NFL free agency 2026: 3 teams that could target Kyler Murray as his Cardinals chapter comes to a close. And why he might be a bargain

When Arizona Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur took the podium at the NFL scouting combine, he revealed publicly a sentiment that coaches and executives have shared across hallways and closed-door meetings in recent weeks.

"He was always a problem," LaFleur said last week of quarterback Kyler Murray. "The defensive coordinators I worked with, it wasn't a fun week for them [facing him.]"

LaFleur was commenting on a quarterback still on his roster, and yet, the writing was on the wall. The Cardinals had already effectively benched Murray during the 2025 season to avoid triggering injury guarantees. LaFleur had not shifted course to endorse him upon arriving as a first-year head coach in February. And now, Murray's $19.5 million guaranteed salary in 2027 threatened to trigger in mid-March if the Cardinals did not release him sooner — on top of the $36.8 million in guarantees for the 2026 season due Murray either way.

So on Tuesday, Murray confirmed what had long been suspected: His time playing for the Cardinals is over.

"To everyone that supported me and showed kindness to my family and I during my time in AZ, from the bottom of my heart, thank you," Murray said in a post on X. "I wanted nothing more than to be the one to end the 77 year drought for this organization, I am sorry I failed us. I wish this community and my brothers nothing but the best."

The Cardinals are expected to release Murray next Wednesday, when the league year turns over, barring a surprise trade that Murray's contract makes unlikely.

That Murray will be not only available, but available in 2026 for the veteran minimum salary as the Cardinals pay him the rest of the $36.8 million he's due, impacts the quarterback market significantly.

Teams with sticky cap situations or limited draft capital are on track to no longer need to worry about Murray's 2026 salary ($1.3 million) nor the assets he'll cost. Murray, with money in his pocket from Arizona, no longer needs to factor in which team will pay him the most in 2026.

So expect Murray to eye teams that will position him well to succeed, both because of their surrounding talent and because of the path to their starting quarterback role. The Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons have caught the attention of league sources, with the Indianapolis Colts proving another dark-horse contender.

The Vikings have 2024 10th overall pick J.J. McCarthy in house, but injuries and inconsistent play leave league sources expecting the club to bring in competition.

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The Falcons have 2024 eighth overall pick Michael Penix Jr. in house, but Penix tore his ACL in late November which could call into question his readiness to perform and feel fully comfortable in Week 1. NFL brass often consider the first year back from an ACL tear to require a degree of re-acclimation before a player's body appears to fully adapt to its new normal. Penix has suffered five season-ending injuries across college and the NFL, including three torn ACLs, so his durability is also reasonable to question.

Indianapolis, meanwhile,placed a transition tag on quarterback Daniel Jones, but could have reason to question his Week 1 availability after Jones tore his Achilles on Dec. 7.

While league sources are split on how many more strong years Murray has in the NFL, they overwhelmingly believe his health and motivation will position him well for 2026. And his résumé is deeper than that of previously top available free agent Malik Willis.

Since the Cardinals took Murray first overall in the 2019 NFL Draft, Murray has completed 67.1% of pass attempts for 20,460 yards, 121 touchdowns and 60 interceptions. He's rushed for another 3,1983 yards and 32 touchdowns, losing 13 fumbles.

Murray's 92.2 passer rating ranks 24th across quarterbacks active during his seven seasons, while his 32 rushing touchdowns rank third, behind the Buffalo Bills' Josh Allen and the Philadelphia Eagles' Jalen Hurts.

Murray has declined some physically in recent years, talent evaluators say, but he is still considered a dual-threat quarterback who will frustrate defensive coordinators in game-planning and live action alike.

In his Tuesday statement, Murray made clear how he feels about his next chapter.

"I am no stranger to adversity," he said. "I am prepared for whatever's next. I trust in God and my work ethic.

"I truly believe my best ball is in front of me and I look forward to proving it."

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NFL free agency 2026: 3 teams that could target Kyler Murray as his Cardinals chapter comes to a close. And why he might be a bargain

When Arizona Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur took the podium at the NFL scouting combine, he revealed publicly a sentim...

