TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — Kyler Murray recently turned 27, but he brushed off a suggestion during preseason camp that he might be creeping toward veteran status in the NFL.
“I'm still young,” he said, grinning.
Not really. But honestly, that's a very good thing for the Arizona Cardinals.
Now in his sixth season, the former No. 1 overall pick is at the top of his game. His performance in Sunday's 41-10 win over the Los Angeles Rams was one of the best of his career. He completed 17 of 21 passes for 266 yards and three touchdowns while also running for 59 yards.
He's making great decisions. He's making great throws. He's got a solid offensive line blocking for him. He's got a second-year coach in Jonathan Gannon who believes in him.
Life is pretty good these days.
“Great game," Murray said on Sunday. "Marvelous work out there. Great team effort on offense, defense and special teams. We had a great week of practice. I expect to come out here and play like this when you’ve prepared and you’ve got a great feel for it.”
Murray wasn't the only player who had a big day. Rookie Marvin Harrison Jr. caught his first two NFL touchdown passes and had 130 yards receiving. James Conner ran for 122 yards.
The Cardinals (1-1) are a work in progress, but the win was an important step against an NFC West rival that's given them loads of trouble over the past decade. The Cardinals had lost nine straight at home to the Rams.
For a franchise that endured back-to-back 4-13 seasons in 2022 and 2023, it was a positive sign.
The Cardinals' defense isn't filled with a lot of well-known names, but it cobbled together an effective performance. Arizona put pressure on Matthew Stafford with five sacks after having just 33 last season, which ranked near the bottom of the NFL. They're very good at safety with Budda Baker and Jalen Thompson and have a strong group of linebackers, led by Kyzir White and Mack Wilson.
The Murray-to-Harrison combination looks like it could be dynamite as the two touchdowns showed on Sunday. But there are still some chemistry issues to work out. All of Murray's four incompletions came on Harrison targets. Both players say they're just now beginning to understand how to best play with each other.
“We left a lot of meat on the bone,” Gannon said.
Edge rusher Dennis Gardeck had one of the best games of his career with three sacks, providing the kind of consistent pressure on an opposing quarterback that the team has sorely missed over the past year. The 30-year-old is a fan favorite in the desert, making the team in 2018 as an undrafted free agent after playing in college at Sioux Falls (South Dakota), a Division II school at the time. He worked his way up, beginning as a special teams ace before developing into a starter.
Receiver Greg Dortch had a quiet day with two catches for 11 yards, but that's mostly because Murray has so many options that someone is going to be left out each week. Baker got turned around on one of the Rams' few big gains, losing the ball in the air before recovering to make the tackle.
Gannon said the Cardinals came out of Sunday fairly healthy. Rookie DL Darius Robinson (calf) has to miss at least two more games before he's eligible to come off injured reserve.
31 — The 41-10 final score was the biggest margin of victory for the Cardinals since 2016, when they beat the Rams 44-6.
The Cardinals host another tough opponent in the Detroit Lions on Sunday. It's the second game of three straight at State Farm Stadium.
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Arizona Cardinals tight end Trey McBride (85) celebrates the touchdown by running back James Conner during the second half of an NFL football game against the Los Angeles Rams, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Arizona Cardinals running back James Conner (6) celebrates in the end zone his touchdown against the Los Angeles Rams during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray leaves the field after an NFL football game against the Los Angeles Rams, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. The Arizona Cardinals won 41-10. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday criticized Republican Donald Trump 's promise to deport millions of people who are in the United States illegally, questioning whether he would rely on massive raids and detention camps to carry it out.
Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual leadership conference that the nation can find both a pathway to citizenship for those who want to come and at the same time secure the border.
“We can do both, and we must do both,” she said.
Trump, for his part, leaned heavily on his alarmist message on immigration as he held a rally in Uniondale on New York's Long Island, focusing the bulk of his remarks on the subject.
“We’re just destroying the fabric of life in our country. And we’re not going to take it any longer. And you got to get rid of these people. Give me a shot," Trump said.
Both candidates took a break Wednesday from campaigning in the toss-up states that will likely decide the Nov. 5 election. The former president drew a large, roaring crowd, giving him a chance to show deep support even in a blue state.
He ripped into Democratic leadership in New York City and state, blaming them for homeless people living in what he called “horrible, disgusting, dangerous, filthy encampments,” and even the conditions on the New York City subway, which he called "squalid and unsafe” and promised to renovate.
