At the NFL Combine Friday Oklahoma draft prospect QB Kyler Murray was asked an array of questions. One of which was his reaction to MLB’s Bryce Harper signing a mega deal with the Philadelphia Phillies. His reaction made it sound like it wasn’t a big deal.
Oklahoma QB Kyler Murray asked if Bryce Harper’s deal got his attention: “Everyone makes a big deal of him making $300 million. There’s quarterbacks making more per year than him.”
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) March 1, 2019
He also asked how much Harper makes per year. To be exact, it’s $25.38M per year on average for total of $330M on a 13 year contract. Do some QB’s make more than that per year? Yes. How many? Five. That list includes Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan, Kirk Cousins, Jimmy Garoppolo, and Matthew Stafford.
So even though there are QB’s making more. Harper makes more than 27 of the NFL’s other starters. And for the QB’s that do make more than Harper on a per year average, they likely won’t catch him when it comes to all-time salary.
In fact the highest paid NFL QB of all time is none other than Peyton Manning. And his all-time player salary of $248.7M doesn’t even come close to Harper’s new mega single contract.
If Murray hopes to even get close to Bryce Harper money, he will need to get paid like a top 5 QB fast. Not to mention stay healthy in the violent sport of football. In fact NFLPA’s data states that the average NFL QB’s career is just over 3 years. So on average they won’t even see the end of their rookie deal.
Perhaps his agent should have him skip the Wonderlic test?
Without a doubt Kyler Murray was simply trying to defend his decision to solely focus on his pro career in the NFL. In the process though he made an ill-informed response. Without stepping on the field during the NFL Combine to make a single throw, he made headlines. The question is how it will affect his draft stock.
