At 1-7, the Arizona Cardinals are looking toward the 2024 NFL season though they’ve still got games to play this year.
The Cardinals have been more competitive than expected under first-time head coach Jonathan Gannon, but it hasn’t resulted in wins.
However, that’s probably for the best as Arizona is well-positioned to potentially land the No. 1 overall pick in the highly-anticipated 2024 NFL Draft.
The prize of the draft is one of the quarterback prospects, namely Caleb Williams or Drake Maye but that would leave the Cardinals with an intriguing decision to make as they already have Kyler Murray as their starting signal caller.
Murray has yet to debut this season as he recovers from a torn ACL, though he has begun practicing and could return to the field soon.
However, it appears that he’ll continue to sit as Arizona will be activating him off the PUP list via Adam Schefter of ESPN.
The Cardinals are doing the right thing by bringing Murray along slowly as they’ve got nothing to play for other than draft positioning.
So far, Arizona has been publicly supportive of Murray and Gannon has said that he’ll be the starter once he’s cleared to play.
For now, Clayton Tune will draw the start in Week 9 against the Cleveland Browns and he’ll use the opportunity to prove he’s worthy of being the team’s backup behind Murray.
Cardinals fans would like to see Murray back healthy, but the franchise is taking the long view and they should be better off for it going forward.