarterback room that also features third-year signal-caller J.J. McCarthy.<\/p>\n

A torn left meniscus sidelined McCarthy his rookie year. Last season, he missed a total of seven games: five with a high right ankle sprain<\/a>, one with a concussion<\/a> and one with his hand injury that he tried to play through down the stretch<\/a>. He’s missed 25 games, including the playoffs, due to injuries in his young NFL career. And when he’s been on the field, he’s struggled with accuracy and turnovers, completing just 57.6% of his passes and throwing 11 touchdowns against 12 picks in Year 2.<\/p>\n

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Conversely, Murray never completed less than 64.4% of his passes in a season amid his seven-year run with the Cardinals, who selected him with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 draft.<\/p>\n

A year after trading up to take Josh Rosen with the 10th pick, Arizona pivoted at the position and invested in Murray, the first athlete to ever go in the first round of both the NFL and MLB Drafts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Murray won the Heisman Trophy in his lone season as Oklahoma’s starter and then hit the ground running in the NFL, winning the league’s Offensive Rookie of the Year award.<\/p>\n

He went on to make the Pro Bowl in both 2020 and 2021, totaling 37 and 29 touchdowns, respectively.<\/p>\n

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During the 2021 season, Murray piloted Arizona to a 7-0 start. Despite cooling off down the stretch, the Cardinals eventually made the playoffs for the first time since 2015, and Murray finished the regular season with a league-high 49.3% completion rate on passes traveling 20-plus air yards, at least among quarterbacks with at least 30 attempts in that depth, according to Pro Football Focus.<\/p>\n

After poking his head into the NFL MVP discussion back-to-back seasons, Murray suffered a season-ending ACL tear in 2022<\/a>. That injury set him and the Cardinals back.<\/p>\n

Murray returned during the second half of the 2023 season. Although he’s strung together stretches of brilliance since, he’s been held back by inconsistency \u2014 including a decline in downfield accuracy \u2014 and perhaps an offensive system that didn’t maximize his development.<\/p>\n

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To his credit, Murray bought into a run-heavy offense run coordinated by Drew Petzing, whom the Detroit Lions recently tapped as their new OC. But while sometimes remarkably efficient, Murray wasn’t quite as explosive during the three-season Jonathan Gannon era<\/a> as he was during Kliff Kingsbury’s four-season stay as head coach.<\/p>\n

He struggled under pressure at times, notably late in the 2024 season, and his connection with wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. wasn’t the slam dunk the Cardinals enjoyed with Murray and DeAndre Hopkins.<\/p>\n

Murray’s availability also became a talking point. His ACL recovery bled into the 2023 season, and the foot injury he picked up in Week 5 this past season landed him on IR<\/a>. When asked about his health Thursday, Murray said, when the time comes, he’ll be out on the field ready to go.<\/p>\n

Murray isn’t necessarily a quarterback reclamation project like Darnold and Jones were. He’s a two-time Pro Bowler with a 92.9 career passer rating, after all.<\/p>\n

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That said, Murray has a chance to benefit from a change of scenery in a similar way and in the same spot: Minnesota, where he can throw to wide receivers Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and tight end T.J. Hockenson, all while under the tutelage of O’Connell.<\/p>\n

Murray noted a moment at the NFL combine eight years ago, when O’Connell, then the offensive coordinator in Washington, pulled him aside after Murray met with the now-Commanders.<\/p>\n

“Ever since then, our relationship, he’s always made sure to check in on me, whether it was after a game, things like that, so I always respected that,” Murray said Thursday. “Obviously, he’s had a lot of success with quarterbacks, different quarterbacks, and he’s one of the best offensive minds in the game. So I’m looking forward to going to work with him.”<\/p>\n

Since the addition of Murray, the Vikings’ Super Bowl odds have increased<\/a> from 60-1 to 50-1, according to BetMGM<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Murray won’t always be Speedy Gonzalez; however, he’s still under 30 and remains a headache for defenses. He’s rushed for at least 400 yards in all five seasons he’s played at least 11 games, including as recently as 2024.<\/p>\n

Now, with a fresh start, Murray will aim to return to the consistent winning he flirted with in Arizona and reliably delivered in high school and college.<\/p>\n

Being back in purple, it’s a full-circle moment that he “never in a million years” expected.<\/p>\n

“I think that it’s a great fit,” Murray said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray is out of the desert and in the Midwest. Murray has agreed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1829,4,450,15946,19687,1810,451,6343,31107,204704,15355,1830,95482,8851,1814,3,15357,31242,16959,452,453],"class_list":["post-520097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-arizona-cardinals","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-daniel-jones","tag-deandre-hopkins","tag-detroit-lions","tag-headlines","tag-j-j-mccarthy","tag-jordan-addison","tag-josh-rosen","tag-justin-jefferson","tag-kyler-murray","tag-marvin-harrison-jr","tag-minnesota-vikings","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-news","tag-sam-darnold","tag-t-j-hockenson","tag-the-cardinals","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}