The Kyler Murray Contract Conundrum
Photo taken by the Arizona Cardinals
The Arizona Cardinals have put themselves in a precarious spot as of late. The Cardinals recently signed their quarterback Kyler Murray to a monstrous extension of five years and worth up to $230.5 million with $160 million guaranteed.
The extension will make him currently the second highest paid quarterback in the NFL.
Though the Cardinals locked him up with a large deal, they added an addendum to his contract that had fans scratching their heads.
That requirement was Murray having to study at least four hours of film on his own.
When those details of the contract were made public, the Cardinals caught a substantial amount of flack for it. The narrative of Murray not studying film became the headline. Murray has since made comments about it, stating that the situation was "disrespectful," and even adding "it's almost a joke."
For days sports media outlets and sports fans put the Cardinals on blast. Not only did this contract controversy look bad on Murray’s part, but it looked worse on the part of the organization as well. The Cardinals organization later agreed to remove the “independent study” clause. The team released a statement backtracking on it.
Yet somehow this made their situation look worse. It comes off in a way that this NFL franchise got “bullied” into removing this. They publicly embarrassed their “franchise quarterback” making him seem like he is not a hard worker. The team was better off putting their foot down and keeping the clause in there to ensure that Murray was going to put in the work. Or the better decision of not even putting it in there in the first place.
This Murray-Cardinals offseason saga has been a roller coaster to say the least. In the beginning of the offseason, there was rumors going around that Murray was “self centered” and “immature”. Murray reportedly felt like he was the scapegoat for the Cardinals’ 34-11 playoff loss against the Los Angeles Rams. Then later in the offseason, Murray scrubbed his Instagram page clean of anything Cardinals related in hopes of getting a new deal.
Murray eventually got his deal, but at the expense of a lot of drama. Despite the clause, Murray and the Cardinals did sign on the initial deal. Which further questions the significance of the clause. If Murray felt so “disrespected” by it, why would he sign it in the first place? It also puts the Cardinals organization in question as well. If they felt like Murray was slacking in his film studies, why would they offer him a contract for that much money?
Regardless of the contract extension debacle being finished, the stigma surrounding Murray will most likely be around him for a time being. When week one of the regular season comes around, people will watch him, and the Cardinals play and wonder if he watched film. For every bad game he has, the talks of film study will come up.
It may not be in his contract anymore, but the media, the internet and the fans will not forget. The damage has already been done.
