Could it be Kyler Murray's time to ascend into the upper echelons of the QB circle? The Arizona Cardinals signal-caller is over a full year removed from his torn ACL during the 2022 season and is now gearing up for a healthy campaign in 2024. When right, Murray has shown that he can flirt with winning the MVP, and one of his teammates believes this year could be a time when he re-enters that conversation.
"This is my third year with him now and he seems more motivated than ever," tight end Trey McBride told NFL Network on Tuesday. "He's a guy who's bringing everyone together, we're throwing every weekend, we're getting everyone together. He's in the building first one in and last one out. He's one of those guys who's doing everything the right way.
"This is the most confident I've seen him. This is the first year I've been fully healthy with him -- he's fully healthy -- I think everything is trending the right way. He has a ton of weapons out there and I have full confidence that he's capable of an MVP season."
Because his ACL injury occurred deep in the season (Week 14 vs. New England) in 2022, Murray's return came late in the year in 2023. He started the team's Week 10 matchup in mid-November and played the final eight games of the year. In that time, he showed flashes of his former self down the stretch and led Arizona to three of its four wins on the season.
Now that he has dusted the rust off and is further removed from his injury, the stage is set for Murray to have a bounce-back season. But could he enter the MVP conversation? Currently, Murray is +5000 to win MVP this season at DraftKings Sportsbook, which has him behind 17 different quarterbacks along with San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey.
While unlikely, it could still happen. So, using McBride's comments as our jumping-off point, let's roll through three things that would need to occur for voters to look at Murray in that MVP light.
Lead Cardinals to NFC West title
Of course, if Murray plays well enough that he's in MVP conversations, the Cardinals should be in the running to win the NFC West. While that may sound rudimentary, winning the division has been a critical step on the path toward winning the MVP. Over the past 11 seasons, each eventual MVP award winner has led his team to a division title. The last time a player won the MVP and was not on the team that won its division was in 2012 when former Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson won the award. At the moment, the Cardinals have the worst odds to win the NFC West at +1300 at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Play a full season
Health is a major component of winning this award. I can remember when former Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz was on an MVP trajectory in 2017, but those hopes were dashed when he suffered a torn ACL in Week 14 of that year. Even Murray was sniffing this award in 2021 when he led the Cardinals to a 7-0 record to begin the year. Over that stretch, he completed 73.5% of his passes, had a 116.8 passer rating, and had 20 total touchdowns (17 passing and three rushing). Murray was on pace for a near 5,000-yard and 40-touchdown season.
However, he suffered an ankle injury late in the club's Week 8 loss to the Packers that year, which forced him to miss the following three games. On top of missing time, Murray was never able to really recapture that magic from that opening stretch, ending up as an MVP afterthought.
For him to put up the numbers to get into these conversations, he'll have to play wire-to-wire, which is something he hasn't done since 2020 and not once in the 17-game regular season era.
Mirror production from 2020 season
One thing that Murray has going for him to possibly crash the party with this award is his duel-threat ability. If he can create in multiple ways, it doesn't require him to light the world on fire through the air. He could follow a similar approach to how Lamar Jackson was able to secure his latest MVP last season. Because Jackson has a rushing component to his skillset, it allowed him to still bring home the award despite ranking outside the top 10 in the league in both passing yards and passing touchdowns. So long as Murray remains efficient when dropping back to pass (Jackson ranked top five in passer rating), there's a blueprint for him to win so long as he makes up for it on the ground.
In fact, Murray should look to mirror his production from the 2020 season, which is similar to the type of year Jackson had in 2023 when he won MVP.
| Stats | Lamar Jackson (2023) | Kyler Murray (2020) |
|---|---|---|
Completion % | 67.2 | 67.2 |
Passing yards | 3,678 | 3,971 |
Passing yards per attempt | 8.0 | 7.1 |
Passer rating | 102.7 | 94.3 |
| Passing touchdowns | 24 | 26 |
| Interceptions | 7 | 12 |
| Rushing yards | 821 | 819 |
| Rushing touchdowns | 5 | 11 |
The key difference in these seasons is that Jackson's Ravens went 13-3 last year and were the No. 1 seed in the AFC, while Murray's 2020 Cardinals were 8-8. As we noted above, Murray would most likely have to lead his team to a division title to win this award, and if he can couple that with the type of production that we've seen from him in the past, there's a road where he enters the MVP debate.
