Kyler Murray will be the starter for the Cardinals immediately

The Arizona Cardinals are not whipping up an artificial competition — Kyler Murray is their starter and will be thrown to the wolves week one.

The Arizona Cardinals aren’t going to be whipping up some artificial quarterback competition. Kyler Murray was picked first overall in the 2019 NFL Draft and the Cardinals traded away their first-round pick in the 2018 NFL Draft in order to effectively eliminate the competition and awkwardness that possible situation would bring.

Cardinals general manager Steve Keim spoke with Rich Eisen on the Rich Eisen Show and Peter King of NBC Sports on the Peter King Podcast and talked about his process in evaluating Murray, as well as the fact that there will be no dramatics, theatrics, or Brett Hundley Cinderella story at Cardinals camp this year.

Keim, joined by head coach Kliff Kingsbury, makes a bold statement about Murray.

"“I’ll never forget watching him…I couldn’t put down the controller because all I wanted to do was keep watching this kid on tape. And, I don’t know if I wrote down ‘wow’ a hundred times or five hundred times, but my hand got tired of writing, because it was amazing.”Steve Keim on the Peter King Podcast (above)"

When Keim was interviewed by Rich Eisen, there was no question about the starting quarterback for the 2019 season.

“We didn’t draft him number one overall to ride the pine.”

So, in case you had any questions about it, Kyler Murray is going to play and he’s going to play immediately.

That’s the right call for Arizona.

What are they going to do, play Brett Hundley and pitch Hundley as this seasoned veteran? No. That won’t work.

Murray is going to be thrown to the fire and that’s the right call for this specific situation. Everyone  in Arizona has jobs on the line. They are not in a position of luxury where they can afford to wait and let Murray ‘develop’ off the field.

He’s going to put butts in the seats and he’s going to be asked to make this team a winner sooner rather than later.

Is this going to set a bad precedent? I don’t think so. In fact, I think the worse precedent is not having a clearly superior player (like Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold and Josh Allen last year) start over a clearly inferior player.

What were the Buffalo Bills trying to do with putting Nathan Peterman out there week one and pitching him as a starter? What were the Browns doing, after losing 16 games the year before, not putting Mayfield out on the field to start the season, even with Tyrod Taylor in the fold?

That kind of succession plan works for teams with established franchise QBs, but the ‘bridge’ QB thing is overrated in my opinion. It might have cost the Browns a shot at the playoffs last year.

The Cardinals aren’t going to mess around with it, and I like that.