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.