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Jalen Tyson, James Harden lead Cavs past Pistons 113-109 without injured star Donovan Mitchell

CLEVELAND (AP) — Jaylon Tyson scored 22 points, James Harden added 18 and the Cleveland Cavaliers avenged a recent loss in Detroit by beating the East-leading Pistons 113-109 on Tuesday night despite playing without injured star Donovan Mitchell.

APTOPIX Pistons Cavaliers Basketball

Evan Mobley also had 18 points and Dennis Schroder 15 for the Cavs, who split their four regular-season games with Detroit.

Mitchell sat out his fourth straight game with a nagging groin strain. Coach Kenny Atkinson said the seven-time All-Star is "trending better" but doesn't know when he'll be back to build chemistry for the postseason with Harden, who was acquired at the trade deadline.

Jalen Duren added 24 points and 14 rebounds and Tobias Harris scored 19 points — all after halftime — for the Pistons, who had their road winning streak stopped at six games. Cade Cunningham dished out 14 assists but scored only 10 on 4-of-16 shooting for Detroit.

The Pistons cut an 11-point deficit to one in the fourth, but Sam Merrill hit a big 3-pointer to help the Cavs hang on.

While it was the last meeting between Detroit and Cleveland before the playoffs, their rivalry has been reborn with both teams in Eastern Conference title contention.

Following the Cavs' overtime road loss last week, an unnamed Cleveland player chirped the Pistons "are not in our class."

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Detroit coach J.B. Bickerstaff, who was fired by the Cavs in 2024, dismissed the bravado before Tuesday's game.

"If you mean it," he said, "you don't say it anonymously."

Cleveland center Jarrett Allen, who has been having one of the best stretches of his career, suffered a knee injury in the third quarter and didn't return. When asked about his condition on his way out of Rocket Arena, Allen said: "I'll be all right."

Detroit's Isaiah Stewart returned from a seven-game league suspension and played 22 minutes.

Up next

Pistons: At San Antonio on Thursday.

Cavaliers: Host Boston on Sunday.

AP NBA:https://apnews.com/hub/NBA

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Jalen Tyson, James Harden lead Cavs past Pistons 113-109 without injured star Donovan Mitchell

CLEVELAND (AP) — Jaylon Tyson scored 22 points, James Harden added 18 and the Cleveland Cavaliers avenged a recent loss i...

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US, Ecuadorian forces launch operations against 'narco-terrorism' in Ecuador

U.S. and Ecuadorian military forceslaunched operationsin Ecuador targeting "Designated Terrorist Organizations" on March 3,U.S. Southern Commandannounced in a statement posted on X.

The statement said that the operations were to "combat the scourge of narco-terrorism." It did not provide any further details on the operation.

"We commend the men and women of the Ecuadorian armed forces for their unwavering commitment to this fight, demonstrating courage and resolve through continued actions against narco-terrorists in their country," Southern Command Gen. Francis L. Donovan said in the post.

The Ecuadorian Defense Ministry said it is "LAUNCHING A NEW PHASE AGAINST NARCOTERRORISM AND ILLEGAL MINING" in a post on X shortly after the Southern Command announcement. Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa Azinsaid the samein a March 2 post on the site.

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The ministry said in a statement to Reuters that the details of the "offensive" operation were classified.

Steven McLoud, a representative for Southern Command, said the Command had "nothing further to add" beyond the statement when reached by USA TODAY for comment. USA TODAY has also reached out to the Pentagon and the Ecuadorian Defense Ministry for comment.

This story has been updated.

Contributing: Eduardo Cuevas, USA TODAY; Reuters

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:US, Ecuadorian militaries launch operations against 'narco-terrorism'

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US, Ecuadorian forces launch operations against 'narco-terrorism' in Ecuador

U.S. and Ecuadorian military forceslaunched operationsin Ecuador targeting "Designated Terrorist Organizations"...

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Top Vatican cardinal calls US-Israeli strikes 'truly alarming'

By Joshua McElwee

VATICAN CITY, March 4 (Reuters) - The Vatican's top diplomat warned on Wednesday that the ongoing U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran ‌undermine international law and said nations do not have a ‌right to launch "preventive wars", in an unusually direct criticism of the military campaign.

"If states were ​to be recognised as having a right to 'preventive war' … the entire world could risk going up in flames," Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's Secretary of State, said in an interview with Vatican News.

