Call them the NFL Princes of Bel Air.
That’s what it must have been like during the second week of July when 13 Arizona Cardinals offensive players including quarterback Kyler Murray spent five days in an Airbnb competing at just about everything while also working out during the day at UCLA.
“It was beautiful, to say the least,” wide receiver Zay Jones said of the house. “I had never been in anything like that.”
Murray organized it and paid for it all, including chefs and car services.
No one had a bigger smile than him in a photo he posted on Twitter on July 13.
— Kyler Murray (@K1) July 13, 2024
“It’s something I wanted to do,” Murray said Monday. “Again, it goes back to having guys kinda my age that we can coordinate those things a lot easier, but I sent out the text and kinda had the people set it up and we got out there and got it in. It was fun.”
Fun and competitive.
Wide receiver Michael Wilson said, “When you get a bunch of highly competitive men in one place; like we competed from the time we got up to the time we went to sleep. Ping-pong, cards, who’s running faster, who can catch more balls, late-night lifts. You see one guy start doing push-ups, now I have to do push-ups. You see one guy go into the weight room lifting, now I have to go lift.
“I think it’s great to get around a bunch of just super masculine guys who just wanna compete and challenge each other. It was super fun.”
It’s another example of Murray’s maturity and understanding what’s important in building a team atmosphere.
“That goes back to the sense of urgency,” Murray said. “Getting all those reps that we got, we may not have gotten if we didn’t do those things off the field. I think it’s an underrated thing, the camaraderie off the field, just loving each other, being together, spending time together, getting to know each other.
“The sense of urgency is there. We want to hit the ground running. Despite what everybody thinks or what they’re saying, we know what we want to do in this locker room. In order to do that, you got to put the work in.”
Jones said, “It kinda just had a college vibe going to sleep at the same place with your teammates not in a super-structured environment. It was fun just to see guys out of the element of football, build good relationships. For me it was important to just meet guys, know a little bit more about them. Their families. Where they come from. So that time was good to carry that into time like this.”
The training time was orchestrated by Murray and running back James Conner and included a speed coach, according to Jones, who added, “Some serious ping-pong battles occurred.”
Asked who won, Jones said, “Andre (Baccellia) and Kyler were the top two guys. Mike was definitely in there. That got heated. I can’t forget Greg Dortch as well. He took it very seriously. Lot of card games. Kyler won again at Tonk. It was really fun just to see how competitive guys can get outside of football. They really care about winning.
“I was more so spectating. I was watching the madness happen. It was really just a lot of joy and excitement in that household. I’m really grateful for that experience.”
Wilson said the time together was great, and he claimed he was the ping-pong king.
“Boys could just be boys, hang out, work out,” Wilson said. “Played ping-pong. I was crowned the champion. But it was just fun to compete, talk a bunch of mess and just be guys.”
Told Murray can’t be happy he won, Wilson said, “He can’t, but you can ask him about it. I’m up. I’m crowned the champion. Best ping-pong player on the team of that group.”
General manager Monti Ossenfort called what Murray did “awesome.” He joked, “I wish I would have got invited,” then said, “No, I thought that was great. I thought it was tremendous. I thought it was a great bonding experience. Sounds like they got good work in, had a good facility to do it in.
“We have some new players, some young players so it was good for them to get together as a group outside the building and have a little ramp up, lead up into camp, and I thought it was amazing.”
Jones is one of those new players, and in his “spectating” mode came away impressed with Murray being as competitive as anyone can be. Jones is entering his eighth NFL season and the Cardinals are his fourth team, so he has some perspective on NFL players.
He said, “Kyler; there’s some people who love to be other people and there’s some people who just love to win. And I truly believe he just loves to win, whether we were playing cards, whether we were playing ping-pong, whether it was video games.
“Whatever it was, he wanted to win and I got to see like, ‘OK that’s actually him.’ It was kinda cool.”
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