One of the biggest reasons why the Arizona Cardinals have had such a great season so far is the play of quarterback Kyler Murray. With his absence of three games, perhaps that has gotten lost.
However, he is having a statistically special season.
Because of the missed games, he doesn’t have gaudy passing yard totals or an insane number of touchdown passes, but other measures of success are eye-popping.
He currently leads the NFL in three major passing categories — completion percentage, yards per attempt and passer rating.
He has completed 72.7% of his passes. He has completed at least 70% of his passes in six of nine games this season and completed more than 80% in two games, both of which were his two highest passing totals.
Completing a high rate of passes is important but can be misleading, as that often signals a high rate of checkdowns, screens and dumpoff passes.
That is where another stat comes in — yards per attempt. He is averaging 8.9 yards per passing attempt, suggesting plays made down the field. He is averaging 8.0 air yards per passing attempt beyond the line of scrimmage.
And his passer rating is 112.2, also leading the league.
It puts Murray in elite company. Only five players in league history have led the league in all three categories for a total of eight times. Six of those eight seasons and four of the five players were league MVPs.
Kyler Murray currently leads the NFL in passer rating (112.2), completion percentage (72.7) & yards per pass attempt (8.85).
Since 1980, 8 players finished the season #1 in those 3 categories.
Six of the 8 were also named MVP that season pic.twitter.com/3WpWxjE7R7
— Mark Dalton (@CardsMarkD) December 8, 2021
He might have missed three games, but if he keeps this up the rest of the season, he will arguably have had the best quarterback season in franchise history.
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