In a move that should surprise no one, the Arizona Cardinals will cut Kyler Murray as soon as the league year begins. This is an expensive release as the Cardinals still owe Murray $36.8 million to not play for the team, but it does prevent them from having to guarantee an additional $19.5 million in salary for 2027 and effectively guarantee another $5 million in 2026. With the release the Cardinals will need to account for $54.7 million in dead money and do not have much leeway in the way they account for it.

Arizona will have two options with Murray. They can release him outright at the start of the league year (they need to wait until the start of the year due to his guaranteed salary) and take the full charge this year. They would lose about $2 million in cap room in that scenario. The second option would be to declare him a post June 1 release. Under this scenario they would take on $47.5 million in dead money this year and defer $7.2 million to 2027. Either scenario is acceptable but I would expect a post June 1 in this case since the Cardinals don’t have an abundance of cap room this year and certainly have holes to fill.

Murray’s guarantee is subject to offsets so it is likely that he will sign a contract for the veterans minimum and try to compete for a job. There are some ways to sneak money into the contract and avoid offsets but that would require a multi year deal and he has more to gain by playing well this year and becoming a free agent again in 2027. Any money earned in 2026 will be credited to the Cardinals salary cap in 2027.

This contract will go down as a big blunder for the Cardinals. They clearly had concerns about Murray when they were adding in homework type clauses to the contract but they still went all in on the guarantee structure which was the type of structure that was really reserved for the elite level players. Murray has been compared a lot to Tua with the Dolphins but for the all the faults in that one they were far more cautious on the guaranteed aspect of the deal. Murray had potential guarantees in four years of a five year extension and each with a prior year vesting date. Tua was three years of a four year deal but with a late vesting on the third year. Both are examples of the downside of the “next man up” philosophy that has plagued front offices at the QB position.

I was surprised about how hard people were pushing the idea of a trade. Murrays contract is pretty bloated and he simply hasnt been healthy. Since signing the contract in 2022 Murray has missed 27 games. You can not commit $42 million to him in 2026 and also risk another potential $19.5 million if he busts.

Murray does need to choose his next spot wisely. I know some have linked him to the Jets but that could be a circus. It is not a stable enough environment. Atlanta and Minnesota could be better options and even a backup role somewhere could be enough to rehab himself for the future especially if he could sneak in for a few snaps on a good team and look like a competent player on a playoff caliber team.