Cards to play ball with No. 1 pick Murray
Kyler Murray ended months of real drama by declaring that his sport of choice was football, not baseball.
The Arizona Cardinals ended weeks of possibly contrived drama by selecting him No. 1 overall in Thursday night’s NFL draft.
Murray was Oklahoma’s starting quarterback for just a single season, but it was a spectacular one. He threw for 42 touchdowns, ran for 12 more, led the Sooners to the national semifinal, and picked up the Heisman for his trouble.
It was long believed that Murray, who stands just 5-10, would spurn football after this fall. After all, the Oakland A’s had selected him No. 9 overall, and Murray had agreed to a contract that included a $4.6 million signing bonus.
But Murray ultimately returned most of the portion of the bonus he had already been paid — $1.29 million — and turned down an additional $14 million that the A’s offered to keep him away from football.
The A’s aren’t the only ones left behind by the desert marriage between Murray and 39-year-old head coach Kliff Kingsbury. The Cardinals selected Josh Rosen at No. 10 last year, and are now the first franchise to use first-round choices on quarterbacks in consecutive years since the 198283 Baltimore Colts.
Neither of those picks worked out for the Colts — 1982 pick Art Schlichter (No. 4 overall) was a legendary bust, missing the 1983 season with a gambling suspension and only going on to start six games in his entire NFL career. The next year’s mulligan at No. 1, John Elway, claimed he’d rather play for the Yankees than the Colts, and was promptly traded to Denver.
The Cardinals’ first order of business now is dumping Rosen.
The NFL places such a premium on “draft capital” that a second-round pick would be an excellent return for last year’s No. 10 overall pick.