INDIANAPOLIS — A lot of people here spent a lot of time on Tuesday contorting the truth about the status of their quarterbacks in a special kind of NFL legalese, be it a Browns general manager who said he expected Baker Mayfield to be their guy in 2022 or a Colts coach who said there was still some evaluating to do on Carson Wentz.
Interestingly enough, it was the Cardinals, who were set up by Kyler Murray’s agent with a preemptive statement about the quarterback’s contract demands, who came out of the day seeming the most buttoned up. Kliff Kingsbury and Steve Keim both acknowledged, about an hour apart in rehearsed quips, that the statement was nothing more than an agent doing his job. This was a fact. Murray’s direct-to-consumer approach—which began with the undressing of his social media platforms and evolved into a statement from his agent touting Murray’s credentials as a franchise quarterback—was unorthodox, loud and somewhat out of character for the typical suit-and-tie Elite Quarterbacking Way Of Business Club. It sounded a little like it was written by a proud papa. What it didn’t seem to do was move the needle outside of some media hysteria (the bar there, as we’ve proven, is quite low).
It’s clear that, if Murray wants to enter next season with a new contract, he’ll have to get far more aggressive than what amounts to a handful of eyebrow-raising power moves on social media. While the current Cardinals’ power structure likely depends on Murray’s success and longevity for their own success and longevity, they acknowledged—without needing to say it—that a new deal two years from the end of Murray’s rookie contract is probably not going to look like the one Murray expects to receive.
And if he expects to receive anything at all, he’d better plan on missing practice, missing camp and perhaps missing games.
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The quarterback contract market is already strange, and it’s about to get stranger. As Pro Football Talk noted, there’s a $15 million per year gap between the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL and the 10th. Carson Wentz and Jared Goff kicked things off a few years ago by taking below-market extensions that changed the parameters of what agents and teams normally expect out of standard, leapfrogging negotiations. Kirk Cousins signed a fully guaranteed contract. Tom Brady took well below market value and went on a per-year basis to rebuild the Buccaneers. Aaron Rodgers may ask for a short-term deal worth $50 million per season (and, indications at the combine right now are that the Packers would give him almost anything he wanted, assuming he could commit), which would top Patrick Mahomes’s league-leading extension. Dak Prescott and Josh Allen both took slightly less than Mahomes.
Somewhere in between, teams like the Browns and Ravens are going to have to figure out where to slot their players, who are both up for new contracts after this season but are, in some way, marred by a lack of playoff successes, inconsistencies, injury issues or other Football Guy maladies that a team can’t seem to overcome before forking over $40-plus million to them. Daniel Jones could very well succeed under Brian Daboll and earn himself a mid-range extension.
The point is that Murray, who appreciates his gifts enough to get behind this gentleman’s game of Twitter fisticuffs, is going to have to enter the same hazy arena that Lamar Jackson will soon find himself in; one that acknowledges his tremendous gifts, but one that also explains that, while he is responsible for buoying a franchise, he’s probably not worth quite as much to said franchise as he thinks—at least not right now, in this exact moment, a year before the teams really have to do anything.
Keim brought up his contractual conversations with DeAndre Hopkins as an unrelated example. Before they sat down, they did so with the understanding that perceptions of value would be exchanged and that he didn’t want those perceptions to impact their relationship off the field. He said he’s trying to become more communicative with all of his players, and that includes Murray.
While both Keim and Kingsbury claimed their relationship with the quarterback was fine, it’s clearly in a gray area. Murray felt the need to take the route he took (if conversations between you and your significant other were amenable, would you need to remove all evidence of them from your social media?). Someone in the Cardinals’ organization felt the need to tell ESPN that Murray had a tendency to blame other people, calling him “self centered” and “immature.”
Following the release of the statement, Arizona’s next move was to essentially respond with the press conference equivalent of the Cam Newton nodding GIF. This doesn't sound like a crew motivated to give in just yet. A huddle without Murray in it might change their minds.
