Murray Magic
In a complete 180 from last week, the Cardinals pulled out a win at home in Week 10 with the debut of their QB1, Kyler Murray.
The atmosphere was definitely different this Sunday at State Farm Stadium, and you could feel how excited everyone was to have Kyler back on the field.
I focused on Kyler a lot during pregame warmups, and when I went into the locker room before introductions, I wanted to capture some exclusive content of him.
He wasn't sitting at his locker at all when I was in there, so his pads on the floor was all I could get.
The roar from the crowd was louder than it has been all season when Kyler was introduced. I used my 85mm lens but was a little too close to the front to get anything contextual.
The Cardinals received the ball to start the game, so I positioned myself by the line of scrimmage to capture close-ups of Kyler's first few plays.
He likes to throw a couple passes on the sideline before he goes out onto the field, so I got a few frames of that and his name plate as he approached the huddle.
The first offensive drive was a quick three and out, which was extremely anticlimactic, but it did give me the opportunity to capture a couple of isolated, full-body photos of Kyler in the new uniform.
After that first drive, I wanted to make sure I captured the action well, so I moved down to get the angles of the offense coming towards me.
And good thing I did, because Kyler was quick to connect with Trey McBride downfield.
When we flipped end zones at the second quarter, I stayed back again to see what more I could get of Kyler throwing.
This throw to Trey McBride was not so lucky for me since I was too far behind the action to see it.
I think a lot of fans have been anxiously waiting to see a Kyler Murray-to-Marquise Brown touchdown and they'll have to wait a little bit longer.
This one was so close, if you showed someone the second frame, they'd think he actually scored.
Kyler did prove that his legs are fully healed by running in the team's first touchdown of the day.
The play started with him basking in this sliver of light sneaking down onto the field.
Then he waltzed into the end zone for the touchdown as the whole stadium went wild.
I started off every offensive drive by focusing on Kyler, but once he went up to throw, I would immediately scan the field for his target.
You can see in this frame that it was Rondale Moore, who I also caught running completely isolated for a while.
Don't worry, I've got some defense photos too!
I got a really clean angle of B.J. Ojulari's sack, then a bunch of celebrations from the rest of the crew.
The offense was able to use that momentum, starting with Greg Dortch's punt return.
You can see in these frames that he completely leaves the Falcons special teams defenders in the dust.
And then celebrates with a shrug, as if it's no big deal.
That led to what everyone thought was a Michael Wilson touchdown, but was actually a still-impressive first down.
I was sad to see that I did catch his knee coming down short of the goal line.
But it turned out fine with Clayton Tune scoring his first NFL touchdown right after that -- rookies helping rookies.
The defense came in clutch again by forcing a huge turnover on downs. There was definitely a ton of noise again during this celebration.
Kyler Murray wasn't the only familiar face back on the field this week. James Conner made his return from Injured Reserve, and I'm sure his presence was very felt by the Falcons defense.
He pushed his way through so many plays that almost all of my photos show him shoving somebody, even when his own teammate gets knocked into him.
On the last offensive drive, Kyler scrambled and ran so far that you'd think these photos are from different plays with his positioning on the field.
I can't really tell how many yards it is when I'm photographing players coming towards my camera like that, but when I watch it back on the broadcast it is always shocking.
Even though we were making big strides, I still had to prepare myself for the chance of losing, so I made sure to capture some "disappointed" photos, just in case.
Thanks to Matt Prater, we didn't have to use any of those photos.
I captured his game-winning field goal after dropping my long lens, since I knew I'd have to run out fast to capture the celebration.
After the craziness on the field, I followed Kyler back into the locker room to capture the victory speech and game ball presentation.
Coach Jonathan Gannon was waiting for him with open arms.
And the party had already started.
General Manager Monti Ossenfort was joining in on the fun by giving every single player a high five.
Once everyone was in the locker room, JG gathered everyone up for the game ball presentation.
To no one's shock, it was awarded to Kyler Murray.
The whole room was chanting "speech, speech, speech," so Kyler brought everyone in really tight to share his thoughts on the win.
To sum up his words, it was a team effort, and don't you worry, they'll be back at it again next week.
