The Arizona Cardinals finished the season 3-14, lost their final nine games, and fired their head coach, Jonathan Gannon. Now, general manager Monti Ossenfort has revealed how the franchise views quarterback Kyler Murray and his position with the organization.
Kyler Murray’s Future with the Arizona Cardinals Uncertain
Following perhaps the worst season in franchise history, considering the Cardinals have never lost 14 games in a regular season, the Cardinals are making some drastic changes.
The team’s owner, Michael Bidwill, is keeping Ossenfort on and stated during a press conference on Monday that he will lead the search for the next head coach.
As PFSN’s Abhimanyu Chaudhary points out, some potential replacement options could be Mike McCarthy, Jeff Hafley, and more. Gannon has been with the team three seasons and has gone 15-36 in that span. Of those 51 games, Murray has only played in 30 of them. He played eight games in 2023, 17 in 2024, and just five in 2025.
Interestingly, the Cardinals’ best season under Gannon, 8-9 in 2024, occurred with Murray fully healthy. Now, though, according to Mike Florio of “Pro Football Talk,” Ossenfort mentioned that Murray is still under contract, though “all options are on the table for what the team will do at the position in the future.”
As Florio notes, Murray’s contract guarantees him $39 million in 2026, and if he’s still on the roster by the fifth day of the new league year, he’ll get $19.5 million guaranteed for 2027.
Also, according to OverTheCap, if the Cardinals were to cut Murray and designate him as a post-June 1 release, they’d have $47,518,177 in dead money for next year, along with $5,742,500 in cap savings.
Now, if they were somehow able to trade him post-June 1, the dead money would drop to $10,718,177, and they’d have $42,542,500 in cap savings.
Given the current state of the league and the lackluster class of quarterbacks coming out, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the Cardinals could trade Murray and receive some compensation.
There are plenty of quarterback-needy teams, including the Las Vegas Raiders, New York Jets, potentially the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Indianapolis Colts, and more.
The Raiders have the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, though, so chances are they take Fernando Mendoza out of Indiana.
The Jets have over $74 million in cap space. Another intriguing option could be the Miami Dolphins, who are currently operating under head coach Mike McDaniel’s system, but they are over the cap by more than $15.6 million.
This season, through five games, Murray has posted a PFSN QB impact score of 75.3, ranking 21st in the league. Again, though, he played just five games. We’ll see what the Cardinals do this offseason to overhaul this organization.
