Kyler Murray and the question of his involvement in the NFL

This story appears in the edition of 22-19 April 2019 of Illustrated Sports. Subscribe to the magazine for better storytelling and in-depth analysis, and get up to 94% off the sale price. Click here for more.

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Kyler Murray knew the questions were coming: representatives of his talented marketing agency, WME, had prepared the winner of the reigning Heisman Trophy and the first choice of 2018 athletics before a media tour in the early Super Bowl February. While Murray had qualified for the NFL draft after his junior season in Oklahoma, he had not yet ruled out A's spring training two weeks later, and it was widely accepted that a quarterback could not play in both sports. Inevitably, he would be worried for his position without commitment. A media expert WME even repeated his answers on the phone with Murray. Be polite. Say something without saying anything.

Then, during an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show, the host referred to the spring training. And professional football. And the possibility of doing both. Which left Murray visibly uncomfortable. The preparation flew through the window. Murray stopped and looked out of the camera at his father, Kevin. Patrick's is suitable to redirect questions to Dad.

"Without comments … Without comments."

Only, it did not stop there. Event after event throughout the week of the Super Bowl, tensions rose. During a private question and answer session with military families in Atlanta, an audience member took the same questioning path. Kyler waved to his father and Ira Stahlberger of WME, both sitting in the back of the room. Eventually, Kevin pulled Stahlberger out for angry conversation. And with that, Kyler Murray's relationship with WME ended.

Two months later, you'll find it difficult to find in any selection class a future franchise quarterback – let alone a popular candidate like number 1 – whose motives are so unclear, not just for the mainstream, but also for NFL evaluators. . Tom Westerberg, editor of his team's report on Murray, called the smuggler's coach at Allen (Texas) High and noticed that his NFL team had all the goods on the other two Allen products in this project – his attack on Greg Little and Bobby Evans, but virtually nothing on the QB.

Sports Illustrated interviewed more than two dozen people who know the Murrays and who were part of the strangely parallel stories of Kevin and Kyler: from Kevin's time as Texas star A & M, after searching (disastrously) a major league player career, to Kyler's changing public stance on which of these exact positions he will pursue. The Murrays, for their part, did their best to erect a wall between their 21-year-old son – a prodigious athlete with 30,000 followers on Twitter at age 15 – and those who followed each of his moves since his years in high school. in the suburbs of Dallas. The foundation of this wall is based on a link between two QB: one at the edge of the professional football career – a coveted career and never achieved by the other. (The family asked his close friends and allies not to tell SI about this story, they agreed to speak only to clarify some misconceptions.)

Before The Dan Patrick Show and the disastrous week of the Super Bowl, even before Kyler started a match for Oklahoma, he spent a surreal evening with his family, Kevin, the mother of Kyler, Missy and Uncle Calvin, which brought him back to school. prepared to become the only athlete ever selected. in the first round of the MLB and NFL projects. It was June 4, 2018, the night the A made the choice number 9. Kevin looked at his son and made a prediction: Kyler would be given the reins of QB to the OU, and he was going to change the way the NFL thoughts think of passers by 5 "10". " Now, "said Kevin," it's time to do our thing on the football field. "

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When Kyler was a quarterback to the Lewisville Vikings youth teams in the northwestern suburb of Dallas, his father was still the coordinator of the offensive. In 2006, when Kyler was nine years old and playing with coach Clarence Johnson, father and son came in 45 minutes earlier for the workouts to work alone on throws and develop games. He went hand in hand with Kevin's second career, as a private private tutor of QB, renowned for his hard training. "Kevin is a very intense instructor with all his clients and his child," Missy said. "He teaches them all in the same way. I attended his lessons and I thought, "You're a little too strong." But that's his way, and it works.

During games in Lewisville, Kevin used hand signals to send these private game calls to Kyler, who then translated them to his teammates. They were the only nine-year-old team in the region to handle an offensive on the fly, and only the Murrays have ever seen the entire game notebook. "Nobody knew the signals except the two," says Johnson.

Ditto for Kyler's 11-year-old coach, Lee Rolark, who said, "Kevin was very, very secretive and very private." At that time, Elder Murray was gathering Kyler and the rest of Vikings' position players for additional training sessions … They would follow on-air routes, then, during the matches, the recipients would turn to Kevin for each call. "He would not leave this paperback book of his hand, "says Rolark." I was his head coach, and I did not have access to this game book. "

Kyler, meanwhile, was a two-way starter, and in training, he insisted on participating in exercises with his teammates – but Kevin (eventually on the same page as his son's coaches) deemed it unworthy to take the risk .

