Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury has been speaking about the contract situation surrounding quarterback Kyler Murray.

The Arizona Cardinals are certainly a team that are heading in the right direction in recent years, having decided to move on from Josh Rosen just one season after taking him with the 10th pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, and a large part of that has been down to the quarterback play of the electric Kyler Murray.

Under Murray their win totals have increased year on year, as they managed to win 5 games in 2019, which then increased to 8 wins in 2020 and 11 wins last season, which enabled them to finish 2nd in the NFC West and make the playoffs for the first time since 2015.

Murray himself who has turned himself into one of the more dangerous dual-threat quarterbacks in the league, having managed to put up 11,480 passing yards which has set up 70 touchdowns whilst also rushing for 1,786 yards and a further 20 touchdowns for good measure.

But things are far from perfect between the player and the team right now.

What’s going on right now?

As things stand, Murray is under contract with the team for both this season and 2023, after the Cardinals announced that they were picking up Murray’s 5th-year option on his rookie contract, tying him down through the 2023 season where he will earn $29m. However Murray wants something a little more long-term to secure his future past the end of that season. 

This has caused a few problems at various points throughout this offseason, most notably when Murray’s agent Erik Burkhardt pulled his opening offer, with the Cardinals yet to make any sort of concrete move towards a deal. Murray was also absent from part of the team’s preseason preparations in OTAs, which are optional, but still a useful part of summer.

NFL reporter Albert Breer did note that things could still go either way for the two sides, but head coach Kliff Kingsbury is more focused on ther timeframe of things rather than the deal itself.

What’s he said? 

Speaking to the media during minicamp, he expressed his desire for the whole thing to be sorted out before the team takes part in training camp later on during the offseason:

It’s an undertsandbale stance to take, after all the sooner that Murray can be focused on the game rather than his contract, the better for the Cardinals as they get ready for the season. You just have to hope that this message gets passed on to the higher-ups in the organisation as a way to get them to sort the whole thing out.