Arizona Cardinals

Arizona Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon is taking full responsibility for the team's collapse during Sunday's 31-28 loss to the New York Giants.

Arizona led 20-0 at halftime and had a 28-7 lead in the early stages of the third quarter. From there, it was all Giants as New York stormed back with 24 consecutive points secure the victory.

The Cardinals first-year head coach said that not containing Giants quarterback Daniel Jones fell "solely on me" and that the team needs to execute better and that begins with him.

"They had a couple of drives there that were long and the guys with the defensive side, that starts with me," Gannon said in his postgame press conference. "Exactly what we couldn't do to lose that game coming out of halftime we did and when that is the case that's on me explicitly."

Gannon elaborated by saying that the effort level from his players was not the problem.

"We've got to coach better," Gannon said. "We got outplayed in the second half. A tale of two halves. We have to do a better job to help our guys out because the effort's there and the intensity is there — we've got to coach a little bit better."

It was looking like a signature first win for the coach after the opening half but the failure to contain Jones was the clear problem. He threw for 259 yards and two touchdowns on 17-21 passing in the second half and also rushed for over 50 yards and added a touchdown on the ground.

This would have been a great opportunity for the Cardinals to show some fight in a tough NFC West division but instead they fall to 0-2 on the season with difficult games against the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers awaiting them in the next two weeks.

The Arizona Cardinals will reportedly roll with Josh Dobbs as their starting quarterback against the Washington Commanders on Sunday, according to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, who added that the team will evaluate its QB1 situation on a weekly basis.

Earlier Wednesday, head coach Jonathan Gannon revealed that the team chose its Week 1 starter, but he kept that signal-caller's identity under wraps.

Dobbs, who is entering his seventh NFL season, just landed in Arizona via trade with the Cleveland Browns on Aug. 24. He only threw 18 passes over the course of his first five seasons but finally got a chance to showcase himself in 2022 when he took over for an injured Ryan Tannehill on the Tennessee Titans.

In two starts, Dobbs completed 40 of 68 passes (58.8 percent) for 411 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. He also rushed for 44 yards on eight carries.

Dobbs beat out rookie Clayton Tune, a fifth-round pick out of Houston. The 24-year-old completed 67.4 percent of passes for 4,069 yards, 40 touchdowns and 10 picks in 2022 alongside 544 rushing yards and five more scores.

The Cardinals acquired Dobbs shortly after they released longtime veteran Colt McCoy, who served as Kyler Murray's backup each of the past two years. Murray is still recovering from a torn ACL that he suffered last December.

The Cardinals open their season Sunday against the Commanders at 1 p.m. ET.

The Arizona Cardinals named quarterback Kyler Murray, who is recovering from a torn ACL and will miss at least the first four games of the season on the injured list, as one of their team captains on Monday.

"He's our franchise quarterback," head coach Jonathan Gannon told reporters. "And everything that I want our captains to be, he demonstrates it."

It is the fourth straight season that Murray was named a captain. Running back James Conner, left tackle D.J. Humphries, linebacker Kyzir White, safety Budda Baker and linebacker Dennis Gardeck were named the remaining captains.

"He's earned [being a captain]," Humphries said. "The work that he put in the summer that we all got to watch, it's been impressive and it's going to come out tenfold when we get back on that field."

Murray, 26, is a two-time Pro Bowler and threw for 2,368 yards, 14 touchdowns, seven interceptions and completed 66.4 percent of his passes in 11 games last season, as both hamstring issues and eventually a torn ACL forced him to miss time. He also rushed for 418 yards and three scores.

It was an interesting year for Murray, to say the least. Before the 2022 season he signed a five-year, $230.5 million contract extension but one that initially included a homework clause that required him to study on his own time for at least four hours each week. After the clause went public, the Cardinals removed it from his deal.

But the Cardinals struggled with and without Murray last season, going 3-8 in his starts and 1-5 without him, leading to Kliff Kingsbury's firing. Gannon took over the position, citing Murray as the reason he took the job:

So it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Murray was enlisted as a captain yet again. The bigger questions at this point are when he'll be able to play again, and whether he'll have the same mobility and escapability after his ACL tear.

Former Arizona Cardinals head coach and current San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Steve Wilks reportedly testified that a number of team executives, including himself, were given burner phones in Arizona to communicate with Steve Keim when the former general manager was suspended during the 2018 season.

Tisha Thompson of ESPN cited a deposition transcript that was part of the ongoing arbitration complaint filed by former Cardinals vice president of personnel Terry McDonough against the team and owner Michael Bidwill.

McDonough alleged racist and discriminatory treatment of employees and the use of burner phones. Thompson noted Bidwill and the Cardinals previously called the allegations "outlandish."

