Murray has potential to change NFL
Shorter than 6 feet, unconventional QB signals new trend
Considering the NFL’s growing fascination with offensive ingenuity, Kyler Murray is striving to make history at the right time. Seldom, if ever, has the league been this accepting of unconventional talent.
It’s hard to know whether we’re amid a movement or a fad. The NFL tends to dabble in change, only to revert to its traditional, risk-averse ways. So Murray represents both a test of conviction and an opportunity, if he succeeds, to change the game forever. You can try to compare him to other smallish star quarterbacks — Richmond native Russell Wilson is brought up the most — but in the modern-day NFL, no man this little has entered the draft process so wellregarded.
Murray could be a top-10 pick in the April draft. Seven years ago, Wilson lasted until the third round. For all the scrutiny of Murray’s size, low-key personality and commitment to football during the scouting combine this week, the reality is that the league seems prepared to defy its nature. It would be a significant milestone, a moment to witness the obliteration of another preconceived notion about quarterbacks. But then it will become pivotal that Murray thrive and do for others what Wilson did for him.
The game is ready for this, but it can regress easily to simplemindedness.
NFL teams, generally contrarian and unoriginal, have never met a fresh idea that they can’t dismiss. At the same time, they have never met a fresh idea that they can’t scramble to imitate after some maverick exploits their lack of imagination. In the current Sean McVay-ification of the league, young and creative offensive minds are hot, and teams are going to foolish lengths to follow the trend.
But the credit for innovation shouldn’t be limited to the playcallers. Their systems are so intriguing because of the way they use their talent. For most of its existence, the NFL has been focused on finding prototypical players at every position. The ones who didn’t fit into those boxes were just considered different. Maybe, if a coach really used his imagination, he could carve out supporting roles for those different players.
But now, different is special. Different is cutting-edge. Different is how the Kansas City Chiefs put Tyreek Hill in space to utilize his speed; how the running back should be renamed the receiving back because they’re being used as hybrids; how interior offensive linemen are now asked to be athletes as much as road-graders.
It’s only natural that, as teams redefine how talent is used, the pliability would extend to the game’s most important position. For the past 20 years, the NFL has been moving slowly away from coveting only quarterbacks who are as close to 6-foot-4 and 225 pounds as possible. The recordsetting career of Drew Brees, who is 6 feet tall, has meant much to the shift. So has his longtime partnership with coach Sean Payton with the New Orleans Saints.
While Brees probably could have thrived in any system, Payton and the Saints figured out ideal conditions. Payton has done much to ensure Brees’ comfort, right down to an insistence that his center and guards function as the heart of the offensive line. That’s because for short quarterbacks — all of whom have trouble seeing and throwing in the middle of the field — it’s most essential to operate in a clean pocket without big men collapsing on them and walling off their vision.
In Seattle, Wilson, who is just shy of 5-11, helped the Seahawks win a Super Bowl in his second season, and over the years, he has grown from an efficient quarterback who thrives as an escape artist to a well-rounded franchise player. The Seahawks have struggled to build the ideal offensive line around him, but they created a quarterback-friendly situation by developing a dominant defense and run game.
In Cleveland, the 6-foot Baker Mayfield enjoyed a promising rookie season despite the Browns’ dysfunction. To their credit, the Browns have done plenty to put Mayfield in a good situation. They have a functional run game with upside, and recently they made the controversial decision to add star running back Kareem Hunt to the mix. They have a top-end receiver in Jarvis Landry and a solid young tight end in David Njoku. They have the beginnings of a good defense.
For the team that drafts Murray, there must be an organizational commitment for him to excel. Let’s be real: Teams don’t like to spend high draft picks on positional anomalies, especially quarterbacks, because they think they shouldn’t have to work so hard. In the top 10, they want a low-maintenance savior. But that lack of effort and imagination leads to so many busts. Is it better to pray for a sure thing or to create an environment that ensures development?
To succeed with Murray, it will take a creative offensive mind to devise the pro version of Lincoln Riley’s Oklahoma system. It will take a general manager with a similar roster-building imagination. It will take a patient team that wants to mold a franchise player, not just welcome one into the fold.
At least the most pressing question of the sports world was answered Thursday: Murray is 5-foot-10 and weighs 207 pounds. Actually, he is 5-10 1⁄8. Get it right because, in the NFL, every fraction of an inch apparently matters.
So, there. It’s public record. We may now return to our boring, tape-measure-deprived lives.
Everyone knew he was small, but the nitpicking nation needed clarity: How small is his small? Quite small, it turns out. But not hopelessly small.
Murray is not for everyone, which is why he will be increasingly polarizing at the draft approaches. It’s also why he, as the No. 9 overall pick of the 2018
MLB draft, might have to use the threat of baseball to dictate the ideal situation. For the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, fit is more important than how high he is picked.
Murray will change the NFL forever, or the NFL will make him run away to baseball. There is plenty of room for him to land between those extremes, but sometimes it feels like those are the only outcomes. For a quiet young man who is small in stature, the wild possibilities fuel his intrigue.
Over the next seven weeks, NFL teams and the media will debate him to exhaustion. But the sport needs him to become a star. It needs another reason to stop overvaluing Paxton Lynch, Brock Osweiler and every other tall quarterback who can throw a spiral and grab an appliance off the top shelf. It needs Murray to become the latest wrinkle in football ingenuity.
That’s how this promising fad turns into a movement.
The NFL tends to dabble in change, only to revert to traditional, risk-averse ways. Murray represents both a test of conviction and an opportunity, if he succeeds, to change the game forever.