Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray got the ball down a point with 2:33 left to play in his 2023 debut and he showed why the team made him the first overall pick of the 2019 draft while leading the team to a comeback win over the Falcons.
Murray didn’t look like a player coming off a torn ACL as he maneuvered around pass rushers and scrambled for a 13-yard gain to convert a third-and-10 after the two-minute warning. Murray then hit tight end Trey McBride for a 33-yard gain that allowed the Cardinals to force out the final Falcons timeouts and run down the clock before Matt Prater’s 23-yard field goal made them 25-23 winners.
The home win moves them to 2-8 on the season and it provided reason to hope for more wins now that Murray is back in action. He ran for a touchdown in the first half to go with that well-timed scramble and he completed 19-of-32 passes for 249 yards. Murray did throw an interception that set the Falcons up on the Cardinals’ 14-yard-line in the third quarter, but the defense forced a field goal that kept the deficit manageable.
It wasn’t the only big stop the defense came up with. After Desmond Ridder replaced an injured Taylor Heinicke early in the fourth quarter, the Cardinals stuffed him on a fourth-and-one sneak just outside the red zone. BJ Ojulari had two sacks and Dennis Gardeck had another to help thwart Falcons drives earlier in the game.
Ridder did run for the touchdown that put the Falcons up in the final minutes and Bijan Robinson found success with 22 carries for 95 yards and a touchdown, but the Falcons offense went silent — zero first downs on four possessions — while Heinicke was still in the game in the third quarter and that defensive performance by the Cardinals allowed them to hang around long enough for Murray to get the win.
Heinicke’s hamstring injury will likely factor into any call the Falcons make at quarterback during their Week 11 bye, but neither of the choices have shown the kind of consistency that the team needs at the position. That will have to change for the 4-6 team to have any chance of making it back into the playoff mix.
The Cardinals almost certainly won’t be making the playoffs, but more positive steps from Murray over the second half would be a silver lining to whatever their final record turns out to be. They’ll be in Houston to face the Texans next weekend.