About as well in baseball, Kevin drew a narrow course and kept a tight circle – a stark contrast to his older brother, Calvin, a player playing in three major league teams. Sam Carpenter, founder of the Dallas Mustangs travel team who, in his 33-year career, has 16 first-round picks, including Kyler, was introduced to the Murray family through Calvin, a high school student. Calvin was gregarious, sociable and extremely popular. "They are like day and darkness," says Carpenter of the brothers. "Unless it has something to do with Kyler's future, Kevin is reluctant to say anything."

During Kyler's first year, when Major League scouts began to swarm in Allen High, Kyler met each of them in a tight circle: himself, his father, coach Paul Coe and the scout , usually in an office overlooking the indoor practice area of ​​the school. "These guys were trying to measure his interest in baseball," says Coe. At that point, Kyler had given Allen the job of three consecutive Division 5A Class I titles, attracting a wave of recruiters. Still, he insisted that he was determined to practice both sports at the university. "I remember one of the scouts asked," Are you serious? Coe said, he knew how Kyler would respond, "I would not be here if I was not. "

Four years later, some of the scouts' bosses were back at the table with the Murrays. Last January, before Kyler hired a football agent and before the disastrous interviews in Atlanta, the Murrays hosted a contingent of high-ranking baseball officials in Dallas – A's owner, John Fisher, and the vice-president. executive president of baseball operations Billy Beane, as well as a marketing manager at MLB – for a meeting focused on 1) the specifics of Kyler's contract with the A and 2) on how it could be marketed by the Team and the league. Oakland had already pledged to give Murray a signing bonus of $ 4.66 million. If, at this point, he had already mentally turned to the NFL, his MLB guests had not heard about it.

Kevin Murray, however, says his son's mind was already prepared to play football; the meeting was a measure of respect for the A. Or did the decision come later? Missy says she asked her son several times during the winter which sport he would choose and that he did not get an answer until a family reunion the week following the Super Bowl in February.

She said that whenever that was the case, her decision was not so much to choose one sport over another, but rather to lose one of her devotees. "He wrestled with it so deeply; Kevin and I did not know what he was going to do for a very long time, "says Missy. "We had to talk and talk more to get to a point where. . . he felt like I can do it. The NFL wants me. "

On February 11, Kyler announced on Twitter that he "committed firmly and fully" in football.

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Kevin had once struggled with the same choice. He was quarterback at North Dallas High when the Brewers sent him with their 11th round pick (one place after Billy Ripken) in 1982. He finally chose baseball money, accepting an agreement including a bonus of $ 35,000 signing, provided he lost that money if he chose to play college football for the duration of his contract.

The 1982 Pikeville (Ky.) Brewers would put Kevin's commitment to the test. On one occasion, a rookie team catcher, a former boxer, came out of the dugout after seeing a teammate breaking his bat and knocking out the offender with one punch. There was a drug overdose on a bus ride. Another night, a handful of players found themselves fighting with locals for a woman's affection. The next day, one of these players was stopped at training, but that had nothing to do with the crash. He was reportedly beaten for allegedly selling a sawed-off shotgun that allegedly was used to shoot a law enforcement officer. (When this black player was taken in handcuffs, Murray pointed out to his teammates, "Hey, they're going to have all the brothers here.")

There was also in this team not one but two super-high school quarterbacks: Murray and Dale Sveum, an American from Richmond, Calif., Who had been selected by the Brewers in the first round and who had let pass a soccer ball. stock market in the state of Arizona. Sveum will play 12 seasons in the major leagues, then lead the Brewers and Cubs. But after a few weeks in Pikeville, he admits, "I'd be lying if I said I do not regret not going to the Arizona State."

Finally, Murray and Sveum came to the same conclusion: they were better at quarterback. (It did not help that they beat .233 and .161, respectively.) Sveum told the Brewers that he was quitting. He signed a letter of intent with the Sun Devils. He was then threatened by Milwaukee with a lawsuit seeking a refund of the $ 107,000 he had paid to stay away from football. Sveum had a change of heart. "I came home and obviously things went well," he says.

Murray signed a letter of intent with Texas A & M and got the same response from the Brewers. They even sent a small team of scouts and executives, including assistant director of Farms and Screenings, Dan Duquette, to Dallas. But Murray refused to pay. "Kevin's position was that it was his money to keep," says Duquette, general manager of three MLB teams dating back to the 1980s. "You can not force a child to play a sport that he does not have. do not want to practice. We just wanted to get the money back. "

The team then filed a lawsuit, even asking for an injunction barring Murray from participating in football practice, but a judge denied the action and the baseball club dropped his pre-trial trial. (Today, addenda that prohibit players from participating in other sports are standard MLB contracts and Kyler's 36-year contract with the Association would be an exception.) Kevin did not escaped cleanliness. In his testimony about the proposed injunction, Mr. Duquette stated that Murray had told him that the A & M boosters had provided him with a car, a credit card and $ 200 a week when He was in high school. (He denied the allegations under oath.)

