Kyler Murray is no longer a quarterback on the Arizona Cardinals‘ roster. He was released and has since signed with the Minnesota Vikings. However, many have had questions about how things went down with his foot injury that led to him missing every game after Week 5.
SI.com’s Albert Breer sheds some light on the timeline in his latest MMQB column.
We know that Murray injured his foot in Week 5 against the Tennessee Titans but finished the game. We know that he appeared close to playing in Week 9 against the Dallas Cowboys. Then things changed quickly and he didn’t play again. Many considered it a kind of “soft benching.”
Per Breer’s column, it was a legitimate injury.
What happened with Kyler Murray’s foot injury?
Per Breer, “It swelled up after the game. He got checked out and would be sidelined for a few weeks, though he didn’t need surgery.”
It looked like he might play after the bye against the Dallas Cowboys. He was questionable for the game, but Jacoby Brissett started and the Cardinals won for the last time.
Because of the short week after a Monday night game, head coach Jonathan Gannon said that Brissett would start the next game, and that is when the decision to put Murray on IR came.
“Murray’s foot, still at around 60%, wasn’t getting better. He could play on it, but with a blood-flow issue, there’d be a risk of a more significant Lisfranc injury if he did. So the decision was made, the day after Gannon named Brissett the starter, to move Murray to injured reserve, to give him a month to heal.”
It wasn’t really a benching. He wasn’t healthy.
But then the Cardinals lost four games in a row after the win in Dallas. It was at that point, “the Cardinals and Murray’s camp mutually agreed it made no sense not to shut him down.”
The rest we know — the Cardinals didn’t win a game the rest of the way. Avoiding a $17 million roster bonus that would also trigger $19.5 million in guarantees in 2027, the Cardinals released Murray, still on the hook for $36.8 million in guarantees for 2026, and he signed with the Vikings.
When he was introduced to the Minnesota media following his signing, he wouldn’t say whether the foot is healthy now, but he said he would be good to go when he gets on the field.
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This article originally appeared on Cards Wire: Kyler Murray’s foot injury really kept him from playing
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