What is going on with the Arizona Cardinals? The franchise started out the 2021 NFL season gangbusters before limping (literally and figuratively) to the finish line. Then, the offseason began, and things got real messy. This includes drama between the organization and its franchise quarterback, Kyler Murray.
Former Cardinals running back Chase Edmunds — who signed with the Miami Dolphins this offseason — recently hinted that the problem is simply that the whole organization is a mess.
The Arizona Cardinals 2021 season started great and ended poorly
In Week 7 of the 2021 NFL season, it was great to be an Arizona Cardinal. The team was 7-0, the last undefeated team in the NFL. The defense was on a tear, and QB Kyler Murray was a leading MVP candidate. Things were good in the desert.
The following week, Kyler Murray got hurt in a 24-21 loss to the Green Bay Packers and would miss the next three games. All told, in the final 10 games of the season, the Cardinals produced a paltry 4-6 record. They ultimately had to slip in the back door of the playoffs as a No. 5 seed.
The Los Angeles Rams then unceremoniously dumped the Cards out of the playoffs 34-11. After that is when the weirdness really began.
More than a week after the loss, CBS Sports insider Jason La Canfora tweeted, “Arizona Cardinals ownership definitely not pleased with how season ended. Hearing coaches yet to receive their playoff bonuses.”
The coaches ultimately got paid by owner Michael Bidwill, but that wasn’t a good way to start the 2022 offseason. To get back on track, the team extended the contracts of head coach Kliff Kingsbury and general manager Steve Keim through the 2027 season.
What came next, though, was a social media purge by Murray, seemingly unhappy his rookie deal — with one full year plus a fifth-year option still left on it — didn’t get taken care of first.
That’s where we are with the Cardinals heading into the NFL draft. And two former players seem to know whose fault that is.
Chase Edmunds crushed the Arizona Cardinals’ culture’
Now that former Arizona Cardinals RB Chase Edmonds is a Miami Dolphin, he apparently feels more comfortable giving his take on what’s happening within the organization.
He recently appeared on the All Things Covered podcast with co-hosts Bryant McFadden and former Cardinal great Patrick Peterson. The hosts asked the runner about what’s going on with the whole Kyler Murray situation.
Edmonds said it “wasn’t surprising” with the “drama” within the franchise and the way the last two seasons ended so disappointingly. He also said it was easy to see “the frustration ready to boil over,” and he thinks Murray should do what he needs to do in order to get paid like other top QBs in the NFL.
As Edmonds talked more about the Cardinals organization, he hinted at bigger organizational problems around “culture.” He spoke about the second-half collapses by the team the last two years under Kliff Kingsbury and said:
I feel like culture established that. When you see culture teams in the NFL like the Baltimore Ravens, like the New Orleans Saints, the San Francisco 49ers. Those teams, no matter how talented they look from top to bottom, they just somehow find a way to win damn games. … It’s like some teams have that culture, and some teams don’t. Sometimes it starts from the top, the top from the bottom. It takes its place. But I feel like that’s kind of what it was for us. We just didn’t —
Chase Edmonds on the Arizona Cardinals culture
McFadden cut Edmonds off before he could finish his thought, but he made his point. Edmond’s former teammate Peterson concurred and said the franchise doesn’t do enough to keep its best player. He cited defenders Chandler Jones and Calais Campbell as examples.
All this doesn’t bode well for Cardinals fans hoping for a quick and clean resolution to the Kyler Murray drama that doesn’t bleed into the 2022 regular season. If what Edmonds says is true, more ugliness between club and quarterback seems inevitable.
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