My first note on Kyler Murray was "He be fast." I wrote that because, as this play shows, he do be fast.
There are mobile quarterbacks, and there are generational athletes, and Murray looks like he might be a part of that latter category. There is the chance that he tests in the Michael Vick range during the combine, and that is going to force some teams to think long and hard about the former Sooner.
Murray knows he is fast (it's kind of hard not to notice that about oneself), and the confidence in his athleticism helps so he can keep his eyes downfield as he escapes pressure.
Here, he feels the pressure coming from his left, and starts jogging to his right, sprints, and then goes back to a job as defenders close in on him to complete a pass near the first down marker.
Here is some very impressive patience from Murray.
This looks like an absolute nothing play. It's an incompletion where Murray never really moves, but I LOVE that he doesn't move. He recognizes that his offensive line has created a clean pocket against a three-man rush, and he is totally safe to just hang out and wait for someone to get open. It's tough to tell from the camera angle, but it appears that his receiver may have given up on the route a little bit, but Murray may have overthrown it either way. Still, I love that there is no panic in his process.
This play also shows that patience from Murray, although he does move around a little more on this play.
The reason I wanted to show this is that this play is on fourth down in the fourth quarter of a game that would determine who makes the Big 12 Championship game. Everything is riding on this play, and Murray just waits, directs traffic, scrambles out, waits, directs traffic again, and fires the ball to his receiver breaking towards the sideline. The throw is low, but the receiver does a good job of still making the play and helped ice the game for the Sooners.
As you may have guessed, Kyler Murray is really good at throwing on the move.
On this throw, he looks like a baseball player throwing it, and maybe baseball will help him to throw accurately with different footwork. It's not traditional, but it sure looks effective.
I mentioned his patience earlier, and here he does a great job of scanning the field before making another great throw.
He starts off looking to his left before moving back to the center, and then gives a quick look to his checkdown receiver before going back over the middle for a touchdown. And he recognizes that his offensive line has their blocks taken care of, so outside of bouncing on his feet, he doesn't move from his initial drop.
Another fourth down where Murray calmly executes the play and makes a nice throw.
He is very good on back shoulder throws as I saw him consistently beat teams with this type of throw.
As much good as there is with Murray, he is not a perfect prospect. Here is a very bad throw where he fails to read the coverage properly.
He manages to miss both a guy undercutting the route on the right and a guy undercutting the route on the left as either guy had a better shot at the ball than his receiver, and it's an easy interception for the defense.
I saw enough on tape to make me concerned on his ability to read zone coverage.
Here, he starts looking to his left, but switches to his tight end running over the middle and gets tunnel vision. The tight end has a step on his immediate defender, but there are three defenders in teh area, and he's lucky that this pass does not get picked off. Murray likely didn't see a ton of great defenses this year, so seeing how he handles different coverages will be the biggest key to his future success.
So now it's time to talk about size, and I will be curious how Kyler Murray measures out when it comes to hand size.
I did see some unforced or lightly forced fumbles that are a slight concern. It's not a deal breaker by any means, but any quarterback who loses an extra four or five balls without throwing it is something to keep in mind.
As for the height issue, I didn't see a lot of batted down balls, and he didn't seem to have trouble scanning the field, so I'm of the belief that if it didn't show up on tape, it probably isn't a major concern. The other thing that has been brought up is that he looks slight of frame, and that has to be a bit of a concern, because it doesn't matter how good of a player he is if he can't stay healthy. From what I saw, he looked good at not taking big hits. It's the difference between Russell Wilson's health and RG3's. Wilson knows how to minimize the impact of hits where RG3 took brute force, and Murray's ability to avoid big hits definitely resembles Wilson. Still, Wilson is pretty damn thick compared to Murray so it still has to be somewhat of a concern, but he's shown as much as you can outside of adding 30 pounds on his frame to make you think that he knows how to stay healthy while playing a violent sport.
As a fellow small guy, I always cheer for the undersized. I have also noticed that it usually gets blown out of proportion. Kyler Murray is short for a quarterback, but so was Baker Mayfield last year, and although Murray is shorter, there is nothing that he did on the field to make this nearly as big of a concern as it's being made out to be. Right now, it seems like it is between Murray and Dwayne Haskins for the top quarterback in the draft, and in that scenario, Murray is a slam dunk. I don't think he is the prospect that Baker Mayfield was, but in a weak quarterback class, he is the clear top option.
Previous Scouting Reports:
Noah Fant - Iowa Hawkeyes - Tight End
Dwayne Haskins - Ohio State Buckeyes - Quarterback
TJ Hockenson - Iowa Hawkeyes Tight End
Amani Hooker - Iowa Hawkeyes - Safety
Josh Jacobs - Alabama Crimson Tide - Running Back
Daniel Jones - Duke Blue Devils - Quarterback
Anthony Nelson - Iowa Hawkeyes - Defensive End
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