For months it appeared that the Arizona Cardinals drafting Kyler Murray with the No. 1 overall pick was a foregone conclusion.
The minute Cardinals GM Steve Keim hired Kliff Kingsbury, their draft card was basically filled out, right?
Not so fast.
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While the Cardinals did end up selecting the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback out of Oklahoma with the top pick, that apparently wasn't as written in stone as everyone believed.
Kingsbury's affinity for Murray has been well-documented going back to Murray's sophomore season at Allen High School in Texas, but it's Keim who gets to make the final say.
If Keim would have wanted to draft Ohio State edge rusher Nick Bosa and keep Josh Rosen as his quarterback, Kingsbury would have been all-in.
“I’d have said, ‘Let’s go to work,’ “ Kingsbury told NBC Sports' Peter King about the possibility of draft Bosa. “That’s why I signed on here. I knew I was coming here to try and improve the offense. We were last in everything. Try to help Josh become a better player, more comfortable in the system, continue to build him. That was my job. If that was what we were going to do, that’s what I signed up for in the first place.”
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The belief has been that Kingsbury arrived in Arizona and set up the plan to draft Murray, but the offensive guru believes that was the biggest misconception about his first few months as head coach.
“That I rolled here and was just like, ‘We’re taking Kyler Murray,’“ Kingsbury said. “First off … I don’t have that type of juice coming in the door. That wasn’t how it went down at all.”
The 49ers had to be thrilled that Kiem loved what he saw from Murray's film and decided to pull the trigger on selecting the dynamic signal-caller.
With Murray headed to the desert, 49ers general manager John Lynch was able to get his man in Bosa and bolster San Francisco's pass rush.
[RELATED: Kyler's arrival, Rosen trade could be both good, bad for 49ers]
It will take a few years to determine whether the Cardinals made the right decision, but they'll get an up-close look at Bosa, the man they passed on, twice a year when they face the 49ers. So, if they whiffed on Murray, it'll hurt just a little bit more knowing they handed Bosa to a division rival.