Another Great Week for Byron Murphy
It has been another excellent week for Byron Murphy, both on and off the field. The Vikings cornerback is enjoying his second season in Minnesota amid a particularly rich vein of form that hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Another Great Week for Byron Murphy
Born in Scottsdale, Arizona, Murphy was drafted by his home state team in the second round of the 2019 draft. After playing through the four seasons of his rookie contract, Murphy was allowed to test free agency and signed a two-year contract with the Vikings. Murphy went up against his former team this past Sunday for the first time. He snagged an interception from a key sequence of events that led the Vikings to a fourth-quarter comeback win.
The interception was his fifth of the season, which made him the first Vikings CB to have 5 picks in a season since his former Cardinals teammate Patrick Peterson in 2022. It was the highlight in what is turning into the best season of Murphy’s career. Those five interceptions are already a career-high, with another five games to add to his tally. He also has a career five tackles for loss and only needs two more pass deflections to equal his career-high of 13. Murphy is consistently making plays and most notably doing it in big moments, which earned him the clutch tag from Pro Football Focus in November.
Murphy is on course for the best overall PFF season grade of his career — 72.9. His 72.4 coverage grade is by far the best of his career to date, eclipsing his 64.3 from back in 2021 while with the Cardinals. The consistency of performance Murphy is now putting together in a Vikings jersey. There is no reason to doubt that the Vikings CB can maintain or even improve those grades.
Surprise Pro Bowl Leader
The early leaders in the Pro Bowl votes for the AFC and NFC conferences were made public this week. Vikings fans have been busy getting behind their guys with plenty of votes for Vikings players, including four who lead their position in votes in the conference. Murphy is one of those men, and as well as he has been playing, it was a surprise to see him named next to Marlon Humphrey — who leads votes at CB in the AFC.
It’s still early days in the voting process, with fans voting until December 23. Fan voting is combined with the voting by players and coaches to select the Pro Bowl rosters that will compete in the 2025 Pro Bowl games, which will take place in Orlando, Florida, on February 2. The Vikings faithful will continue to throw their weight behind Murphy, but he will need some votes from his peers if he is to eventually make the Pro Bowl.
Vikings Must Retain Murphy’s Services
Pro Bowl or not, Murphy has stepped his game up a level this season. With his contract set to expire after this season, retaining the services of the CB has become a must for the Vikings. Minnesota has a lot of veterans in their secondary and the need to get younger and faster has looked glaringly obvious at times this season. Only turning 27 in January, Murphy fits the bill as a veteran who is still reasonably young and should have plenty of football still ahead of him.
Whether the Vikings look to make another big move, either in the draft, via free agency, or with a trade, is a question for the offseason. However, Murphy should still be in the building along with Mekhi Blackman – who has missed this entire season with a knee injury – and Dwight McGlothern as the starting point to build next year’s CB room in Minnesota.
This week, Murphy will look to continue his good form and make another interception against former teammate and Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins. In Week 14, Cousins will bring his new Atlanta Falcons team to Minnesota.
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