Silent Rift: Why Kyler Murray and Cardinals GM Haven’t Communicated Since Season’s End, Sparking QB Shakeup Speculation

Since the curtain closed on the 2025 NFL season, the chatter between Kyler Murray and Arizona Cardinals GM Monti Ossenfort has gone eerily silent—per an ESPN update on Tuesday. The murmurs swirling around the desert hint that the Cardinals are actively on the hunt for a trade partner willing to shoulder Murray’s hefty contract at 28 years old, as Adam Schefter reported earlier this month. With all three quarterbacks under contract for 2026, including Jacoby Brissett and Kedon Slovis, Ossenfort made it clear at the NFL combine that “all options are on the table,” signaling potential seismic shifts at the marquee position. Even though Ossenfort insists on maintaining a solid dialogue with Murray, last season’s outcome clearly fell short of everyone’s expectations, underscoring the urgency to improve across the board. Trading a talent of Murray’s caliber—tied up in a $125 million, three-year contract with $60 million guaranteed—is no small feat, especially considering the financial gymnastics required to make such a move work in Arizona’s favor. It’s a high-stakes dance where creativity must meet pragmatism, and the stakes couldn’t be higher for both sides as they eye what’s next. LEARN MORE

Kyler Murray and Arizona Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort haven’t talked since the 2025 season ended, according to an ESPN report Tuesday.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported earlier this month that the Cardinals have been seeking a trade partner to take on Murray, 28, and his lucrative contract.

Ossenfort said Tuesday at the NFL combine that “all options are on the table” for the Cardinals at the sport’s most prestigious position, noting that Murray and fellow quarterbacks Jacoby Brissett — who started Arizona’s final 12 games of its 3-14 season after Murray suffered a foot injury in Week 5 — and Kedon Slovis are all under contract for 2026.

“As it pertains to that position, as it pertains to every position on our team, we’re going to look at every avenue to improve, and we’re going to continue and go through our process with that,” said Ossenfort, who is in his fourth season as GM.

When Ossenfort was asked if he’s sat down with Murray to talk about last year and what the 2019 No. 1 overall pick wants in the future, Ossenfort spoke generally about his relationship with the dual-threat quarterback and his short-lived 2025 campaign.

“I’ve always had a good dialogue with Kyler,” Ossenfort said, “and I’d say [last season] wasn’t up to what Kyler wanted. It wasn’t up to what any of us wanted as a season as a whole.

“And so when you have the kind of year that we had, there’s a lot of room for improvement, and so we got to find a way to do that, not only at that position [but] in all positions.”

The specifics of Murray’s foot injury, especially its severity, remain unclear, as does whether Murray was ever on track to return this past season.

Brissett held his own in Murray’s absence, completing 64.9% of his passes while throwing for 3,366 yards, 23 touchdowns and 8 interceptions. But the injury-riddled Cardinals won only one of his starts, as their roster thinned and their defense cratered down the stretch of then-head coach Jonathan Gannon’s third and final season.

Arizona began the season 2-0 but then plummeted to 2-5, losing those five games by a combined 13 points. After a bounce-back, “Monday Night Football” win over the Dallas Cowboys, the season got away from Gannon and Co.

Former Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur is now at the helm. Together, he and Ossenfort are the latest tandem to try to right a franchise that’s made just one playoff appearance since the start of the 2016 season.

Murray’s Cardinals career began with him winning NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2019 and making Pro Bowls in 2020 and 2021.

But a season-ending ACL tear in 2022 disrupted that momentum. Although he received an extension that’s now making trading Murray more difficult for the Cardinals, he didn’t achieve the same success in OC Drew Petzing’s run-heavy offense that he enjoyed in Kliff Kingsbury’s spread passing attack.

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Simply cutting Murray outright would result in a dead cap hit of at least $54 million, according to ESPN. On the contrary, if Arizona trades him when the new league year begins, it could reportedly save approximately $35 million in cap space.

The problem is, as is, the contract still has three years and about $125 million left on it, including $60 million guaranteed, per ESPN.

It certainly seems like the Cardinals and Murray are headed for a split, but Ossenfort will have to get creative in trying to pull off a trade that both makes financial sense and yields some kind of worthy compensation.