Analyst: Kyler Murray Entering Final Year With Cardinals

Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray hasn't quite sold the public on his long-term ability to guide the organization to new heights as the dust settles on his sixth season in the league.

As Arizona looks to build off an eight-win season with plenty of cap space and draft ammo to improve, all eyes are on Murray to take the next step in order to push the Cardinals back to the postseason.

Key figures in Arizona such as head coach Jonathan Gannon have been adamant Murray is the guy moving into 2025, setting up the biggest year of Murray's career yet.

We're entering make-or-break territory, and some believe this will be Murray's last season in the desert.

In Sports Illustrated's list of bold predictions for 2025, Conor Orr predicts this will be Murray's final campaign in Arizona:

"The Cardinals will enter their final season with Kyler Murray as a starting quarterback after quietly gauging his market this coming offseason. I believe Jonathan Gannon when he said he wanted to win with the former No. 1 pick, but I also believe that we are gathering a large enough sample size to understand that he won’t get the Cardinals over the hump," Orr wrote.

"Murray, with Kliff Kingsbury and Drew Petzing as offensive coordinators, is the 25th-best quarterback over the past four seasons when looking at a combination of EPA per play and completion percentage over expectation.

"While Ryan Fitzpatrick is fourth and Purdy is first, which means we should take these numbers with a grain of salt, Murray floats in the netherworld of high potential but his best season remains a nine-win campaign with 24 touchdowns, 10 picks and five rushing touchdowns."

The Cardinals are very clearly pushing their way to playoff contention in 2025, and dealing Murray this offseason simply wouldn't make sense. There's still reason to believe in what Murray - and the Cardinals - can be with an improved roster.

“A very high ceiling. He is a top-level franchise quarterback, and he's played like that. He's shown that. He was in there talking to me today," said Gannon at his end-of-season press conference.

"We were kind of going through some things, and I think the best teams win. We have to make sure we have the best team, and he understands how he fits into that.”

The Cardinals were once 6-4 and sitting as the first-place team in the NFC West before a post-bye week collapse saw Arizona miss the postseason. That transition saw Murray evolve from a MVP candidate to again having his overall outlook with the Cardinals questioned.

Murray believes Arizona is close.

"I think we're a couple plays, I mean every team can say it, but I think we're literally a couple plays away from being a 10 win team," he said after the regular season finale.

"I'm not going to get up here and complain about some of the things that happened throughout the season that I think kind of altered some games. I think we've all got to look in the mirror and see how we can be better going into next season, me included, and come out here and be better next year.”