The best way for Kyler Murray to ensure he’s the Cardinals’ quarterback of the future is to win games. The Bears’ Justin Fields doesn’t have that luxury.
The 3-11 Cardinals will run onto the Soldier Field turf Sunday afternoon as the NFL’s third-worst team. It might take only one more victory to guarantee the Cardinals draft outside the top two.
For Murray, that’s the difference between his team weighing whether or not to replace him — albeit at an expensive salary cap cost — and drafting a receiver, Ohio State’s Marvin Harrison, who could be a tremendous boost to his career.
In a two-quarterback draft — USC’s Caleb Williams and North Carolina’s Drake Maye are expected to be selected with the top picks — Murray merely needs to win enough to make sure his team drafts third or later.
Fields has no such control over his fate.
The Bears’ hold the Panthers pick that, were the season to end today, would be the first overall pick. Fields winning the Bears’ last three games — they’ll be favored in at least two of them — won’t change that fundamental fact.
Beating the Cardinals would keep Arizona in position to threaten the Panthers for the league’s worst record. The Bears are still an overwhelming favorite to end up with their No. 1 overall pick, though — 85%, per ESPN analytics.
The Bears’ final three games are treacherous from an evaluation standpoint. There’s real risk of Fields providing a false positive against a Cardinals defense that ranks as the second-worst in the NFL. Fields starring the rest of the season might not change the Bears’ opinion of him, either — or at least not enough to justify passing on Williams, provided the Panthers keep losing. Fields’ biggest competition will be the Bears’ draft choice — and the team has no control over where it will be.
The Bears’ last three games will decide coach Matt Eberflus’ fate. But it’s hard to see what Fields could do during the same span to make himself the overwhelming choice to be the Bears’ quarterback in 2024. When Fields argued that he’s shown improvement this year, he was right. But has he improved enough to justify the Bears giving him a contract extension worth $100 million this offseason?
The Bears’ feint playoff hopes were all-but-extinguished when they lost to the Browns last week — even if they win their last three games, they have about a 1-in-10 chance of becoming the NFC’s seventh seed. Fields vowed this week to trudge on.
“Of course, if you don’t make the playoffs, then it’s tough because of course that’s the goal of everybody in the building,” Fields said. “At this point, no matter whether we’re already eliminated, everybody plays for each other. …
“One thing I don’t do, I don’t take the game for granted. I don’t know when my last game is going to be — I could get hurt, have a career ending injury next game, but knock on wood, but that’s what the truth of the matter is.”
While the Bears have to decide whether to invest in a second Fields contract, the Cardinals already did that with Murray, giving him a five-year, $230.5 million deal that doesn’t kick in until next year.
Since agreeing to the contract extension in July 2022, Murray has torn his ACL and turned in a mediocre five starts this season. He has a 78.4 passer rating, which ranks No. 32 among quarterbacks to throw more than 100 passes this year. Fields, by comparison, is 23rd.
The Cardinals have some wiggle room, though — they’ll have the space to afford the record $46.2 million worth of dead cap hit next season if they decide to draft a quarterback. Like the Bears, the Cardinals are run by a general manager who didn’t draft their quarterback.
