And the strangest contract clause in NFL history goes to…Kyler Murray! Yes, a recent leaked detail of Kyler Murray’s new 5-year, $230.5M contract requires him to study film. Has he not already been doing that?
This is definitely one of the weirdest stipulations I have ever seen put in an NFL contract. This is the kind of stuff you’d seen a high-school football coach writing down on a sticky-note and passing it to the parents of players who refused to watch their game film. It is super strange to see a professional, $230M quarterback have to be reminded to study film independently of team meetings.
Kyler Murray shouldn’t be required by contract incentivization/stipulation that he has to watch more than 4 hours of game film outside of the regular team meetings. How does he expect to get better in the NFL if he’s walking into games blind? Defenses will eat him up with never-before seen blitz and coverage schemes now that they now Kyler would rather play video games or watch TV than master defensive coverages.
Oh, and I’m not making that part up either. The contract really said that Kyler Murray has to watch film without being distracted by “watching television, playing video games, or browsing the internet”.
This is an awful look for Kyler Murray. It makes this whole $230M deal look like an extreme gamble as now his entire work ethic is in question. What kind of “modern” professional NFL quarterback doesn’t take at least 7 hours (1 hour/day) to study opposing defenses and their tendencies? In the grand scheme of things, 7 hours really isn’t that much time to dedicate to your profession.
Anyway, this offseason has taught me that the Arizona Cardinals truly have the biggest diva quarterback in the NFL. And I’m not throwing that word around lightly.
I was a fan of Kyler Murray before this whole offseason occurred. Yet, these new revelations have thrown me off that bandwagon.
First it started with that Instagram-scrubbing controversy, then it was “”Kyler will ditch Arizona for his Oakland Athletics MLB deal”, and now it’s this study stipulation. My whole perception of Kyler Murray has been warped by his actions and the things revealed about him in the span of 4-5 months.
That’s not a good thing.
In fact, this whole situation is eerily too similar to another high-profile NFL player that wasted his talents: Antonio Brown. You cannot say that Antonio Brown’s helmet and cryotherapy controversies are totally different to this Kyler Murray “study session” nonsense.
Both players are super talented yet possess a concerningly bad work ethic. At least in Antonio Brown’s defense, his mental well-being may (I’m not diagnosing as I have no idea what Antonio’s mental status is) have something to do with his off-field issues.
Kyler Murray just sounds lazy and unmotivated. And those are two horrible traits to have in a franchise QB. I hope the Arizona Cardinals did their due diligence by giving Kyler Murray such a lucrative contract, given what we now know about the QB.
(PS: I linked a tweet from Ian Rappoport below that has the full contract in detail. I recommend checking it out.)
Images Source: Featured Image:
Other Sources: (Ian Rappoport Twitter Account) (Ian Rapoport on Twitter: “Contracts are about give-and-take. One example from #AZCardinals QB Kyler Murray’s $230.5M contract: There is an addendum that requires 4 hours of “independent study” per game week. It was important to the team making a commitment at that level, thus it was important to Murray. https://t.co/VqrkvoBQLJ” / Twitter)
