a playoff game. I mean, these are all great problems to have. If
you're a team that is just kind of struggling to find your way
with a franchise quarterback. Who's in position
to get his second contract, this all
exploded yesterday. It's been lingering. There's been some
awkwardness. There's been some reporting. There's been some
suggestion that I think was the manifestation of what really is
the core of the problem here.
You've got caught.
Hola, Murray with three years in
Arizona. He's now eligible for a second contract and it's very
easy to say
we'd like to give him one.
The harder. Part of that
conversation is figuring out where he lands on
that scale and we put the graphic up. If we have it
the highest-paid quarterbacks the top 10. It begins at 45 million
per year with Patrick Mahomes and it ends at 30 million per
year
with Matt Ryan. That is a huge spread. 45 years ago. Peter,
there was a presumption,
if you're a quarterback first-rounder,
you put your time in. You're due for a new contract. Not
even a first round of Derek Carr. Got it or Kirk Cousins.
Got it. Jimmy Garoppolo God, and just a high-end
quarterback, that that is good enough to get a second
contract. The presumption was you would become
the highest-paid player
in NFL history by a half million per year over the guy
who who previously held the title and some guys didn't hold
the title for very long. It was happening one after another
after.
Another after another.
Now that rubber band has been stretched, where you've got
that huge spread and I don't think
that Kyler Murray
could walk in and say, well, this is simple. Give me Forty
Five Point, 1 million per year. It doesn't work that way
anymore. And that's going to be the challenge. And I think
that's why we saw the statement from Eric Burkhart yesterday,
who represents both Murray
and Kliff Kingsbury, by the way,
which makes it even more Awkward for
the Arizona Cardinals,
but I think a lot of the stuff we've heard in recent weeks.
Was that
that frustration that both sides are feeling as they
recognize their in entirely different ballparks and
the challenge over the next six months is to get them in
the same ballpark and to get them to come to an agreement as to
what calamari should be getting.
Because Burkhart is going to be high
and the Cardinals are going to be low
relative to the top of the market. And I think that's
the core of the challenge right now for the Cardinals and collar
Murray.
You know Mike
I look at the last two years
of Kyler Murray and of the Arizona Cardinals
and two years ago in their last seven games,
they went two and five
and last year in their last six games. They went one in five,
and I'm not putting that all on Cuyler Murray at all. I'm not
but
you You accompany that with
a lousy playoff game
that he played last year and he's only played one of them.
And honestly, if I were Eric Burkhart and Kyler Murray,
and obviously,
I don't, I'm not in that business.
I would sing for my supper in 2022.
I would play out this year
and go back and prove to everybody in, Arizona.
That I'm a worker bee that I'm going to show you that I'm
going to step up for all the people who question my
leadership. For all the people who question,
how I play down the stretch of a season.
I'm going to come back and I'm going to show you all.
Okay, because right now
how could you justify putting Kyler Murray in the Patrick
Mahomes Stratosphere?
You can't how could you can't? Because
there's just, it just can't, it can't be done. I mean, That
play right there.
The play that were shown. Can we show that one more time?
I want to show that one more time.
And the reason that I want to show that is that
that play,
if you give your quarterback 43, 45 million dollars right
here, where you know,
that is one of the most irresponsible plays
a quarterback can ever ever make.
Okay,
and if that's the last Vision you have, and Then you
introduce Kyler Murray. Here's our 43 million dollar
quarterback.
I mean, isn't everybody going to look up there and say, what
are you talking about?
I mean, could we have some results? First?
I do understand
that. There are those who would say that if Kyler Murray goes
out this year and has an MVP here. He's going to be,
he's you're going to pay him 48 million, a year, you're going
to it's going to cost you a lot more to do that.
The problem is if he Those out and plays in and out, C, plus B
minus level
where he has a baker Mayfield year.
And again, Baker, Mayfield was hurt this year. So that's
unfair. Kylie wants to color was to us an up and down year.
Yeah.
That's right. He was
if he has an up-and-down here,
then you have to ask yourself.
What have we done by paying him now? That's why to me,
if I were Eric Burkhart and Kyler Marie,
I would Could I would have a show me year and I would enter
this year and just say
okay. You didn't want to pay me. I'll show you.
I would give them
a year. Like Joe Flacco gave the Ravens
in 2013. Oh, you don't want to pay me. Okay. Well, I'll show
you and he went out
and he let his play. Do the talking.
He went on the road. He won all those games. Won the Super Bowl
and became the NFL's. First 20 million-dollar player
in history. It seems bizarre. Doesn't it -
That's eight years ago.
That's eight years ago
that the highest paid player in football
makes 40% of what the highest paid player makes right now,
but that's the reality of NFL economics.
Well, especially because the salary cap keeps going up and
up and it will continue to go up and up and up and everyone
associated with the game is making more and more and more
money and
that brings me to a tweet that Eric Burkhart posted on Sunday.
