Games like Sunday’s are hard for Kyler Murray to get used to.
Taking a 34-7 beating from the Rams was one for the books for the Cardinals rookie, who said afterward the 27-point defeat was the most lopsided loss “in my life, probably.”
And coming off the bye week to take such a beating was even more difficult for him.
“For me personally, I don’t like getting away from it,” Murray said, via Katherine Fitzgerald of the Arizona Republic. “I just like to keep playing. I’m not saying that if we didn’t have the bye we wouldn’t have come out here and lost today, or however we played, but that’s just how I feel. I just don’t like getting away from it and then coming back. . . .
“I don’t want to blame it on that, but everything, everything just felt off.”
It was Murray’s lowest-rated game of the season (56.4). He finished the game 19-of-34 for 163 yards and an interception, and ran four times for 28 yards and a touchdown. But those numbers are deceiving, as he had 78 of the passing yards and 23 of the rushing yards in the final quarter.
“I’m not into saying, ‘Oh we kind of got it going at the end,’ because they took out a couple of their guys,” Murray said. “I guess it feels good to score or see the ball get moving, but we got beat today pretty bad.”
That’s something Murray never really experienced in college, or even to this degree in his rookie season. Coach Kliff Kingsbury said he never considered pulling him, giving Murray the opportunity to work through the problems while surviving a six-sack day.