TEMPE — We’ve all heard the saying: The NFL is a business.
That couldn’t have been more evident this offseason for the Arizona Cardinals and quarterback Kyler Murray.
The twists and turns of contract-extension negotiations and posturing was a weekly and sometimes daily occurrence. Whether it was reports questioning the QB’s leadership, a handful of statements between the two sides, a few Twitter rants or a pesky social media scrubbing.
And one point, it seemed safe to say neither were on each other’s wavelengths given the optics of disconnect.
But through the mountain of drama that transpired, both sides came out all smiles following the signal caller inking a five-year extension worth $230.5 million with $160 million guaranteed.
“I think the two goals at hand all along were to do the best deal for the player, which I think we did and the best deal for the organization to help us build around Kyler moving forward, which I think we did,” general manager Steve Keim said Friday, thanking Murray’s agent Erik Burkhardt in the process.
All along Keim had painted a timeline of when he felt a deal would get completed with Murray: After the draft and the bulk of free agency had passed.
Despite the heat he was receiving from Murray’s camp, he kept to his timeline. Given the GM’s long-standing relationship with Burkhardt, he felt confident a deal would be struck.
“I had so much faith in not only Erik Burkhardt and being able to get it done with him as I have a long relationship with him, but Kliff and I saw Kyler and his parents (in Dallas) this offseason,” Keim said. “We had great communication with him, felt great about the dialogue and understood what expectations were from both sides.”
Still, contract negotiations can bring a lot of good days and a lot of bad days. Especially when it comes to social media in today’s age.
Luckily for Murray, contract talks are now a thing of the past, giving him the opportunity to be focused solely on the task at hand.
“This is where I want to be. I made that clear,” Murray said. “More so the bad days I’m talking about is just the negativity of taking the heat throughout social media and all that stuff, which I give (Burkhardt) a little crap for because he put a lot of it on me. … I’m a quiet dude when it comes to social media, stuff like that.
“Just to be able to sit there and take all the shots and stuff like that, it is what it is, but I understood this was part of the business. I let them take care of what they need to take care of. I love the game of football and that’s my goal, like I said, to win championships.”