Will the Cardinals trade Josh Rosen so Kliff Kingsbury can get Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray with the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft?
Kyler Murray will be in the NFL Draft, but it won’t be the Arizona Cardinals who draft him. The Cardinals said last year’s first round pick, Josh Rosen, is their guy, at least for now.
The news comes one day after Murray said he is 100 percent committed to playing football after taking his time to decide between the NFL or reporting to spring training with the Oakland A’s. King. Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury said in October when he was then the head coach at Texas Tech that he would take Kyler Murray with the first pick in the draft if given the opportunity.
Now he has the opportunity, but he also has Rosen and that’s who the Cardinals are committed to after starting 13 games (3-10) and completing 55.2 percent of his passes for 2,278 yards with 11 touchdowns and 14 interceptions and 10 fumbles.
Kingsbury said, “Josh is our guy” and that the team would be moving forward with him as their quarterback. Rosen would also carry a $15 million dead cap number on the salary cap if he was traded, which makes it a virtual non-starter, barring a mammoth trade proposal of multiple first round picks.
Pairing Kingsbury with Murray would be the ideal fit for last year’s Heisman winner who is easily the most fascinating prospect in the draft. The 5-10, 194-pound quarterback put up better numbers than last year’s No. 1 pick, Baker Mayfield, in his last year at Oklahoma, but his skeptics point to his height and frame as a reason he should have picked baseball.
Murray is still projected to be a high pick, but he won’t be the first pick unless the Cardinals trade out of the spot.