The Arizona Cardinals will have Trace McSorley starting at quarterback in Week 16 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, as Kyler Murray is out for the season with a torn ACL and Colt McCoy has been ruled out with a concussion he suffered last week.
It will be McSorley’s first career start.
What does he bring to the table?
“He’s one of those guys that—I hate to use the term gamer, but he’s got a lot of moxie,” coach Kliff Kingsbury said on Wednesday. “He plays with a lot of confidence. Teammates respond to that well. He’s mobile and can move around. He had a couple of throws he’d like to have back, but he had a couple scoring drives and like I said after the game, I just want to see how he does with some reps. It’s not easy to go in there without any reps basically throughout the entire season with the first team offense, so I’m excited to see how he can perform with some reps this week.”
The Cardinals were impressed with how he operated in training camp and the preseason when he got extensive reps.
“That’s why he is here,” Kingsbury said. “I think we like what we’ve seen at times, and we’ve just got to protect the ball on a couple of those throws, but he’s been in the game in some very adverse situations so far. I want to see him start a game and see kind of how he carries himself and how he performs.”
He will be facing one of the top defenses in the league with the Buccaneers coming to town.
He threw two second-half interceptions when he entered the game against the Broncos in relief of McCoy, and led them to 9 points.
It isn’t an ideal setting for him or the Cardinals, but he does get to have an audition for the Cardinals and the rest of the league.
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