Released from baseball, Murray arrived at College Station in the fall of 1983, eliminated the competition on the QB Depth Map and won the Southwest Conference Newcomer of the Year Award. So the disaster hit on two fronts. First: Murray fractured his ankle in early 1984, but returned strong after undergoing a medical test, setting virtually all of A & M's career records. Two: after season 86, after the NCAA imposed the death penalty on EMS for widespread violations of recruitment, a sense of peril was created due to concerns that a similar survey on Aggies might trigger. Three A & M players from that time told SI that the Dallas relay group used to provide cars and money to the players. "They were everywhere in the Southwest Conference," said Craig Stump, Murray's replacement. "It was a full-fledged agreement."

This may partly explain why Murray, having set SWC's all-time passing record, made the unexpected decision to declare a rarity for the NFL draft at that time. . Two teammates close to Murray say the QB was forced out by the impending hammer of the NCAA. "If he stayed senior this year, we probably would have had some problems," says one of them.

Murray, still haunted by the perception that he had flirted with baseball and by what he allegedly told Duquette, and forced to hand over to the NFL teams a letter from his doctor attesting to the strength of his ankle rehabilitated, was not crushed the following spring. He trained with the CFL 49ers and Stampeders in Calgary, but failed. By the end of 1988, he had finished playing football.

Jackie Sherrill, who led Murray for four years (and who subsequently resigned after A & M was on probation), said: "I played with Joe Namath, Kenny Stabler. I was around Danny Marino. Kevin has his place in this higher echelon. He fired a lot of defensive coaches. It was a double threat quarterback before. But questioning the prevailing belief at the time that a player had to spend four years at the university was "not settled his case." And of course, the color of his skin did not help the shift position. The ankle is just the excuse that everyone has used. "

Kevin, who remains touched by the situation, said, "You did not see many people of my color in the 80s doing what I did at the shift. Our [family] the circle is small. And part of what I have experienced has a lot to do with that. "

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In an unsecured sport, Kevin Murray looked for his son all the assurances that the path to the greatness of football would not be hindered by human factors. Kyler arrived at Texas A & M in 2015 with coach Kevin Sumlin's commitment. According to former defensive tackle Aggles Daylon Mack, Kyler's first-year roommate, Sumlin told the young QB during the recruiting process, "You're not going to come here and sit on the bench. " He did not promise Murray would start, Mack said, but he promised Murray would play. (Sumlin did not respond to requests for comments.)

There was a problem, though. Kyle Allen, himself a five-star, had won the job in 2014 and planned to keep it. Allen launched the Aggies 5-0 in 15 when he ran into a defense in Alabama. Potential national champions lashed out and the following week, Mississippi did the same. Murray added four touchdowns with five interceptions in three games.

Allen would eventually return to work, but by then the locker room was torn. "When you give QB a job, you can not return it after three games," says Mack. "[Kyler] felt unrespectable because he had not had a fair shot.

According to another source close to the program, Kevin had made his voice heard in Sumlin's ear that season, while Kyler sat on the bench for the first seven games and lost his starting position. "To say that he was involved in this situation would be a euphemism," the source told SI. (Kevin Murray denies having a football conversation with Sumlin while his son was playing.)

Allen and Murray left that winter in Houston and Oklahoma, respectively. (Sumlin was fired two years later.) When Kyler arrived at Norman, he did so without any guarantees on the part of coach Lincoln Riley. Baker Mayfield, who finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy in 2015, had one more year of eligibility, but that would fit well with the season that Kyler had to miss out on the transfer.

Then something unexpected happened. In June 2016, six months after Murray declared himself bound to Oklahoma, Big 12 sports officials voted in favor of allowing intronaveral transfers that were not scholars in their school. origin in order to keep the year of eligibility lost by transfer. Mayfield, who was the first to join Texas Tech, would stay at OU for another year.

It is this episode quoted by Riley to illustrate the popular notion that Kevin's interference subsided after Kyler's departure from A & M. "Kevin said," We sent our son home for a reason. I hope you develop it and do your best, "recalls Riley. "It's the only conversation I've had with Kevin on football. I would have understood if they had been upset. They did not blink.

Kyler's thrilling 2018 season, during which he totaled nearly 5,500 yards of offense and led the Sooners to the semifinal, propelled the unconventional perspective into the first-round discussion and complicated his decision. to come up. At a dinner held on December 8 at the New York Stock Exchange before the Heisman Trophy Ceremony, the Murrays were sitting with the 1984 winner, Doug Flutie, a QB talent of size less than six feet from another age. "His parents were asking questions about football / baseball …Can a QB reach this height today?"Flutie says. "Dad was very serious. Not many words. I told him the [problem] were smaller guys who did not have the strength of their arms. But Kyler seemed to have it. After dinner, Flutie put Missy aside and gave her an honest assessment: "Tell him to go play baseball so he does not get beaten up. "

The perception that Kevin is driving his son's athletic career is only supported by Kyler's unobtrusive leadership style and overall demeanor. While last spring, Riley had been confronted with pre-set questions about Mayfield's great personality, NFL teams want to know if Murray already is inflamed. (Riley explains, "When he needs to rally the guys, the fire and the blood are there for this kid, it's just not with Baker.")

For some, it's worrying. "To be a legitimate quarterback to the NFL, you have to have leadership qualities," says Scot McCloughan, a former NFL general manager who helped the Browns spot Mayfield, their No. 1 pick in 2018. "Watch Kyler do an interview, it's like, Come on, man, what do you have? Give me something. I am sure they are trying to train him, but. . . it's just not a get-getter. Does not mean that he can not be a good QB. It simply means that it will not be the guy in the locker room. "

For NFL teams considering Murray, this laid-back layout, combined with the unresolved questions about baseball – not to mention its size, 5 "10" – made the process of making the game even more important. The two teams who made an appointment last month in Indianapolis, he told Murray that his involvement in baseball was vague and impartial, and he replied: "J & # ################################################################################ I risked a lot of playing football in 2018. "(Meaning: he could have hurt himself, compromising a baseball career.)

Here's what Murray did not reveal, though. According to a source close to the family, the contingent of A who went to Kyler in January offered him a contract worth $ 14 million in cash, in addition to his signing bonus. (The deal would have forced Oakland to make the extreme decision to add Murray to his 40-man roster and would have paid a similar figure to a top-10 pick in the NFL.) For the record, the Bears linebacker Roquan Smith, eighth in 2018, signed a four-year deal worth $ 18.5 million.) But Kyler declined the offer and his family kept this financial information out of reach. media.

"Ninety-six percent of children who have just signed a $ 4.6 million contract to play baseball would never have been on a football field next fall," says Kevin. Murray. "How can people question his love for the game?"

Adds Missy: "The circumstances are changing. Nobody knew that he would be in the position that he is. "

This position: Now that Kyler is publicly committed to football, he must repay Oakland $ 1.29 million out of the $ 1.5 million it has already given him and give up the remaining $ 3.16 million. (The technical manager declined to say whether this money had already been returned.)

"You look at the history of people, and their past is a good indication of their future – and there's just a lot of mind-change with these guys," said one of the AFC's Murrays leaders. . "It's easy to be [committed to football] when you are the winner of the Heisman Trophy and your team participates in the national playoffs. But what about when you play for the Cardinals and fight every weekend? "

Kyler acknowledges that his high preliminary assessment, informed by a mid-season conversation with Riley and then confirmed by a consensus of NFL leaders, influenced his decision to leave baseball. If he had been chosen for the third round in the NFL, he would have been in the other direction. "I think that's common sense. I do not think anyone would want [choose football in that position]. It just would not be smart.

This type of thinking may not please the teams interested in writing. "I would meet face to face," said McCloughan, "to be able to say, listen. If I invest in a first round pick, you have to look me in the eye and tell me that you are a complete football player, anyway. I must know it. You can play baseball – it's your choice – but what you choose to do affects my career, that of my coaches and their families. I must understand that you have passion. Players must know it. They can read your bulls – very fast. Coaches too. He has to prove that's what he wants to be.

Before Murray, in February, he had tweeted his choice of football and his desire to prove that he was the "quarter of the franchise in this project," said this commentary in December, through the intermediary of his baseball agent, Scott Boras (a source close to the family). said that Kyler was determined to play for Oakland. And the January meeting with representatives of A and MLB, when Kevin said his son was already decided. And all those non-answers worried about baseball issues during the Super Bowl week. In the end, Murray's decision on Twitter was taken just hours after Beane called the negotiations with Kyler "fluids". All in all, it's enough to ask you what Kyler Murray is doing. really want to? For the most talented multi-sport sportsman of his generation, will the NFL be a test or an obsession?

"When I was a kid, my dream was to win Super Bowls and play QB in the NFL," he says. "For me it was always Soccer. But at the same time it was not the case.

Question or comment? Write to us at [email protected].