Wilks testified that former Cardinals vice president of football administration Mike Disner provided him with the burner phone and said that Disner told him Keim, McDonough and vice president of football operations and facilities Matt Caracciolo also received such phones.

"With me being a first-year head coach, I felt uncomfortable from the beginning that I worked this hard to get to this plateau and this opportunity, and then I was presented with this situation with being unethical," Wilks testified.

Wilks led the Cardinals to a 3-13 record in 2018 and was fired after his only campaign as the head coach.

Arizona suspended Keim for five weeks and fined him $200,000 after he pleaded guilty to extreme DUI during the summer of 2018. The NFL elected not to impose further punishments after the Cardinals said Keim would have no contact with the team and not be present in the facilities.

While Thompson noted that Wilks said he only communicated with Keim one time via the burner phone when the general manager reached out to ask him about a practice, he also testified that Disner communicated with Keim in such a manner as the team negotiated a three-year, $39 million contract extension with running back David Johnson.

The former head coach also contradicted an April statement from the Cardinals saying "Mr. Bidwill took swift action" when he found out about the burner phones and "directed the phones be retrieved and communications stopped."

Wilks said, "No one retrieved the burner phones until Keim came back [from his suspension], so it wasn't swift."

After his time with the Cardinals, Wilks was the defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns and the interim head coach of the Carolina Panthers for 12 games in 2022.

San Francisco hired him this offseason to replace former defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans, who is now the head coach of the Houston Texans.

The Arizona Cardinals are looking to play mind games as they enter their Week 1 matchup against the Washington Commanders.

Head Coach Jonathan Gannon said he is "not gonna name a starter" at the quarterback position for the matchup, citing a potential "competitive advantage" in the unknown.

This comes after the team placed incumbent starter Kyler Murray on the physically unable to perform list, which will keep him out until at least Week 4. Additionally, the team cut veteran Colt McCoy on Monday, per ESPN's Adam Schefter, and acquired Joshua Dobbs from the Cleveland Browns in a trade earlier this month.

Currently, the job will likely go to either Dobbs or rookie Clayton Tune.

Dobbs was acquired less than a week ago, so getting him up to speed with the system will need to be ramped up if they want him to be the one under center to start the season. However, he has more experience than Tune, with eight career regular-season appearanes (two starts).

Tune is the one who has been studying the offense for longer and has looked solid in the preseason, throwing for 353 yards and a touchdown with just one interception across three preseason games.

Dobbs is the known commodity, and that is a backup quarterback. This is a low ceiling, but a bar that is adequate for what the Cardinals need behind Murray when he eventually returns. Tune has a higher ceiling as the unknown, but hasn't taken meaningful snaps in the NFL yet and is coming from Houston, who played in the Group of Five American Athletic Conference during his time with the team.

Making the jump from sub-Power Five collegiate football to the NFL is a tall task, but so it starting for a team that acquired you just weeks before the season begins. The situation isn't ideal for the Cardinals, so while it may be in search of a "competitive advantage", it's also may be to figure out which signal-caller gives the team the best chance to win.

The Arizona Cardinals aren't activating star quarterback Kyler Murray from the reserve/physically unable to perform list, according to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport.

As a result, Murray is guaranteed to miss at least the first four games of the 2023 NFL season. The two-time Pro Bowler is continuing to recover from the torn ACL he suffered last December.

Arizona shed further light on its quarterback situation by releasing Colt McCoy, per ESPN's Adam Schefter. That leaves Joshua Dobbs and Clayton Tune as the top two quarterbacks on the Cardinals' depth chart.

Given the timing of his injury, most expected Murray to miss time in 2023. The Athletic's Greg Scholz pegged his return at around Week 4 or 5 based on past precedent and the available data.

Arizona's present approach at quarterback can be read in one of two vastly different ways.

Dobbs, whom the team acquired less than a week ago, has two regular-season starts under his belt since arriving in the NFL in 2017. Tune is a fifth-round draft pick approaching his rookie season. Either of the two would be among the worst starting quarterbacks in the league ahead of opening week.

Maybe the Cardinals are content to roll with Dobbs or Tune because they're reasonably confident Murray will return this year and don't want any sort of quarterback controversy to develop. Even if a losing record is all but assured by then, Murray can still shake off the rust and generate some excitement for 2024 with a strong finish to the upcoming season.

Conversely, Monday's news is something that a franchise which is prioritizing draft position over wins and losses would do. That's notable when USC star quarterback Caleb Williams tentatively projects to be the crown jewel of the 2024 draft class.

