Every two-sport athlete's case has unique elements, but the NFL scored a trendy victory over Major League Baseball on Monday when 2018 Heisman Trophy winner and Oakland A's first-round draftee Kyler Murray announced he will pursue a career in football rather than baseball.
The NFL gets an explosive athlete who's already nationally known to sports fans.
And, widening the NFL path to others like him, the 5-foot-10 Murray stands to become the shortest quarterback drafted in the league's first round since the NFL Draft began in 1967 (per ESPN).
MLB loses out on a center fielder who likened himself to A's Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson and inspired Oakland to sign him for close to $5 million after investing a draft pick worth as much as $20 million to $25 million per some teams' metrics.
Murray's decision was felt by two former San Diegans who are part of Oakland's braintrust in Billy Beane and Grady Fuson, who both played quarterback and baseball in high school.
"We gave it a shot," Fuson said Monday from Oakland's organizational meetings in Arizona.
Murray would've been an electrifying baseball player, had he lived up to Oakland's scouting projections.
Fuson said the righty has rare bat speed, and foot speed that's "plus-plus."
Though less advanced, his pitch recognition, swing and power belied his sparse baseball workload of the past three years, when college football training dominated his sports calendar.
A belief that Murray wouldn't evolve into a first-round NFL draftee influenced Oakland's decision to draft him No. 9 overall last June, said Fuson, while knowing that if he opted for the NFL after signing, the A's wouldn't recoup a compensatory draft pick.
NFL Draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah of the NFL Network, reached Monday, said that as of last June he wouldn't have projected Murray to become a first-round draftee.
"Nope -- nothing to go on," he said.
Murray had sat behind Oklahoma starter Baker Mayfield in 2017 and had sat out the 2016 season after transferring from Texas A&M, for which he had appeared in eight games, starting three, as a freshman in 2015.
However, Murray quickly became a devastating pass-run playmaker in Coach Lincoln Riley's Sooners offense, much as Mayfield had after the former Texas Tech walk-on transferred to Oklahoma.
In 14 games, he passed for 4,361 yards and 42 touchdowns with 7 interceptions and also rushed for 1,001 yards with a 7.1 per-carry average.
The broad development here is that various trends have expanded the pool of NFL quarterback candidates to include more of the mobile athletes who don't have prototypical height.
Shorter quarterbacks Russell Wilson and Mayfield paved the way for Murray to gain the leverage of NFL first-round status.
Wilson became a top-10 NFL quarterback who teamed up with great Seahawks defenses to lead Seattle to consecutive Super Bowls.
That Wilson -- measured at 5-101/2 and 204 pounds at the NFL scouting combine -- has made all 112 starts in seven seasons punctures the belief that a hybrid quarterback can't avoid serious injury.
By becoming a projected first-round draftee, Murray tilted the economics his way, no small factor in a sport that brings far greater risk of head trauma.
He stands to get a four-year, guaranteed contract that doubles or triples what the A's pledged him. (Fuson, who is special assistant to A's General Manager David Forst, said details were being discussed but multiple reports said Murray will return nearly $1.29 million of the $1.5 million bonus he already received, and will not collect the remaining $3.16 million that he was due to be paid next month.)
The competitive rewards come sooner in football, too.
Instead of playing this summer in Stockton for Oakland's Class A club in the Cal League, in front of 1,000 fans, Murray will be training with his NFL team and figures to play as a rookie. The A's knew all along that if Murray could boost his NFL stock, his passion for the sport would become more of a factor.
For the San Diego Padres, there is some good news here, if one takes a quirky view.
Under General Manager A.J. Preller, where they've been most aggressive at acquiring talent is a realm where not even the $14 billion NFL industry is a factor for players. At least, not yet.
Latin America isn't producing NFL quarterbacks, last we checked.
Sports on 02/14/2019