National Football League

Kyler Murray and the booming Arizona Cardinals set to face their biggest test yet

Published Oct. 26, 2021 7:35 p.m. ET

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

If you want to buy a house in the Phoenix area, brace yourself for a fight. If you want to take a U-Haul to Arizona from Southern California or the East Coast (or pretty much anywhere else), prepare yourself for an exorbitant price. If you want to go and live there, well, you’re not alone.

Megaboom is not a real word, but it should be because there is no other way to describe the mass migration of human activity to the city sprung from the Sonoran Desert over the past year.

Meanwhile, in what logic suggests has to be a complete coincidence, several of Phoenix’s professional sports teams are also enjoying success. The Phoenix Suns just tipped off the 2021-22 NBA campaign and are looking to build upon an incredible run to last year’s Finals, and the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury are also coming off a recent trip to the finals. Arizona’s most-followed sports team is booming, too, after years of disappointment and disinterest.

The Arizona Cardinals are 7-0 and remain the only undefeated team in the National Football League. This Thursday brings an absolute blockbuster of a matchup (8:20 p.m. ET on FOX), with the 6-1 Green Bay Packers coming to town, and wouldn’t you know it, the Cardinals are favored by six points (and -250 on the money line with FOX Bet).

If this surge behind the fleet feet and sharp mind of quarterback Kyler Murray has surprised plenty of NFL observers — after all, the team was widely expected to be no better than the third-best team in the NFC West this season — it has been even more of a pleasant shock to the Arizona locals.

"This is all quite new and unexpected," Phoenix-based property investor and advisor Ellie Sharp told me. "It just feels like this extraordinary time for the city. Everyone wants to come here. We’ve known it was a great place to live for a while. Now everyone is catching up. Then, to top it all, our sports teams are doing well in a way that we just haven’t been used to. It’s very exciting."

Sharp believes the vast majority of new arrivals have come to Phoenix to stay. According to the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, more than half of California residents considered moving out of the state in the past year, and 63% of them considered Arizona. For the Cardinals, proving that they belong at the top table of NFL teams is somewhat less certain, though this week’s clash could go a long way in convincing the doubters.

Regardless, defensive end J.J. Watt has his thoughts on the matter, as voiced on the sideline during his team’s Week 6 domination of the Cleveland Browns.

"Maybe we’re just better," Watt bellowed at his teammates. "How about that? How about instead of [people] making excuses for why we win, maybe we’re just better. ‘They win because of this. They win because of that.’ Maybe we’re just a little bit better."

They’ve certainly been better so far. Better than the Tennessee Titans in Nashville on opening weekend, a win that looks stronger now than it did then. Better than the Los Angeles Rams during a Week 4 thumping that remains L.A.’s only loss.

Better than everyone except the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in terms of points scored, with 30-plus each week bar one. Better defensively than everyone minus the New Orleans Saints, with just 19 total points conceded the past three games and only one opponent (the Minnesota Vikings) hanging more than 20 on them.

"Arizona isn’t just Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins," FOX Sports’ Peter Schrager wrote. "It’s not just a September team. It’s built from the bottom up, and it can beat anyone, anywhere."

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All this builds to what is arguably the most appealing matchup you could put together right now, with that perfect record facing a mighty test. The Packers have overwhelmingly responded from their awful first game of the season to be relentlessly efficient ever since. However, Aaron Rodgers might be without standout wide receiver Davante Adams due to COVID protocols.

Since the Cardinals moved to Arizona in 1988, the franchise has just five postseason appearances, and its only Super Bowl spot came in a defeat to the Pittsburgh Steelers 12 years ago. A run to the NFC Championship game in 2015 generated excitement, and last year began positively, too, but this level of optimism at this stage of the campaign is a new phenomenon for the team.

Murray is a genuine MVP contender, Kliff Kingsbury has somehow learned on the fly since grabbing his first NFL head-coaching gig two years ago, and unheralded contributors such as cornerback Byron Murphy and linebacker Isaiah Simmons are shining on defense. The spirit in the group seems unshakable.

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"I could tell how close the team is just from the interactions I’ve had," recently acquired tight end Zach Ertz said. "Each and every guy has gone out of their way to make me feel comfortable."

It all builds to a team that is threatening to look like a juggernaut, and the Phoenix region, with all its long-entrenched citizens and all its brand-new ones, is ready for more.

Megaboom? Indeed. Just like the local property market, the Cardinals are trending up and going into their biggest challenge yet, a game that is just as hot as the desert sun.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.