PHILADELPHIA — Kyler Murray and Jalen Hurts didn’t overlap at the University of Oklahoma, the two poles of the NFL’s latest, hottest quarterback debate never touching, the two young men barely talking to each other. Murray transferred to OU from Texas A&M, spent a year backing up Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield, then won the award himself with the Sooners in 2018. Hurts transferred there from Alabama in time for the 2019 season, finished second in the Heisman voting, and never had more than a few passing conversations with Murray, who was leaving college behind and getting ready for the NFL draft.
“I didn’t really get to spend a lot of time with him,” Murray told reporters in 2020, “just because that was a quick time period for me, getting drafted as well as trying to make him as comfortable as possible in his transition from Alabama to OU.”
The Arizona Cardinals made Murray the No. 1 pick in that draft, and better that he was training for that moment than passing the time in the same manner that he has over the subsequent two-plus years. He and the Cardinals have been the league’s laughingstock since Monday, with the revelation that Murray’s contract extension, worth as much as $230.5 million, includes a clause directing him to spend at least four hours a week studying film and other material so he will be adequately prepared for each game. Four hours a week? There are quarterbacks for whom four hours a day is a light brush-up.
