National Football League

Cardinals owner pumps brakes on Kyler Murray trade rumors

Published Feb. 25, 2022 12:41 p.m. ET

The drama between the Arizona Cardinals and star quarterback Kyler Murray started in mid-February, when Murray scrubbed all references to his team from his Instagram account.

That came on the heels of a report that the team wanted Murray to improve on his maturity and leadership. It also spawned all sorts of trade rumors, including one particularly juicy suggestion from Adam Rank of NFL.com that the Cardinals swap Murray for Minnesota's Kirk Cousins.

"I like Kyler to move because the Cardinals won games without him last year," Rank wrote. "He would bring in a huge bounty of picks. I know there are some growing rumblings between the Cardinals and Murray, and he's still young enough to bolt to the Oakland A's if he wants to. But imagine the Vikings making a move with veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins (and his expiring contract) for Murray."

That created a fair amount of excitement in Vikings social media circles, as well as increasing concern from their Arizona counterparts.

But that screeching sound you might have heard on Friday was Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill slamming the brakes on the whole affair.

"I'm not a big social media guy, I don't know the nuances of some of this stuff," Bidwill said during a radio appearance on Friday morning. "But I think there was a lot of interpretation around that that was inconsistent with the conversations that not just I have had but that Kliff (Kingsbury) and Steve (Keim) have had.

"They are positive conversations that are going in the right direction. We know we have to get better. I know Kyler put out the statement, ‘love me or hate me … I’m going to get better.' Well, put me in the category that I love him, and I know he's going to get better."

Asked about a potential contract extension for Murray — something for which the QB is currently eligible — Bidwill hedged.

"These contracts, especially the quarterback contracts, are very complicated," Bidwill said. "Most of the big ones are done further down the road (of the offseason.) I think Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen were done in the summertime, others were done in the summertime. So we've got time."

Bidwill added that Murray is "certainly part of our long-term plan."