At the N. F. L.’s predraft combine, the biggest question has been whether Murray, one of the country’s supreme athletes, has what it takes to play quarterback in the league.
INDIANAPOLIS — First it was Kyler Murray’s height. Then it was Kyler Murray’s weight. And then, after Kyler Murray’s weight, it was Kyler Murray’s hand size.
By Friday, when Murray appeared before the news media, the chatter at the weeklong N. F. L. combine — an annual predraft meat market that makes little pretense of being anything subtler — had been dominated by discussions of his physical qualifications (or lack thereof). Does he, the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback for Oklahoma who is preparing for April’s draft, really have what is needed to succeed as a pro?
Gil Brandt, the former Dallas Cowboys personnel chief, could not remember more buzz around a draft prospect.
“This is the most in history,” Brandt said, “and I’ve been doing this since 1977.”
A number of factors have contributed to the Kyler craze.
Three months ago, he and Scott Boras, the most powerful of baseball agents, told anyone who asked that Murray planned to finish his sole season as the Sooners’ starting quarterback and then report to spring training with the Oakland Athletics, who pickedhim ninth over all in last year’s Major League Baseball draft and agreed to pay him a $4.66 million signing bonus.
Instead, after acquitting himself admirably in a national playoff semifinal loss to Alabama, Murray announced that his focus would remain on football after all. He effectively spurned the A’s and their money in favor of pursuing his gridiron dreams, even though as quarterbacks go, he is, charitably speaking, not tall.
Murray did not know what N. F. L. teams thought of him until he completed his productive 2018 season, he told several dozen journalists on Friday as they gathered in a corner of the mammoth Indianapolis Convention Center. “The N. F. L. kind of heated up,” he said, “and here we are.”
Recently, there have been a couple of successful quarterbacks who stand south of six feet tall.
