| By Jay Busbee
The news that Kyler Murray signed a new extension despite publicly feuding with his Arizona Cardinals during the offseason doesn't really qualify as groundbreaking. After all, what was Murray going to do, go play for the Oakland A's? And even though Murray hasn't quite performed to the level of Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes, it's not like the Cardinals were going to pull a Josh Rosen (again) or Sam Darnold and cut ties with him. Both sides were pot-committed, the only question left was, how big is the pot?
Pretty dang big, as it turned out. The total contract is — you know what, the total contract number doesn't mean a dang thing in the you-can-be-cut-anytime NFL, so let's focus on what does matter: the guaranteed money. That total — $160 million — is vast, but nowhere near the $230 million guaranteed to Deshaun Watson.
Here's why that's significant: If Murray's deal had equaled Watson's in terms of guaranteed money, it would have altered the landscape for all the quarterbacks following in Murray's wake. Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert and even Russell Wilson can already point to Murray's contract and say, "Look what he got. Pay up." If they had record-setting guaranteed money as further leverage, there absolutely would be some no-holds-barred fights going on over negotiating tables.
As it is, owners can point to Watson's deal and characterize it as an outlier — a case of the Cleveland Browns going where no team will follow — rather than a benchmark for increased quarterback salaries. For now, anyway. Whichever QB deal comes next will creep closer to Watson's figure than Murray, but teams will do all they can to keep that Watson deal on an island.
Teams will also plead poverty when it comes to these contracts, since they are required to keep contracts' guaranteed money in escrow. It's a leftover from the days when there was a very real chance that a team would default on its obligations. And if you listen to teams, they'll tell you they're barely scraping by, and if you don't fork over $12 for that beer, they might go under before November.
Don't believe them. The Packers — the only team required to open their books — did so this week, and the revelations killed any hope that owners can plead poverty. The Packers' share of national revenue, which every team gets and which does not include local revenue, was $347.3 million last year. This, in a year where the salary cap was $182.5 million. That figure is up $100 million per team in the last five years, and doesn't include the monster new TV contract numbers. So yes, every NFL team is doing just fine, and so, in turn, will players who can command big deals.
Here's where things get even more interesting, although we won't see these effects for a few years yet. Assuming Burrow et. al. cash in, the buy-in price for a top quarterback is going to be in the $40-$45 million range. Will Trevor Lawrence, Mac Jones and the rest of the Class of 2021 warrant that kind of hit to the salary cap? Maybe, maybe not, but that's going to be the market price.
What that, in turn, could lead to, as our Charles Robinson notes, is a whole lot of teams looking to the draft rather than their own roster or free agency for future starting quarterbacks. With a few marquee exceptions, quarterback could be a short-term gig — draft 'em, run 'em out there for four or five years, ditch 'em for a younger model or a cut-rate veteran before you have to pay 'em.
Kyler Murray's contract is definitely great news for Kyler Murray, and it should be great news for the Arizona Cardinals, too. As for the rest of the teams in the NFL, particularly those without an elite QB already in-house and signed? Maybe not so much.
—Follow Jay Busbee on Twitter
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