At the start of the 2008 season – I believe it was Week 2 – Kurt Warner was at his best, dismantling the Miami Dolphins at what is now State Farm Stadium and finishing the blowout victory with a passer rating of 158.3 – as perfect as a passer rating can be.
Warner completed 19 of 24 passes for 361 yards, a very Warner-typical performance (three touchdowns to Anquan Boldin).
No, Kyler Murray didn’t match that yardage total on Sunday. But he was 17-for-21, he also had three touchdown passes (for a total of 266 yards), and he had a perfect passer rating of 158.3. He and Warner are the only two Cardinals to ever do that.
However, Warner didn’t have 59 rushing yards, and he certainly didn’t have the quick reaction that makes Kyler a real Kyler. The perfect example of this was the final touchdown against tight end Elijah Higgins after Murray bought time and kept the Rams on their toes.
“You can feel the guys swarming around you and you’re trying to make them run into the void,” Murray said after the 41-10 win over LA. “Then I look up and see Elijah in the back of the end zone. When the ball left my hand, I felt like it was a touchdown.”
“It’s a good feeling when you play fast and the guys are moving in the scramble drill to get things done outside of the schedule.”
Kyler Murray was good in Buffalo. He was great on Sunday. If he plays like that — and the Cardinals can do it the way they showed — this offense will be the scary thing everyone’s been hoping for.
Next week will be interesting. Aidan Hutchinson is coming off a four-sack game for the visiting Arizona Lions. Hutchinson versus Paris Johnson Jr. with Kyler’s skill in the fight for survival will be fascinating to watch.
But anyone expecting Kyler Murray to have his best season so far can look forward to a promising start.
— So it took an extra week. That’s what Marvin Harrison Jr. can – and will – be.
— It’s kind of funny that Murray only had four incomplete passes, and all of them were targeted at Harrison. “Unacceptable,” Harrison said, and I have no doubt he feels the same way.
— Trey McBride’s 21-yard catch down the sideline was a masterpiece. The guy has some of the best hands in the NFL. And the pass from Murray was so good, it landed between two defenders and the sideline.
— The Rams returning the opening kickoff to Arizona’s 49-yard line and immediately getting high was a huge moment for the defense and for the outcome of the game.
— Part of that was the Jonathan Gannon Challenge. A reminder that Gannon didn’t challenge a play until Week 18 last season. This year it came in Week 2 and he succeeded, turning a first-down catch into a third-down incompletion, forcing the Rams to try and having the defense hold up a Cooper-Kupp catch for the turnover on downs.
— The Cardinals had a surprise guest on Sunday, in addition to Olympians Michael Phelps and Noah Lyles. Former Cardinals linebacker Markus Golden, who recently announced his retirement, served as honorary captain for the coin toss.
“Markus Golden didn’t tell me he was going to do the coin toss, which is absolutely absurd,” said Dennis Gardeck, who capped one of his sacks with a Golden celebration dubbed the “St. Louis Stomp.” “He kind of got me pumped up when I saw him out there. That’s my dog. One of my favorite teammates I’ve ever played with.”
– The Cardinals scored a 99-yard touchdown drive for the second consecutive season.
– It will go unnoticed with everything that’s going on right now, but Matt Prater converted a 57-yard field goal like it was a 37-yard field goal, and you can never take that for granted.
— Almost my favorite play of the game: James Conner, who was surrounded after a change of direction on a running play, saw Kyler right behind him out of the corner of his eye and faked a throw to the quarterback. I guess Conner would be in trouble for ever a) making such a dangerous play and b) exposing Murray to the defense if it happened — but it was fun to think about.
-That fade end zone jump ball hasn’t worked with Kyler and MHJ. …Yet.
– With Harrison’s 130 yards and Conner’s 122, the Cardinals had their first game with a 100-yard rusher and a 100-yard receiver since 2020, when running back Kenyan Drake (100 yards) and wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins (127) did so in the Hail Murray win over the Bills at State Farm Stadium on Nov. 15.
— On his big day, Conner surpassed the 5,000-yard mark in his career.
– We leave you with wide receiver Michael Wilson, who was as happy as everyone else after the win.
“I feel like we haven’t had a win like this in a long time, or at least since I’ve been here,” he said. “Someone mentioned a statistic that 70 percent of the games come down to one point. To win by, I don’t even know how much we won by, three, four points, 30 points? It feels really good to just roll over a team. That doesn’t happen a lot in the NFL.”
