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At this point in his career, Kyler Murray has proven previous concerns about his work ethic and commitment to football were fairly overblown, and the Cardinals quarterback was more than happy to take a victory lap after things came full circle thanks to the deal he inked to promote the newest Call of Duty game.
There was a reason the Arizona Cardinals decided to use the top pick in the 2019 NFL Draft to select Kyler Murray, and the man who won the Heisman Trophy during his time at Oklahoma picked up where he left off by winning Offensive Rookie of the Year honors.
In 2022, the QB and the franchise found themselves at a bit of an impasse after he made it very clear he thought he deserved a new contract.
The Cardinals eventually agreed to a five-year deal worth upwards of $230 million, but it (initially) included a unique “independent study” clause that required him to devote a minimum of four hours each week to watching film while explicitly prohibiting him from “watching television, playing video games, and browsing the internet” while doing so.
The team ultimately decided to remove that clause after NFL fans started jumping to conclusions concerning the motivation behind it—including a number of people who latched onto a Reddit post that took a closer look at his Call of Duty stats and determined he played noticeably worse on weekends when a Double XP promotion was live.
Murray was never shy about his love of video games (he said he had a tendency to play around three hours a day back in 2021), so there were plenty of critics who were more than happy to point to that habit when he failed to meet expectations.
However, it’s pretty clear he’s more than capable of balancing that pastime with the work required to be a starting quarterback in the NFL, and on Monday, he got the last laugh while thanking “the trolls who memed me into a bag” while revealing he’s partnered with EA to promote the newest installment in the Call of Duty franchise (Black Ops 6, which will drop on October 25th).
To the trolls who memed me into a bag, thank you!
I’m officially launching my @CallofDuty partnership! #CODPartnership #TheReplacer #BlackOps6 pic.twitter.com/JwpZKxSzYo
— Kyler Murray (@K1) October 7, 2024
Well played.