Hail Mary Stunner

After using his legs to pull the Arizona Cardinals back into a game they trailed for the majority of the afternoon, quarterback Kyler Murray used his arm to win it.

Murray found DeAndre Hopkins for a 43-yard Hail Mary touchdown with two seconds left to give the Cardinals a 32-30 win over the Buffalo Bills on Sunday and move them into a three-way tie for first place in the NFC West.

“I want to say I knew when it left my hand it had a chance just because [when] you play quarterback, you can tell the trajectory, the touch of the ball,” Murray said. “But, I think I was looking at the sideline when everybody … I just got the reaction from everybody. I don’t think I saw him catch the ball. I really don’t remember — it happened so fast. But, I knew once it left my hand, it had a good chance.”

Hopkins, who had 127 yards and a touchdown on seven catches, called it the best catch of his eight-year career.

“This one is No. 1,” Hopkins said. “It was to win the game, no question, against a playoff opponent.”

Hopkins was draped by three Bills defenders — Jordan Poyer, Micah Hyde and Tre’Davious White — when he pulled down the unlikely catch on the far left side of the end zone in front of 4,200 socially distanced fans. He had 0.54 yards of separation on the catch, the least amount of yards of separation on any of Murray’s NFL touchdown passes, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.

The play was also Murray’s first career successful Hail Mary.

Hopkins said he saw Murray scrambling as the play began to unfold with 11 seconds left in the game and felt like Murray was going to give one of the Cardinals’ taller players a chance in the end zone. The play was designed for Murray to roll left, the quarterback said. He saw a Bills defender in contain and knew if he could get away from him, then Murray could make a play.

As the play unfolded, Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury didn’t think Murray would get the throw off.

“Just to get the pass off was incredible,” Kingsbury said. “If you watch the replay, he’s running and dodging and ducking, and I didn’t think he’d get it off.”

As Murray looked downfield, he said he saw one player: Hopkins. And in his mind, Murray just wanted to give Hopkins a shot at making the play.

“It’s funny,” Murray said, “everybody, all they saw was black gloves arising from everybody. There was like, what, a group of four people and all they saw was black gloves. I’m just glad he caught the ball.”

Kingsbury, a former quarterback himself, was impressed with the actual throw from Murray, specifically the loft of the pass. Kingsbury couldn’t see the catch from where he stood on the sideline, but when Hopkins came down with it, Kingsbury saw the crowd’s reaction and heard his assistants in the coaching box above the field “going nuts.”

“It has to be the biggest one of his career, maybe?” Kingsbury said. “I don’t know. He’s phenomenal. You know, I went out of that game last week regretting we didn’t get it to him in crunch time or try to get it to [him in] crunch time. We had a good talk this week. And I’ve never been a part of one of those so still kind of at a loss for words, but what a phenomenal play.”

Hopkins said he tries not to panic when the ball is in the air. He said he focused on being calm as he went up, believing he could jump higher than the defensive backs who were defending him. And he also felt if he could get his hands on the ball and then get a good enough grip on it, it wouldn’t be able to be ripped out.

“In basketball terminology, that’s what they call this [Hopkins tapped his head], somebody get dunked on,” he said. “It was on three people. Yeah. Yeah, they were in position. It was just a better catch by I.”

The Cardinals needed that last-second touchdown after the Bills pulled ahead 30-26 with 39 seconds left on a Josh Allen TD pass to Stefon Diggs.

After betting support for the Cardinals drove the line up over the weekend, Arizona closed as a consensus three-point favorite at sportsbooks. Hopkins’ touchdown put the Cardinals up by two with no time left. Instead of risking the extra point being blocked and returned by Buffalo for a tying 2-point conversion, Arizona elected to kneel down and end the game.

The favored Cardinals attracted slightly more betting action than the Bills at most sportsbooks. Murray finished with 245 yards, a touchdown and an interception on 22-for-32 passing. For the second straight week, Murray did what he could to put the Cardinals in a spot to win.