Arizona Cardinals History Suggests Huge 2025 Season for Kyler Murray

There's no hiding from the pressure anymore. Arizona Cardinals QB Kyler Murray must perform in 2025.

There's been much talk about just what has derailed Murray late in seasons, and much emphasis placed on the fact that Arizona needs higher consistency out of its franchise QB.

Whether or not that translates to volume statistics is secondary.

But there is a pattern present — one that suggests 2025 may be the year Murray puts together a high-quality season, in whicever form that takes.

History Suggests 2025 Could be Massive Year for Kyler Murray

Murray is entering his third year in the current system, in the third year of Jonathan Gannon and Drew Petzing's tenure in the desert.

While he was admittedly held out of much of year one due to a torn ACL, and there are some questions about the sturdiness of the overall offensive scheme and usage of playmakers, year three does carry some implications.

Look to 2021.

Murray's 2021 season was the stuff of legends — until he went down with an injury. In year three of the Kliff Kingsbury system, Murray looked like an MVP candidate for the first half of the year, putting up impressive numbers and shredding opposing defenses with both his arm and his legs.

While his overall volume did take a hit due to missing three games and the Cardinals sustaining some other key injuries down the stretch, there was no doubt that something was different in year three, even if it did admittedly end poorly.

He posted a 100.6 QB rating (the highest of his career) in 2021, and put up 4,210 total yards and 29 total touchdowns. If not for the injury, that's a full-season pace of 5,112 total yards and 35 total TDs — numbers that rival Lamar Jackson's MVP numbers in both 2019 and 2023.

But it's not just Murray.

Turn the clock back to some of the best days of this franchise's history. The 2015 season, known as the best season in Cardinals history (excluding a certain Warner-led season that ended in February of 2009).

Veteran Carson Palmer had struggled through some rough seasons, but was always a productive overall player. In 2015, year three of Bruce Arians' desert tenure, Palmer put up the best numbers of his career at age 36 — 4,671 passing yards and 35 passing touchdowns.

This isn't to suggest that year three of an offensive system brings some massive switch, and I'm not trying to ignore the fact that this is, in fact, year seven of Murray's career in Arizona.

But at the same time, it's also the first time Murray will have had a consistent coaching staff for three years, and the most complete roster talent-wise since those Arians teams.

Couple the obvious factors with what history suggests, and Murray may be in line for a mid-career breakout.

If not, however, his time with the Cardinals may very well be over.

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