“What the hell do you have to lose?" he said in asking for their votes.
Before heading out to the suburbs, Trump stopped at a Bitcoin cafe in New York City. Trump has recently embraced cryptocurrency and on Monday night helped launch his family's new cryptocurrency venture.
Harris harked back to the Trump administration's immigration policies as she bid for Hispanic support.
“While we fight to move our nation forward to a brighter future, Donald Trump and his extremist allies will keep trying to pull us backward,” Harris said. “We all remember what they did to tear families apart, and now they have pledged to carry out the largest deportation, a mass deportation, in American history.”
“Imagine what that would look like and what that would be? How’s that going to happen? Massive raids? Massive detention camps? What are they talking about?” she said.
Former president Trump has promised to carry out “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” if he's elected in November. He has offered no details on how such an operation would work.
Trump has focused on immigration as a top campaign issue and made it a key focus of his remarks Wednesday.
“Look at what's happening,” he told his crowd in New York. "Businesses that are fleeing, money draining out of your state and hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants sucking your public resources dry.”
Trump said he plans in the next two weeks to visit Springfield, Ohio, that’s been the center of false accusations from the former president and his running mate JD Vance that members of the city’s Haitian community are abducting and eating cats and dogs. Trump also said he plans to visit Aurora, Colorado, where he says a Venezuelan street gang with a small presence in the city has taken over a rundown apartment complex. Aurora police say that’s not the case.
He has an advantage over Harris in opinion polling on whom voters trust to better handle the issue.
Meanwhile, the Teamsters labor union declined to endorse either Harris or Trump, saying neither had sufficient support from its 1.3 million members.
Harris had met on Monday with a panel of Teamsters, having long courted organized labor and made support for the middle class her central policy goal. Trump met earlier in the year with a panel of Teamsters, and its president, Sean O’Brien, spoke at his invitation at the Republican National Convention.
Trump's rally Wednesday night was in Uniondale, an area that could be key to Republicans maintaining control of the House. His party is trying to protect 18 Republicans in Democratic-heavy congressional districts that Joe Biden carried in 2020, particularly in coastal New York and California, and going on offense to challenge Democrats elsewhere.
Long Island in particular features one of the most closely watched races, between first-term Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito and Democrat Laura Gillen. D’Esposito is a former New York Police detective who won in 2022 in a district that Biden won by about 15 percentage points in 2020.
Trump posted Tuesday on his Truth Social platform that the GOP has “a real chance of winning” New York “for the first time in many decades." In that same post, Trump also pledged that he would “get SALT back,” suggesting he would eliminate a cap on state and local tax deductions that were part of tax cut legislation he signed into law in 2017.
The so-called SALT cap has led to bigger tax bills for many residents of New York, New Jersey, California and other high-cost, high-tax states, and is an important campaign issue in those states, particularly among those New York Republicans serving in districts Biden won.
Harris' speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute marked the second day in a row that she has tended to constituencies considered key to the Democratic Party.
On Tuesday, she sat for an interview in Philadelphia with members of the National Association of Black Journalists. She decried Trump’s rhetoric and said voters should make sure he “can’t have that microphone again.” She has trips planned later in the week to Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin.
Trump is attempting to return to his campaign cadence after Sunday's apparent assassination attempt as he golfed in Florida. On Tuesday, he traveled to Flint, Michigan, and has not appeared to alter plans for upcoming trips to the nation's capital and North Carolina later in the week.
His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, held an event in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Wednesday.
Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP
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Kinnard reported from Houston and Colvin reported from Uniondale, New York. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Washington and Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a campaign event at Nassau Coliseum, Wednesday, Sept.18, 2024, in Uniondale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump makes a campaign stop at Pubkey Bar and Media House, Wednesday, Sept.18, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris waves to the crowd as she leaves at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) Leadership Conference, at Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) Leadership Conference, at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) Leadership Conference, at Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) leadership conference, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump makes a campaign stop at Pubkey Bar and Media House, Wednesday, Sept.18, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) Leadership Conference, at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris Vice is interviewed by National Association of Black Journalists members Tonya Mosley, and Gerren Keith Gaynor, with moderator Eugene Daniels, at the WHYY studio in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a town hall event at the Dort Financial Center, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in Flint, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris boarding Air Force Two, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, near Philadelphia International Airport, in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump on stage with Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders during a town hall event at the Dort Financial Center, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in Flint, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
