Many people once questioned whether Kyler Murray made the right financial decision by choosing football over baseball, but the star quarterback now has 230 million reasons to feel like the choice was a wise one.
Murray agreed to a massive contract extension with the Arizona Cardinals on Thursday. The deal is worth $230.5 million and includes $160 million guaranteed. Murray is now second in the NFL in average annual salary at $46.1 million, behind only Aaron Rodgers.
Before Murray entered the NFL Draft, the Oakland A’s took him with the No. 8 overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft. He would have had a $4.66 million signing bonus. The A’s offered him an additional $14 million in an attempt to convince him to forget about football.
Murray still made much more money on his rookie deal with the Cardinals than he would have in his first MLB contract. The risk was always what would happen down the road. MLB stars make more guaranteed money than NFL stars. If Murray became a bust, he would have been looking at backup money or worse with his second NFL contract.
Instead, his new average annual salary is almost the same as the entire A’s payroll.
Remember when the #Athletics drafted Kyler Murray with their No. 1 pick in 2018, trying to convince him to choose #MLB over the #NFL?
Well, he just signed a 5-year, $230.5M extension with Arizona Cardinals.
He’ll earn an average of $46.1M a year.
The A's entire payroll is $48.5M— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) July 21, 2022
Perhaps Murray would have become the next Mike Trout. However, the path to MLB stardom is typically a very long one. It would have been years before Murray had a chance to make the same type of money playing baseball that he is now making with the Cardinals. It turns out he knew what he was doing all along.
