BOISE, Idaho — THIS DAY IN SPORTS…April 25, 2019, five years ago today:
Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray becomes the first player ever to be chosen in the first round of both the NFL and Major League Baseball Drafts when he’s taken No. 1 overall by the Arizona Cardinals. Murray had been the ninth overall pick by the Oakland A’s in the MLB Draft the previous June and had originally planned to play his junior year with the Sooners. He would then switch to baseball after signing with the A’s (who had compared him to Rickey Henderson and had given him a $4.66 million signing bonus).
But a run to the 2018 Heisman Trophy changed Murray’s mind, and he stuck with football. As a junior with the Sooners, Murray threw for 4,361 yards and 42 touchdowns against seven interceptions—plus 1,001 rushing yards and 12 more TDs. A year after backing up Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield, Murray won the coveted hardware himself. He had to pay back $1.29 million of the $1.5 million the A’s had already paid him, but oh well.
Skeptics didn’t think Murray was big enough to stand up to the pounding an NFL quarterback typically absorbs, suggesting that he should have opted for a long, productive baseball career. It turns out that Murray’s measurements at the NFL Combine were similar to those of then-Seahawks QB Russell Wilson: 5-10, 207 pounds. Murray went on to earn 2019 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year honors. But the Cardinals have notched just one winning campaign during Murray’s tenure, in 2021, and played in their only postseason game that season.
Murray is always facing doubters, but he’s still an upper-echelon NFL signal-caller. He tore his ACL in December, 2022, and didn’t return until last November. The Cardinals went 3-5 with Murray back under center, but their offensive numbers soared—up 73 yards and 5½ points per game over Arizona’s first nine games. He seems resurgent, and he credits Jonathan Gannon, who replaced Kliff Kingsbury as head coach last season, for the positive changes Gannon brought to the Cardinals’ culture.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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