Posted our article about the dust-up between Aaron Rodgers
and Greg Jennings over. Whether Rogers being selfish. If he
wants 50 million per year Jennings former teammate and
Green Bay obviously
says Rogers is being selfish. My message was if Rogers wants
50 million per year. He's not being selfish as being smart.
He's earned it and he should get it Burkhart. Retweeted that
with this message. Frankly
Rogers is worth. Well, more than 50 million per
announcers are now making 20 million plus,
to drive to the game out of Harm's Way and
just talk about quarterbacks and players.
That's
That's the
thing that we have to remember here.
The numbers are going to keep going up and up, and up 45
million per year, is just
a stopover on the way to 50, 55, 60, 65 70, because
the numbers are going to keep going haywire. And
and we can't wrap our heads around that, I think, his fans
and his media. And we only have access
to
the compensation paid
to the, to the players. We don't see the tax returns.
That the owners file
and see how much more money they're making every year,
every year every year as the revenue goes Haywire. But
that's part of it too. The economics of the game are
changing dramatically.
Every year. We had the dip due to the pandemic that's now over
and I know they've smooth out some of the losses and it's
going to be held back a little bit but between the new TV
money
and the gambling money Peter.
The the salary cap is going to explode and I think that's one
of the reasons guy like Kyle Marie
would say I shouldn't be paying for playing for 5.5 million
in 2022. I shouldn't have to play for 5.5 million in 2022.
This needs to be rectified now,
and the challenge becomes figuring out the right number
to rectify to. I have a Cardinals want to give him
a contract. It's just, how do they come up with the right
number?
For a guy who has had regression
each of the last two seasons, fairly significant regression,
whether it was driven by injury or not. He's had a dip for
consecutive years and his coach. Has had a dip for nine,
straight years
all the way back to Texas, Tech every year
starts, good to great.
And then as the year goes on it, it's slides.
And that can't be ignored either.
Look,
I think the only way if they desperately want to do
a contract, now,
is to do a contract that has
some incentives built into it incentives on like
anybody's ever seen in a quarterback contract before.
But basically,
you know, put incentives in there that says, you know, if
you achieve this
then your contract goes up to this and all that.
There's stuff but
Mike it's hard for me to pay Kyler Murray right now, 43 or
whatever million dollars. I just
I still have some questions about them.
Well, I look, I agree with you, but from burkhart's
perspective. The questions have been answered from the team's
perspective. The questions are there. And that's why they're
in this current awkward posture,
where you've got
the tiny little single-spaced, full-page
statement from Burkhart yesterday
and, and, and look. And, and
you know, Peter, we haven't mentioned this yesterday
because it's not like he could go pick up a baseball bat or
a baseball glove and play baseball. Because of their
labor issues. But
by the time, the regular season rolls around
training camp rolls around,
I don't know, baseball be back on. If it is.
He's the one guy in the NFL.
That has the ultimate leverage of saying
screw it. I'll go play another professional sport
if he really wants to do it and he's still only 24.
I mean he could but,
you know, the major league baseball draft road is littered
with first second and third
picks of the draft
who never sniffed the big leagues.
So
all I'm saying is that if Kyler Marie wanted to do this
and I think he probably could do this.
But you're sitting there, not really sure
that you will definitely be able to do this. And in order
to be able to do this. You're going to have to endure,
probably too. Full minor-league seasons.
I would say at least
in order to get to that goal.
The question is,
do you want to do that? I have no idea whether he does or not,
but I do think that
That you can't just say, well, you know, he's got baseball out
there. I mean,
it's just it's different. It's not a lock
and his experience
in baseball, you know, in college. I mean, he, I forget
how many at-bats he had. But it's not like
he played three full seasons
of college baseball.
So
I hey, look, I trust that he could
make the big leagues.
I believe that he could
good,
but that's an investment of time and effort
and uncertainty that you really don't know.
I don't disagree with any of that, but he's the only guy in
the NFL who currently even has a reasonable path to give it
a try, if he would choose to do it and one of the reasons he
made the football choice, three years ago is hey franchise,
quarterbacks,
make great money, even though you've got a
more limited career than you would have in baseball.
But now we're at the point where how great
of the money will it be for Kyler Murray? And when we'll
find out and it look the Cardinals have broken from this
past, but it wasn't all that long
ago. That the Cardinals were really really cheap. I remember
a Michael silver item
about how they would padlocked the Gatorade
cooler. On the players day of
how they sign. I think it was Robert Griffith to a contract
and they deducted from his signing bonus. The cost of
the FedEx envelope, the signing bonus. Jack was sent to him,
man.
I mean, so, you know, this is a team with a history
of counting pennies
which, which makes this
This really first, big quarterback negotiation in team history,
a challenge.