Asked about the U.S.-Israeli strikes, ‌which have pressed on ⁠for the fifth day, Parolin said they had caused a "weakening of international law (that) is truly alarming".

"The rule of force ⁠has replaced the force of law, with the conviction that peace can arise only after the enemy has been annihilated," the cardinal told the Vatican's ​media outlet.

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It ​is unusual for Vatican diplomats to ​openly critique specific military campaigns. ‌Vatican officials usually prefer to avoid press coverage and operate behind the scenes, leaving open the possibility of the Church serving as mediator in conflicts.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said the strikes against Iran were needed to prevent the country from developing a nuclear weapon, which Tehran denies ‌seeking, and to thwart its long-range ballistic ​missile program.

Parolin, the Vatican's lead diplomat since ​2013 and a front-runner ​in the 2025 conclave of cardinals that eventually elected Pope ‌Leo, is known as someone ​who is usually very ​cautious with words.

Leo did not address the ongoing conflict in his weekly audience on Wednesday with pilgrims in St. Peter's Square.

The pope ​made an impassioned ‌appeal on Sunday for an end to the conflict. He called ​for a stop what he termed a "spiral of violence".

(Reporting by ​Joshua McElwee, editing by Alvise Armellini)

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Top Vatican cardinal calls US-Israeli strikes 'truly alarming'

By Joshua McElwee VATICAN CITY, March 4 (Reuters) - The Vatican's top diplomat warned on Wednesday that th...

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With partners who were in the U.S. illegally, some American women choose to move to Mexico

MEXICO CITY — Lois Muñoz, originally from Brooklyn, New York, has been living in her husband Alfredo's family compound in Puebla, Mexico, for the past three months. Because she has no car and speaks very little Spanish, her world has shrunk dramatically from the busy life she led as a waitress at a diner in Middletown, New York.

Muñoz is one of a growing number of Americans who've made the move south, choosing to accompany their undocumented spouses who are voluntarily leaving in light of President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration.

A report released in December by American Families United, a nonprofit organization advocating for U.S. citizens and their immigrant spouses, estimated that 1.5 million U.S. citizens are separated or live in fear of separation from the person or country they love because they are in relationships with mixed immigration statuses. The report details the impact for children born of mixed-status marriages, who remain in limbo because of their parents' immigration statuses.

NBC News spoke with three families facing wrenching choices: stay in the U.S. and risk a loved one's ending up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, restart their lives together in Mexico or decide to live apart.

For Muñoz, making the move to Mexico was an easier legal path than risking her husband being detained. Americans married to or in common-law relationships with Mexican nationals can apply fortemporary, then permanent, Mexican residency under "Family Unit" rulesand then obtain work permits. However, the move came with significant sacrifices, as well as a language barrier.

"I lost everything; everything's gone. All my Christmas stuff gone that I saved for years, all my Halloween decorations," Muñoz said in a video call. "But it's OK. My husband's going to be safe."

She admitted that it has been lonely. "Your husband's there, but it's not like you've got a friend. I thank God I have my two cats, because they are company," she said.

The couple got together almost 18 years ago when Alfredo asked Lois to dance at a bar.

As their relationship progressed, he told her that he had originally gone to the U.S. illegally to earn money to help his ailing parents, she said. Alfredo said he walked across the border illegally in 2003, was able to fly home and back, and then last entered in September 2010. Because Alfredo had more than one illegal entry, he was permanently barred from legal pathways to stay.

"After we got married, we inquired with a couple of lawyers and never got anywhere. And, you know, we were OK," she said.

The couple plowed themselves into work and weren't fearful — until Trump took office.

"I worried about him every time he left the house. He worked all over the New York area and New Jersey and Pennsylvania," Muñoz said about his construction work. "We were always hearing stories about 'Oh, they took so and so, they took so and so.' I was always worried, worried, worried."

It's a stark change for Muñoz, who is in her 50s and a mother of four adult children still in the U.S.

"I was around people constantly. I had regular clientele where I worked. So I was always socializing. On my days off, I was constantly going," she said. "Now I feel like I have no sense of purpose."

Alfredo is hopeful about their new life in Mexico. "It was like a month that I felt a little strange, a little different," he said in Spanish. "But now, it seems that we're both going to fit in here."

The Muñozes aren't alone in their move.