Even before his ACL injury, Arizona might have felt a growing sense of buyer's remorse on Murray's five-year, $230.5 million extension.

His 87.2 passer rating and 51.5 QBR in 2022 were both career lows, and his performance dip came after the much-publicized "homework clause" in his contract led some fans to question whether the organization fully trusted its franchise quarterback.

By elevating Dobbs or Tune to QB1 for now, the Cardinals may be looking toward the 2024 draft and laying the groundwork for life after Murray.

With a new ownership regime improving the general perception of the Washington Commanders, a new contender might be claiming the title of the most dysfunctional franchise in the NFL.

The Athletic's Ben Standig asked 23 agents to name the "most unstable franchise" in the league, and the Arizona Cardinals led the way with nine votes.

"Had a client considering signing there," one agent said. "He checked with a friend on the team and was told, 'Don't come here.' The Kyler (Murray) contract. GM resigns. Accusations against the owner. Maybe the new GM and coach change things. Maybe."

Another agent said Arizona's "mentality and financial plan aren't sound." They cited in part how the Cardinals are rebuilding in 2023 with Murray recovering from a torn ACL, which in turn could cast some doubt on the two-time Pro Bowler's long-term future.

Finishing with the NFL's worst record would potentially put Arizona in a position to select USC star Caleb Williams. Selecting Williams could then be the front office's pretext for releasing Murray and getting his five-year, $230.5 million extension off the books.

The Commanders are a prime example of how you can change the roster and turn over the front office, but it might mean little without the right leadership at the top.

For the Cardinals, the Bidwill family has been a common denominator during the organization's prolonged spells of futility.

Although things have improved since Michael Bidwill effectively took control from his father in 2007, the failed experiment that was the Kliff Kingsbury era raised some obvious concerns. Pivoting away from Murray only a few years after giving him a monster deal would further heighten the sense Arizona lacks a coherent vision.

With Dan Snyder's exit official, the Washington Commanders are no longer seen as the most unstable franchise in the NFL.

Instead, that dubious honor has been given to the Arizona Cardinals.

Nine NFL agents out of the 23 surveyed by The Athletic's Ben Standig highlighted the Cardinals as a bastion of instability. Arizona received more than double the votes of any other team, with the Indianapolis Colts (four votes) and Houston Texans (three votes) also getting a notable percentage.

• "(The Cardinals) have stable owners, but the franchise's mentality and financial plan aren't sound," one agent said. "Now on a path to not-win to dump Kyler Murray and position itself for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft for Caleb Williams. The organization hasn't been good even when posting positive records."

The Cardinals were a disappointing 4-13 last season, resulting in the firing of coach Kliff Kingsbury. General manager Steve Keim stepped down in January amid health concerns, while owner Michael Bidwill has been accused of various acts of malfeasance, including discrimination and harassment, by former Cardinals executive Terry McDonough.

Quarterback Kyler Murray, one year removed from signing a $230.5 million contract extension, could also miss the entire 2023 season while recovering from a torn ACL. It's possible Murray has played his last game for the Cardinals entirely if the team winds up with the No. 1 pick and a chance to take USC's Caleb Williams, the overwhelming favorite to go No. 1 next April.

The Colts posted a 4-12-1 record last season and are currently embroiled in a feud with star running back Jonathan Taylor, who has been angling for a new contract. Owner Jim Irsay has only stoked the flames of frustration by openly discussing what he felt are "bad faith" negotiations by some agents.

The Texans have been one of the NFL's worst teams for three straight seasons and are on their fourth coach in as many years. However, the arrival of head coach DeMeco Ryans and the drafting of quarterback C.J. Stroud with the No. 2 pick in April's draft, does have the organization on a more positive path.

For the first time since revealing their new uniforms in April, the Arizona Cardinals wore their all-white threads during Saturday's away preseason game against the Minnesota Vikings.

The NFL posted a video of Cards rookie linebacker BJ Ojulari sporting the new look during his pregame workout:

Arizona may have one of the cleanest road looks in the league this season, and Saturday will be the first of many times it is showcased in 2023.

While the Cardinals are winning in the jersey department, they may find themselves behind on the scoreboard for the majority of the upcoming campaign.

Arizona has sold off a ton of assets lately, including releasing veteran wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, trading linebacker Isaiah Simmons to the New York Giants and trading offensive tackle Josh Jones to the Houston Texans.

Also, quarterback Kyler Murray is on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list, and it is unknown when or if he will play in 2023 after tearing his ACL last season.

If Murray misses much or all of the season, the Cardinals could be candidates to pick No. 1 overall in the 2024 NFL draft and select either USC quarterback Caleb Williams or Ohio State wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr.