Kyler Murray’s new contract has been one of the hot topics around the NFL.
He signed a five-year $230 million extension with $160 million guaranteed with the Cardinals. Things seemed good on both sides until some of the languages of the contract were released that said Kyler had to spend 4 hours a week during game weeks on film study.
Murray was displeased by it.
A tumultuous and chaotic week for Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals might have reached its conclusion Thursday night when the team removed the independent study addendum from the quarterback’s contract after it received significant backlash.
“After seeing the distraction it created, we removed the addendum from the contract,” the Cardinals said in a statement. “It was clearly perceived in ways that were never intended. Our confidence in Kyler Murray is as high as it’s ever been and nothing demonstrates our belief in his ability to lead this team more than the commitment reflected in this contract.”
The addendum in Murray’s new contract extension first became public Monday. The clause required him to study game material for four hours per week on his own to receive “credit.” Murray couldn’t study while he was distracted by the TV, internet or video games, the addendum said. If Murray failed to meet the criteria, he was at risk of being in “default” of his contract.
This prompted a lot of talk on whether Kyler watches enough film or any at all because this was the first time anything like this has ever been put into an NFL contract.
He came to his defense, and the language was eventually taken out.
It turns out, though, that there might have been a legit reason the film stipulation was put into the contract.
A Reddit user went through and looked at Kyler’s stats while there was a double XP weekend on Call of Duty, and they don’t help him at all. Kyler is a big Call of Duty guy, and in the contract, it was stated that he couldn’t play video games while doing his game study.
His key numbers were down on double XP weekends, and more importantly, the Cardinals’ record was a little worse.
It doesn’t really matter now since the stipulation was taken out, but it will be interesting to see if anyone tracks his games this year.
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