TALK OF THE NFL
Football is looking more and more like the right choice for former OU star Kyler Murray, Jenni Carlson writes
Everyone knew Kyler Murray was going to be a big-time player, an all-world talent.
As long as he picked the right sport.
Remember when we all thought that would be baseball?
Well, maybe everyone didn't think that, but it wasn't that long ago baseball instead of football sure seemed like the best option for Murray. Guaranteed money as the No. 9 overall pick in the 2018 Major League Baseball draft. Less stress on the body. More chances for a long career.
And who knows? Maybe baseball would've worked out smashingly.
But football is going about as well as could be expected for the former Sooner
superstar.
As Murray and Arizona prepare to face Russell Wilson and Seattle on Sunday afternoon, some are touting this as mustsee TV. Sure, the teams are battling for supremacy in the suddenly loaded NFC West, but this is as much about the quarterback matchup as anything.
Wilson is the frontrunner for MVP, and Murray has the football world buzzing.
The Cardinals are 4-2 only a year after winning just five games. Even though the additions of running back Kenyan Drake before the trade deadline last year and superstar receiver DeAndre Hopkins during the offseason have been significant in Arizona's turnaround, the improvement of Murray has been the biggest key.
He started from Day 1 as a rookie, no easy task even for an overall top pick in the draft, but he played well enough to be named NFL
Rookie of the Year. He threw for over 3,700 yards and 20 touchdowns. He completed 64.4 percent of his passes. He was good.
But he wasn't great.
His biggest bugaboo: sacks. Seems odd for a guy who is one of the fastest players in football. When he was at OU, he was forever avoiding would-be tacklers, sometimes with a slick, evasive move, sometimes with sheer speed. He was a master of the elusive.
But last season with the Cardinals, Murray got sacked 48 times, third most in the NFL.
By comparison, Murray was sacked 18 times during his Heisman Trophywinning season at OU.
Sacks are never totally a quarterback's fault, of course, but taking those negative plays an average three times a game can be extremely detrimental to an offense.
But through six games this season, Murray has been sacked only nine times. Continue at that pace, and his sack total this season will be only 24. That would be a significant improvement and is already proving to be a huge help to his team.
Murray has been more elusive this season, both in the pocket and in the open field. While his sacks are down, his yards per carry are up.
And he's getting rewarded for it.
Arizona head coach and offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury opened the playbook pretty wide Monday night with more designed run calls for Murray. Of Murray's 74 yards rushing in a rout of Dallas, 51 came on designed runs.
One looked to be his 1-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, beating a defender to the goal line and reaching the ball across it.
The play was as nifty as it was indicative of how this part of his game has evolved. He's still throwing it with a high level of accuracy, 65.9% this season, but he's giving the Cardinals' offense another dimension with his feet.
He is 13th in the NFL with 370 yards rushing this season and first among quarterbacks.
He is ahead of last year's MVP, Lamar Jackson, and this year's leader, Wilson.
Listen, I'm not going to compare Murray to Wilson or Jackson.
Not yet anyway.
But it sure is interesting to explore their stats from their first couple seasons in the league. The totals don't exactly align — Wilson was a starter from the get go like Murray while Jackson didn't become a starter until Week 10 of his rookie year — but looking at the completion percentages in their first two seasons, even though Murray's second year is not yet done, he has the highest mark.
Murray: 64.8. Jackson: 63.7. Wilson: 63.6.
Over their first two seasons in the NFL, Murray also is tops among that group in passing yards per game at 236.8. He is second in rushing yards per game at 41.5, behind Jackson (61.3) but ahead of Wilson (32.1). What does all that mean? Maybe Murray follows in their footsteps and becomes one of the NFL's elite quarterbacks. Maybe he doesn't. That depends on his health and growth, the health and growth of players around him and about a million other factors.
But instead of focusing on what could happen, enjoy what is happening.
Kyler Murray is playing some seriously good, seriously fun football. He's a big-time player. He's an allworld talent.
Seems like he picked the right sport.