A GOOD FIGHT
Cardinals’ Murray, Hopkins used Week 6 spat as a chance to grow
Maybe Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins should throw shade at each other a little more often.
Less than a week after the Cardinals quarterback and wide receiver got into it on the sideline and shared a few animated moments about not being on the same page during a Monday night win at Dallas, they couldn’t have been more in sync during Arizona’s 37-34 overtime victory over the visiting Seahawks on Sunday Night Football.
Murray completed 34 of 48 passes for 360 yards and three touchdowns against previously unbeaten Seattle, including10 passes to Hopkins for103 yards and a score.
The in-game spat between Murray and Hopkins on Monday night, which came about after Hopkins only caught one pass through the first three quarters, was a story line leading up to this game.
But any stewing or simmering on either man’s part seemed to be put to rest after just a couple days of private talks and affirmations.
“Offensive linemen are usually one of the tighter-knit groups. But to have the type of chemistry we have here, it’s a special group. I felt going into the year we had nine or possibly 10 guys who could compete at the NFL level. So far, we’ve played nine of those guys, and they’ve all answered the bell.”
Sean Kugler
Cardinals offensive line coach, above
“I’ve dealt with receivers in general, guys who want the ball,” Murray said this past Wednesday. “Playing with high-caliber receivers before, they tend to get frustrated at times. It is what it is. We’re all in this just trying to win, trying to be great. When those situations arise, I know how to deal with it.
“I understand. He understands it’s never any hard feelings. It’s all love. That’s my guy. But yeah, if yelling and fighting happens, it happens. At the end of the day, we’re on the same team and it’s just a thing you see on the football field, trying to be great.”
They’ve been dynamic so far, just like the rest of the Cardinals, who are 5-2 entering their off week and continue to garner national attention following two consecutive impressive wins on primetime television.
Through seven games, Murray is on pace to throw for 4,221 yards and 30 touchdowns and Hopkins, who leads the NFL in receptions (57) and receiving yards (704), is on pace for a career-high 130 catches and 1,609 yards.
And to think, just a week ago the Monday Night Football cameras caught them in each other’s face, arguing about targets and route running and the like.
“They’re both super competitive and both want to be great,” coach Kliff Kingsbury said. “As a coach, you almost want to see some of that. You don’t want to have it consistently, but they got to talk things out on their own and they get to figure it out by playing it out, and that’s what they did.
“They got back on the same page, had a big completion late, so I think it was good to have that type of candid conversation.”
Murray said Hopkins has always come at him with only one thing in mind.
“He says it to me all the time, ‘You want to be good or do you want to be great?’ ” Murray said. “That’s basically what it comes down to. We both want to be great.”
Murray and Hopkins hit it off the first time they met this year. It was during the summer when Murray organized a threeday, private workout for most of the Cardinals’ playmakers near his home in the Dallas area. Until the Monday night game, there never appeared to be the slightest bit of a problem between the two.
Hopkins raised some eyebrows, though, when he mentioned after the Jets’ game in Week 5 that Murray was the first quarterback “to ever yell at me.” So, during the Cowboys’ game after missing Hopkins on at least five or six throws, Hopkins did some yelling back. Later, during the fourth quarter, Murray threw a dime that Hopkins turned into a 60-yard gain.
They snapped at each other, didn’t make it personal, and are back in good, if not great, spirits. Asked Friday during his weekly radio appearance on Arizona Sports 98.7-FM what he thinks of Murray’s relationship with Hopkins, Cardinals General Manager Steve Keim said, “I think it’s excellent.”
“Those guys truly admire each other and now at the same time, they’re both ultra-competitors, which sometimes brings out the emotions and I think that’s a good thing in the game of football,” Keim said.
It was on Sunday night in one of the craziest, most unforgettable games in recent Cardinals’ history. And wouldn’t you know it, Murray got in another player’s face live on camera. This time, it was tight end Darrell Daniels, who got an earful on the sideline.
“When things need to be done, they need to be done,” Murray saied after the game. “As far as evolution of leadership, that could have happened last year, or it could have happened Tuesday. It doesn’t really matter. I just want to be great, and my guys on the sideline understand that, in the locker room they understand that. There were no hard feelings. At the end of the day, we want to win the game and luckily, we were able to do that.”
As for the Murray-Hopkins mini drama that no longer is, Kingsbury said multiple times in the days leading up to Sunday night’s game that a little jabbering between the quarterback and his top receiver can be a good thing. He just doesn’t want to see it happen too often.
“It’s just part of the process when you have a top wideout like (Hopkins) has been in this league, coming to a new system with a new quarterback, and they don’t have an offseason to iron some things out,” Kingsbury said Friday. “It’s going to take time into the season and we all understood that going in.
“The only way to do it is to kind of take those things head-on like they’re doing it, address it during the game. Sometimes, it can be aggressive in nature if it’s a highstress situation. But both those guys just want to win. They want to be the best and perform at a high level, so I think some of that can be positive if it’s handled the right way.”