Arizona Cardinals 2019 draft among NFL's best

One decision can make or break a season.

While everyone is well aware of the short comings of General Manager Steve Keim, he took a massive risk in drafting Kyler Murray with the first overall pick after taking Josh Rosen the year before.

With at least the Murray decision, he has proven to made the right decision.

That’s why when 2019 NFL Draft grades are revisited by websites, starting with NFL.com you see the Cardinals ranked highly.

From Gennaro Filice:

And then Keim raised a lot of eyebrows last April when he selected a quarterback in the top 10 for the second consecutive draft. But Murray proved Keim right by becoming the first No. 1 overall pick to earn Offensive or Defensive Rookie of the Year honors since Cam Newton in 2011. In a related story, Murray also followed in Newton’s footsteps by becoming the second rookie quarterback — and just the sixth QB of any experience level — to post a 3,500/500 NFL season in passing/rushing yards. With the dual-threat playmaker running Kliff Kingsbury’s Air Raid offense, Arizona jumped from dead last in Football Outsiders’ Offensive DVOA metric in 2018 all the way up to 13th. (In fact, the Cards finished this past season ranked No. 7 in weighted DVOA, which provides a more accurate assessment of how efficiently an offense is running in the moment, as opposed to over the course of the entire season.) Although they took an unconventional route to get here, the Cards now have a 22-year-old franchise quarterback to build around — and that alone makes this a highly successful draft class. Though it would have been nice if one of the three receivers Arizona selected had been able to provide a modicum of production.

The long-term impact of the 2019 class is yet to be determined, but Keim revamping a roster he created and getting improvement of the magnitude the Cardinals got should be applauded.

Now, you obviously cannot ignore the fact that Keim is the reason they are in this predicament, and that is not lost on those writing these articles. However, if you say 2019 was the reset after the bottom out of 2018, you have to be impressed with the 2019 NFL Draft.

It’s one that could be important for years to come for the Arizona Cardinals.