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Murray Murray Cardinals’ Tweets!

Immediate reactions to the Cardinals’ 25-23 win over Falcons

By Walter Mitchell
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Atlanta Falcons v Arizona Cardinals Photo by Mike Christy/Getty Images

It was a Cardinals’ fan’s delight to see the team fight hard all game and close out a 25-23 celebratory walk-off win in classic comeback fashion. And speaking of classic comebacks, how about the performance that Kyler Murray put on full display at State Farm Stadium yesterday afternoon!

Here were two of my post-game reactions:

It has been close to 40 years since the Cardinals had a TE have a 100 yard receiving performance.

Cardinals’ Key Performers:

  • Kyler Murray: 19/.32, 249 yds., 7.8 ave., 0 TD, 1 int, 2 sacks, 6 rushes, 33 yards, 5.5 ave., 1 TD
  • James Conner: 16 rushes for 73 yards, 4.6 ave.
  • Trey McBride: 8 catches in 9 targets, 131 yds., 16.4 ave.
  • Kelvin Beachum: 0 sacks
  • Paris Johnson Jr.: 0 sacks
  • Kyzir White: 11 tackles
  • Budda Baker: 10 tackles
  • B.J. Ojulari: 8 tackles, 2 sacks
  • Dennis Gardeck: 5 tackles, 1 sack
  • Kevin Strong: 5 tackles, 1 tackle for loss
  • Roy Lopez: 5 tackles
  • Zaven Collins: 5 tackles
  • Greg Dortch: 2 punt returns for 56 yds., 28.0 ave.
  • Matt Prater: 4/4 FG (long of 56), 1/1 XPTs
  • Blake Gillikin: 3 punts for 156 yds., 52.0 ave.

Week 10 Reset?

Too Early to Make Judgments:

One of the most fabulous comments from last week’s discussion about best system fits for Kyler Murray was:

HoraceNoName
Walter I think you may be getting the proverbial cart before the horse here. Petzing has yet to OC a single game with K1 and you have already decided they wont mesh well together. K2 did not continue to run the same offense he ran day 1 through all of his tenure. Kliff evolved and changed finding what worked and what did not. I imagine Petzing will evolve as well.
While I am also tentative based on what we have seen thus far, I think it is way too early to be making the judgements you are making here. How about we just wait and see what Petzing and K2 do together and if they are able to evolve together.

Kudos, Horace! I think we both got the answers to our questions —- as this week the offense was transformed from run-heavy/ignore WRs to pass thirsty from both 12 personnel and the Cardinals’ new version of the spread, going up-tempo at times..

This diversified offensive scheme for when Kyler returned must have been in the planning stage for months. Kudos to Kyler, Drew Petzing and the entire offense for orchestrating this creatively nuanced approach within wha? —- a mere 12 practices.

Carry-over of Kyler’s Favorite Plays:

joecb1991
I do remember reading something about Kyler asking to keep plays from the Kliff playbook that he liked, and I hope that ends up being the case.
He was drafted #1 overall to be a game breaker, running an aggressive offense that spreads the field and attacks. And it would feel like a waste to have him in more of a ball control run heavy under center offense.
NFL offenses and college offenses are more similar than ever before now. Embrace it.

Bingo, Joecb1991. Great call.

Giving Petzing the Benefit of the Doubt:

since61
After the MO hire, the most important hire this season was Drew Petzing. Bottom line, the main improvement that the franchise required from the last several seasons is a coach that can improve the QBs play. It's why the Giants hired Dabol, Dolphins hired McDaniel, Broncos hired Payton, Vikings hired McConnell, Jags hired Person and on and on. Its not a stretch that none of these coaches would work for our franchise so we got inexperienced Drew Petzing along with an entire inexperienced staff (except ST coach).
I'm giving Petzing the benefit of the doubt that I'm having to give everyone in the organization. They are cleaning up the owner's recidivist mess-salary cap, lack of talent along with lack of any football and business acumen.
Petzing was stuck calling plays for limited talent with limited or no experience. Simple basic playbook for sure. I'll give him the rest the season with KM before I decide to fire another coach. KM needs a very creative offensive play caller to become what he has the skills to become and the OC needs NFL quality talent to make it happen. For starters, our OL must be top 5 if we want consistent wins and a QB.
Kyler Murray with time to throw, is a beautiful thing.

Amen, 61. You crushed this!

Just as the Cardinals had a great week of practice this week —- so did ROTB in working together to discuss concerns, ideas and solutions.

Much more analysis of the Cardinals’ performance in a three phases on today’s Red Rain Podcast.

Boy oh boy, are you feeling encouraged today about what you saw in this game?

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