North of Puebla, in Mexico City, Haley Pulver, 34, is navigating a similar journey.

She moved here from Connecticut in August with her partner of three years, Oscar Enríquez.

The pair met on the dating app Tinder and started out as friends. Enríquez said he remembers being lonely, with no friends outside of his welding work, and how he felt he could be fully himself when he was with her.

It was a while before she knew he was living in the U.S. undocumented. He told her that he had unknowingly overstayed a visa in 2019, she said. Then, two months later, he was detained for about a week before he was released. He had never been in jail before, "so it was shocking," he said of being taken away in chains.

Pulver said a judge issued an order for his removal last year.

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"I don't remember the specific conversation that we had, but he brought it up. And then, of course, I had to get the info. So I asked 500 questions," she said.

Pulver, like many of the loved ones of undocumented migrants, was using apps and Facebook to track the whereabouts of federal agents.

"It got to the point where the ICE situation just seemed so out of control. We had plans in case he got pulled over. It got to a point where it was very stressful," she said.

That stress, in addition to the order for his removal, led Pulver to sell her car and furniture, quit her job as a rights and clearances coordinator for ITV America, pack her entire life into a "giant" box and two suitcases and move to Mexico.

"It was very difficult at first, because I had never left the United States. I'd never even left the East Coast," she said. They moved into a home in the capital that Enríquez had purchased using money he'd saved from work in the U.S.

"My Spanish was very limited, and his parents don't really speak English. I've slowly been getting out of the house by myself," she said.

Meanwhile, Enríquez said, they are getting used to their new life. "I'm rediscovering Mexico City, because it was a long time ago I left," he said. "So I'm trying to rediscover everything with her."

For now, Melissa Byrd is living apart from her partner of almost two decades, Jesus Jimenez Meza. She is in South Carolina, and he is in Veracruz.

Byrd and Jimenez got together in the unlikeliest of circumstances — she was grieving her husband, who died in 2007 after having been unwell for many years, when her 9-year-old son set her up with his friends' uncle.

"My daughter was actually dating one of his nephews at the time," Byrd, who has worked for a school district in various capacities for decades, said. "He basically took my son under his wing and was kind of like a father figure to him. And even to this day, they're just like this. They're so close."

Jimenez, who had overstayed after he entered the U.S. on a work visa in the late 1990s, was helping raise both of Byrd's grandchildren. Then, in February 2025, he was sued for breach of contract by a construction client, Byrd said. Though a judge threw the case out, ICE agents arrived the next day, and he was taken to a detention center in Georgia before he was sent to Mexico on a government-chartered flight, she said.

The pair reunited in Veracruz and spent a few days on a beach to decompress.

In the year since Jimenez returned to Mexico, Byrd has visited him four times. She hopes to move there in a year when her granddaughter is a little older and has adjusted to going to day care.

"Everybody relied on Jesus. He was the backbone of our family, and that's not here anymore," she said.

The Department of Homeland Security said 2.2 million people who were in the country illegally have self-deported since January 2025. "With over 700,000 deportations during President Trump's first year in office, those still in this country illegally should realize that this administration will enforce the laws of this nation," a spokesperson said in a statement.

The realities for couples like Byrd and Jimenez are both challenging and complex. Long-standing immigration law bars people who have overstayed their visas by more than a year from returning to the U.S. for a decade, even if they're married to American citizens.

It's something the proposed American Families United Act, a bipartisan bill introduced last March, is looking to challenge.

Under the act, immigration judges and officials would be able to weigh the impact of family separation and grant families relief case by case.

While the bill seems currently stalled, if it passed, it would make a huge difference to Lois Muñoz, who, despite having been married to Alfredo since 2016, has no way of fast-tracking his return to the U.S.

In the meantime, her life in Puebla has narrowed to taking the bus into town for pedicures and her extended family's daily 2 p.m. lunch together. That has brought along a new challenge: On Fridays, it's her turn to prepare lunch, she said.

"Do you know how intimidating it is cooking Mexican meals for a Mexican family in the middle of Mexico?"

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With partners who were in the U.S. illegally, some American women choose to move to Mexico

MEXICO CITY — Lois Muñoz, originally from Brooklyn, New York, has been living in her husband Alfredo's family compoun...

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