Pro Football Rumors
This spring, while Cardinals cornerback Garrett Williams rehabbed the Achilles tear he suffered at the end of last season, Sean Murphy-Bunting took over Williams’ usual role in the slot, as Zach Gershman of the team’s official website notes. That is familiar territory for Murphy-Bunting, who saw over 1,100 snaps in the slot as a member of the Buccaneers from 2019-22.
Murphy-Bunting missed the entirety of the 2025 slate due to a knee injury and is entering the final year of the three-year, $22.5MM deal he signed with Arizona in March 2024. Per Gershman, that knee injury turned out to be an ACL tear, and SMB dealt with some MCL damage as well. The ACL tear naturally required surgery, while Murphy-Bunting allowed the MCL to heal on its own.
Now 29, Murphy-Bunting did not see any action in the slot in 2024, taking 580 snaps outside the numbers and 141 in the box. But even after his recent report indicating Williams could be ready to play in Week 1, Darren Urban of the Cards’ official site predicts SMB will be in the nickel in the season opener.
Though he still spent the majority of his time in the slot, Williams took far more snaps out wide (172) in 2025 than he had in either of his first two professional seasons. Given that experience, and given that Murphy-Bunting thrived in the slot in the early stages of his career, defensive coordinator Nick Rallis may be able to mix and match the duo over the course of the season.
In the same piece linked above, Urban predicts 2025 second-rounder Will Johnson, who played reasonably well as a rookie, will land one of the two starting boundary corner gigs in Week 1. That is a fairly easy call, but the question of who will start opposite Johnson is a bit more difficult to answer.
At present, Urban expects another second-year player, Denzel Burke, to assume that role. Both Burke and 2024 draftee Max Melton started eight games last season, and while neither player impressed Pro Football Focus, Urban characterizes Burke’s rookie performance as “solid.” PFF graded Burke as the league’s 81st-best corner out of 112 qualified players, while Melton was near the very bottom at No. 109.
Urban does leave open the possibility that Williams could take over the CB2 job, which would presumably leave Murphy-Bunting as the primary slot man. Like SMB, Williams is entering a platform campaign.
