Kyler Murray Led The Cardinals To A Comeback Tie In His First NFL Start

The first 45 minutes of the Kliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray era in Phoenix were not especially impressive, as the Cardinals had kicked just two field goals and trailed 24-6 entering through the fourth quarter. Murray was struggling at 9-for-26 passing and the Cardinals faithful were growing a bit restless as they weren’t getting the offensive explosion expected from Murray and Kingsbury’s offense.

However, in the closing minutes of the game following another FG drive, Murray showed why he was the top overall pick in this year’s draft as the offense came alive to the tune of 15 points in just over six minutes to tie the game. Murray threw a pair of touchdown passes, first to running back David Johnson and then later to the ageless wonder Larry Fitzgerald.

A similar pass to the flats on the two-point conversion to Christian Kirk (a former teammate of Murray’s at Texas A&M) tied the game and sent it into overtime. There, Murray delivered an absolute dime down the field to Fitzgerald to put them in scoring range.

The Cardinals offense got into a goal-to-go situation, but weren’t able to get into the end zone and trotted Zane Gonzalez out for a field goal to take a 27-24 lead. The Lions proceeded to march down the field on the ensuing drive, but, like the Cardinals, they stalled out in the red zone and were forced to match the Cardinals with a field goal of their own.

That left Murray with just under four minutes to play to orchestrate a game-winning drive. He got them to midfield, but failed to pick up a 3rd and 8 and Kingsbury elected to punt it away. Andy Lee pinned the Lions on the five and the end result was the first tie of the season — but not without incident, as the Cardinals dropped a sure pick and a chance at a game-winning field goal with five seconds to play.