Kyler Murray was later selected with the top overall pick. The main knock on Murray is something he has no control over, his size. At 5'10, 207 lbs, with 9 1/2 inch hands many critics thought Murray would struggle with injuries and fumbles due to his play style and small hands. Despite being one of the most dominant college players in recent memory the criticisms rolled in. Yet Kingsbury didn't care, he thought Murray would prove them wrong. Two years into his career, I would argue he already has. Let's take a look at his statistics to back up my claim then I will discuss his win loss record and how he isn't necessarily the only person who deserves credit or blame for that record.
Murray in 2 seasons has won offensive rookie of the year, been named to the Probowl and was awarded with probowl MVP as well. Through 2 seasons he has played in and started all 32 regular season games of his short career. During that stretch Murray has had struggles with fumbles though with 14 total, although he recovered 5 of them himself and lost a total of 6 to the other team with teammates falling on the other 3 fumbles. However this man has also run the ball 226 times for 1,363 yards and 15 tds so it's easy to see why the fumble numbers might be inflated. Murray is just third in total carries by a quarterback during that stretch behind only Lamar Jackson, and Josh Allen..for comparison's sake Allen had 22 fumbles his first two seasons losing 6 and recovering 6 of his own fumbles, Jackson 21 fumbles lost 6, recovered 9 and inexplicably forced a fumble as well. So Murray's numbers here are actually better than Allen's and Jackson's. However he isn't strictly a running quarterback as evidenced by his passing numbers.
Kyler Murray has thrown an insane 1100 passes since entering the NFL topping 540 attempts in both seasons. As a rookie he completed just under 65% of his passes, and as a sophomore completed over 67% of his passes. Giving him a career completion rate of nearly 66%. Granted this is the Air Raid offense we are talking about and passing attempts will always come in droves, the typically low yards per attempt for these style quarterbacks is somewhat of a hallmark for any offense that uses screens, short passes, and shovel passes as an extension of the run game, doesn't really apply here. As a rookie Murray averaged 6.9 yards per attempt, and followed that up with 7.1 yards in 2020. He threw for 3,722 yards in 2019, and 3,971 yards in 2020. Nothing to sneeze at either. (as evidenced by his OROY, and Probowl nomination) Something that you can expect as another symptom of the Air Raid offense is an increased number of interceptions due to out of control passing attempt numbers, however yet again Murray has avoided this woe. Despite 1100 passing attempts the man has thrown just 24 interceptions, compared to his 46 passing touchdowns. Add in the 15 rushing tds, and 6 lost fumbles and his numbers are stellar. 61 total tds to just 30 turnovers. To put that into perspective he threw an interception roughly ever 46 passing attempts. I'm pretty sure any coach with a brain would take those numbers all day. Anytime a QB is putting up 2 tds for every turnover that quarterback is generally putting your team in a great position to win, and managing the game as you would hope your franchise QB would.
So long story short...why does this man still have critics? I mentioned Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson as the most comparable players in terms of rushing so let's take a quick look at how their passing numbers compare. Being that Jackson won an MVP award, and Josh Allen took a monumental leap into elite status from year one to year two I think both men should be apt comparisons here as well.
Lamar Jackson through his first two seasons: 31 games 571 passing attempts, 62% completion rate, 42 passing touchdowns, 9 interceptions this puts him at 7.45 yards per attempt.
Josh Allen through his first two seasons: 28 games 781 passing attempts, 55.8 completion rate, 30 tds, 21 ints, and 6.6 yards per attempt.
Looking at Kyler Murray's stats again:
1100 attempts, 66% completion rate, 46 tds, 24 ints and 7 yards per attempt.
To me this shows a few things, first of all despite throwing almost twice as many passes as those guys he managed a much better completion rate than both, dominated all of Josh Allen's stats, and beat out Jackson in yards, and tds but didn't produce the same yards per attempt, or as few interceptions...keep in mind Jackson threw 571 passes to Murray's 1100...more importantly what this shows me is Murray was ready for the NFL the minute he was drafted, he was trusted to throw over 500 passes a year, and Kingsbury hasn't shown the least bit of doubt in his quarterback which I believe has been crucial to Murray's statistical success. To be honest as skilled as Murray is, his statistics wouldn't be possible if it weren't for his coach being willing to allow his young QB to go out and sling it nearly 35 times a game every week. There are a lot of veterans in this league that aren't trusted to do that even as starters, yet this man did it as a rookie, and for good measure did it as a sophomore again. To sum it all up, Murray can safely tell.his critics to kick rocks at this point because he has shut down every bit of criticism he has received since day one, if I had to guess we will see Murray take home an NFL MVP before the expiration of his rookie contract, fulfilling every bit of faith Kingsbury had in him and officially shutting up any critics left.
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