Amid Instagram scrubs and reports of perceived immaturity and a lack of leadership, Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray returned to social media Monday afternoon and released a statement professing his love for the game, his focus on improvement and tabbing the recent histrionics as "nonsense."
"I play this game for the love of it, my teammates, everyone who has helped me get to this position that believed in me (and) to win championships," Murray wrote. "All of this nonsense is not what I'm about, never has been, never will be. Anyone who has ever stepped between those lines with me knows how hard I go.
"Love me or hate me but I'm going to continue to grow and get better."
Murray's post comes a day after it was reported by NFL Network's Mike Garafolo that the Cardinals were looking for their franchise quarterback to take steps forward with his maturity and leadership. The news consequently came on Super Bowl Sunday, when the NFC West-rival Los Angeles Rams, who eliminated Murray and the Cardinals in the Wild Card Round, won Super Bowl LVI.
Among the examples of Murray's perceived lack of leadership and/or lack of maturity was the QB not finishing the aforementioned playoff loss on the field, as backup Colt McCoy took the final snaps, which upset several members of the club, Garafolo reported.
All of this follows Murray, 24, cleansing his Instagram account of any references to the Cardinals following his appearance in the Pro Bowl on Feb. 6. The team followed suit with a social media scrub of its own on Friday, but Garafolo reported Sunday that the team was not quite certain what to make of Murray's social media cleanse and had yet to have a "big-picture conversation with him since they had their end-of-season meetings."
Despite all of the dramatics and mystery on social media, the team released a statement Sunday to NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport confirming its commitment to the No. 1 overall pick of the 2019 NFL Draft, who has one season remaining on his rookie contract.
"Nothing has changed regarding our opinion and high regard for Kyler Murray," the statement read. "We as a team and Kyler individually have improved each year he's been in the league. We are excited to continue that improvement in 2022 and are excited that Kyler Murray is the quarterback leading us."
Murray emerged in his third NFL season as an early Most Valuable Player contender when the Cardinals won their first seven games and were the final undefeated squad left standing. However, the season unraveled down the stretch. Murray missed three games with an ankle injury, the Cards were defeated in six of their last 10 and backed into the playoffs, where they were throttled by the Rams.
All is not sunny in Arizona it would seem, but perhaps things are progressing, as Murray, who's yet to speak on any issues with the franchise, has at least started to use his words to express his feelings on whatever matters might be at hand.
