Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray famously turned down a contract with the Oakland A’s to enter the NFL in 2019. But the A’s still have his baseball rights should he ever decide to give up on football.
However, after signing his five-year, $230 million contract extension with the Cardinals today, some interesting language about baseball was revealed.
According to Arizona sports insider John Gambadoro, there’s language in the deal that voids some guarantees if Murray plays baseball. The deal also contains a no-trade clause.
But the most important thing is that Murray cannot pull a Deion Sanders and attempt to play two sports at the same time. Fortunately for Cardinals fans, that hasn’t been an issue thus far.
Kyler Murray had gone ninth overall to the A’s in the 2018 MLB draft and even signed a $4.6 million deal, but returned to college for one more – ultimately incredible – college football season.
After winning the Big 12 title and the Heisman Trophy while leading Oklahoma to the College Football Playoff, Murray decided that he would stick with football instead.
Even so, there was no small amount of speculation back in 2019 that Kyler Murray might skip the NFL entirely and stick to baseball. Especially if he didn’t go high enough in the NFL Draft.
But after going first overall, it was clear that the big bucks were waiting for him in the NFL. And today’s contract extension proved it.