Reeks of “we caved and paid you, but are not happy about it.”
Sometimes the teams are stuck. I remember this happening to Andrew Wiggins.
Spoiler alert: he didn’t and was later traded. Then he reinvented himself as a third option on a better team.
You made me click a fucking Deadspin article. Boo!
I really like this. I’ve always thought more people should demonstrate the absurdity of something by openly working through the supposed logic behind it.
I had no idea he was 5’10". It does seem kind of far-fetched that he doesn’t study film. Now the media can focus on the organization to find out the source of this mystery.
Scuzz
2992
Do you think that if Murray wasn’t watching a lot of film he would admit to it? And 4 hours a week is so few as to make you wonder why management would insert such a requirement.
If nothing else it makes you wonder if management thinks he isn’t fully prepared.
That’s what is so bizarre. Are we to believe that’s typical contract language? I have a hard time believing that we’d never have heard about that or that a slew of different players would have popped up on social media to say so (which I presume hasn’t happened or someone would have mentioned it).
So, if it isn’t normal language why is it here? Either Murray is telling the truth and that section is insulting as hell (and why would his attorney have let it stand) or there was some reason the team felt it necessary.
You also wonder who leaked this and why.
Lantz
2994
There’s some teams that love to add weird clauses so it isn’t a huge aberration to have them in there, but it is weird to put something like that in for a star player that you’re giving $160M guaranteed and $230M total. He also has a clause about not playing baseball which makes more sense. Arizona’s front office already had a reputation of not being very good and this seems to further that in my eyes.
Making a huge distraction shit show like this over 80 hours of solo prep time when I’m sure he already does it and the huge number of hours he would spend with the team doing anyways makes no sense. Either you believe in him enough to make him your franchise QB or you don’t. This seems like preemptive blame material if things don’t work out (which I think is likely because their team building and resource allocation around him is bad).
Scuzz
2995
I don’t know. If Murray and his agent signed off on the contract there is nobody to blame but them.
Murray was also quoted last season as saying he knew what was going on and didn’t require all the game study. You have to wonder if that was the impetus behind the wording. And again, four hours a week. What QB wouldn’t be expected to do that?
Lantz
2996
Oh sure, I have no idea about any of that, but just saying that putting it in the contract vs working on it behind closed doors is a really questionable approach in my head.
Scuzz
2997
So it is now being reported that the Cardinals have removed the requirement from the contract. Whoever leaked it is probably happy.
JeffL
2998
That was always the odd part to me: Why didn’t Murray/his agent tell the front office, hey that part is insulting and a cheap shot, take it out before we sign? It leads me to guess there was something we don’t know behind it being put into the contract.
Maybe they put it in there to see if he’d bother reading the contract.
This whole thing smells of publicity stunt. I mean seriously, look at all of the free press its gathered. People love confrontation and tension.
Scuzz
3002
This isn’t good publicity for either side though. They both look incompetent.
Athletes love their brand. Would Murray risk having his brand include “needs to be assigned to study hall” just for a publicity stunt?
If he gets to play the outraged and aggrieved superior athlete like he just did? Hell, yes especially if he knows its all a publicity stunt. Unless he falls on his face in the regular season, none of this is going to linger beyond the next big story. But it does get his name all over the place for a news cycle, so yeah, I think its absolutely believable that this was a publicity stunt. What I find a bit incredulous is that this would be dropped into his contract and his agent and him didn’t blink… until after the contract was signed and it became “news”. Its an incredibly unusual and rather specific clause. If that’s how it did go down he should have immediately fired his agent.
Scuzz
3005
You do understand that major media like ESPN pretty much raked Murray over the coals for his team feeling they needed to insert that clause. There was some bad work by his agent here, because nothing good comes out of this for Murray.
Unless he can now say he doesn’t need to do 4 hours of film study a week because it’s not in his contract.
Pretty much what I expected, given that the league has done nothing about Kraft, Snyder or Jones. A win for the Browns front office considering the way they structured Watson’s contract and the signing of Jacoby Brissett. If the Browns win a couple of those games with Brissett starting, they could be in a good position for a playoff run.
