I think he can definitely be better than the 8-12th best QB. We've definitely not seen peak Murray, and if he can play in the 2nd half like he does in the first, you're looking at a top 5 QB.
Why the 2nd half collapses? Some blame can be attributed to getting nicked up, but this national writer isn't afraid to point the finger at Kliff. The whole article is well worth a read, but certain blurbs are tough to read:
The Cardinals gave their fourth-year quarterback a mega-extension, seemingly under the belief that this team is ready to contend. It’s an understandable plan—but one that still deserves close scrutiny.
www.theringer.com
Murray carries some blame for this decline—but the greater share belongs to his head coach, Kliff Kingsbury, who has been enduring late-season slides for far longer than Murray has. Going back to his time at Texas Tech, Kingsbury fights a yearly battle to find the necessary buttons to push, both schematic and motivational, to stay ahead of the adjusting opponents his teams are facing. He always loses.
ouch.
He's not getting much help from his GM either:
despite the lack of success to this point, Murray is clearly good enough to win a playoff game as the centerpiece of a functional team. It’s the functional team that is missing.
Since drafting Murray with the first overall pick in the 2019 draft, the Cardinals have drafted consecutive first-round linebackers: Isaiah Simmons and Zaven Collins. Both have struggled finding playing time, and both have struggled on the field when playing. To justify the selections, veteran linebackers like De’Vondre Campbell and Jordan Hicks were ousted in free agency. Campbell immediately enjoyed success in Green Bay the year after his departure.
Campbell isn’t alone. Arizona’s 2017 first-round pick, Haason Reddick, a hybrid player who bounced from inside linebacker to outside pass rusher during his time with the Cardinals, was not extended following a 12.5-sack 2020 season, and was also immediately successful at his next stop, in Carolina. To bolster their pass rush last offseason, the Cardinals signed J.J. Watt, whose contract was so large they didn’t feel compelled this offseason to retain star pass rusher Chandler Jones, who is now in Las Vegas.
Simmons, Collins, and Watt for the price of Campbell, Hicks, Reddick and Jones is just bad business.
And the icing on the cake...
On their cap sheet and their offseason transaction list, the Cardinals are acting like a team that barely lost the Super Bowl, looking to run it back with a final push over the finish line. They extended the head coach that bears some responsibility for the late-season declines, whose offensive systems increasingly demanded draft capital and cap space spent on another new pass catcher. They extended the general manager who has overseen every misstep in roster management, enabling the blind aggression of his head coach in building out an overloaded offensive depth chart. And now, they have extended the quarterback who has yet to prove that he gives them an equal chance to win it all as the many other mammoth-contract quarterbacks do.
But they did not just lose the Super Bowl. They’re still a few rounds of playoff football away from the Super Bowl, stuck in a division with the reigning NFL champion and the NFC runner-up, and about to lose the huge competitive advantage afforded by their rookie contract quarterback. Nothing about the Cardinals screams “contender” other than the price tag of their signal caller and the extensions offered to their head coach and general manager. You can act like a contending team all you like. It doesn’t make you one.