Arizona Cardinals place exclusive rights tender on offensive tackle Justin Murray

One of the best stories of 2019 will write a new chapter with the Arizona Cardinals in 2020.

The team signed right tackle Justin Murray to an exclusive rights contract on Tuesday.

From the team:

Murray (6-5, 315) played in a career-high 14 games with 12 starts at right tackle last season with the Cardinals after being claimed off waivers from the Raiders on September 1. He helped the Cardinals offense finish the season with the NFL’s 10^th-ranked rushing offense (1,990 yards) that averaged a single-season franchise-record 5.03 yards per carry (second in the league).

The 26-year old Murray entered the NFL as an undrafted rookie free agent with Denver in 2016 out of the University of Cincinnati and has spent time on the active rosters of the Bengals and Raiders in addition to the practice squads of the Broncos, Buccaneers, and Saints during his career.

With the exclusive rights tag, Murray is slated for a nice base salary raise in 2020, making $750,000.

Of course that is less than Murray's cumulative total from 2019 because of his impressive work, his base salary of $570,000 was amped up with performance bonuses of nearly $540,000.

It's great to see Murray continue to fight for his dream and hopefully he is able to build on his success from 2019.