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Kyler Murray, Cardinals in Lockstep Under Jonathan Gannon
We’ve been on the road for a week covering NFL training camps. So we have a lot to get to this week as I make my way up the Pacific seaboard. So here are the takeaways from the first week of training camp …
You’d be wrong to hold on to the old perception of Kyler Murray. And Arizona Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon would be the first to tell you that. He addressed the elephant in the room with Murray right away, upon his arrival in Arizona almost 2 1/2 ago. He got a very real response, too, that provides a window into what’s inside his young quarterback.
“When I got the job, clean slate, I said, What do you want to do?” Gannon told me, unwinding in a golf cart in the State Farm Stadium tunnel Sunday after practice. “I want to win Super Bowls. I want to be in the conversation of the elite. I said, O.K., you have to be on a good team to do that. You’re not going to be on a bad team and get talked about. You’re not going to win Super Bowls, and you’re not going to get talked about. As good as you could be, you’re not going to get in that conversation unless we’re good.
“I believe in you as a player. We’re going to improve you as a player. We’re going to push you. I just need you to impress your competitiveness and your will to win on the team. He’s done everything.”
He asked Murray to run down rookie teammates to congratulate them after touchdown passes. Murray did it. He asked that he lead them in every way he could. He organized a group trip, and a plane, for guys to go to Oklahoma City for a Thunder–Mavericks NBA playoff game in the spring, then bankrolled travel for a throwing pre-camp in Los Angeles for the offensive skill players.
In short, Gannon asked Murray to give his teammates a lot, and Murray gave them even more.
So what does it mean for an exceedingly young Cardinals team, one that has had 24 draft picks over the past two years, and led the league in snaps played by rookies in 2023? in every way, and that’s given Gannon and his coaching staff a firm foundation to build off. And if it tears down others’ preconceived notions along the way, well, then that’s O.K., too.
But to the quarterback, it does nothing other than show what he knew all along of the preconceived notion others had of him after his first four years in the NFL. That notion?
“It’s not true,” Murray says. “I’ve already said it. For me to be where I am and do the things that I’ve done, not only in this sport, but in other sports, no one’s done it. For people to question whether I love this s--t or how serious I take it, it’s impossible to be around that vibe, half-assing my job. Does it bother me? Of course. Anybody who takes this s--t serious, of course it’s going to bother you, especially when you’re losing.
“They can really say whatever they want, and it is what it is. I know we’re heading in the right direction. We got the right people in the building. They’re going to do everything it takes to get this organization right.”
And that starts with Murray, and a staff that’s worked in lockstep with him.
On the football side, it’s been offensive coordinator Drew Petzing who’s done most of the legwork with Murray, adapting his version of the Gary Kubiak scheme to fit the diminutive quarterback. Last year, it was new for Murray, who’d played in versions of the Air Raid scheme from high school to college to his first four years under Kliff Kingsbury. And it challenged him and his coaches in a lot of ways as Murray came back from his 2022 ACL surgery and was limited to the classroom.
It was also a way to show Murray’s football aptitude and, in doing so, tear down another misconception that he didn’t like. “I would say my football IQ is through the roof,” he says, “regardless of what people made it out to be.”
And the results of 2023 would show that, too. He played well—without the benefit of an on-field offseason program or training camp, and after missing nine regular season games—and Arizona finished 3–5 after a 1–8 start without him. Murray thinks, and has gotten his teammates to believe as Gannon wanted him to, that it was just the start of building something special.
So he’s poured himself into this offseason like no offseason before, staying in Arizona through stretches he used to spend in Texas, and trying to push his team to the next level. Having been among the best quarterbacks ever in high school football (that’s not an exaggeration) and a Heisman Trophy winner in college, Murray knows what it looks like when a program’s about to take off and go on a run.
He sees that now in Arizona.
“I know what it feels like to be great,” Murray says. “I know what it feels like to have the inspiration and the feel of getting to where you want to go. It’s all the confidence in [GM] Monti [Ossenfort] and J.G., the guys that they’re bringing in. The guys that they continue to bring in love the game and share the same competitiveness that I have. If they don’t, they probably won’t be here too much longer.
“All I can do is do my job and make sure these guys are on the right track and hope my competitiveness rubs off on those guys and make sure they have my same fire, my same passion and my same drive for this game.”
It’s a drive that a lot of folks missed a few years ago, but one that he and Gannon are working to make sure is unmistakable from here on out. And they’re doing it in lockstep—Murray calls their relationship “spectacular”—because of the belief they have in each other, and now what’s happening around them.
“It’s because of how he’s responded to what I need him to do for the team,” Gannon says. “Not even as an individual, Drew and Iz [QBs coach Israel Woolfork] take care of that. It’s, You got to be me on the field. Here’s how you can do that in your own way. He’s done everything, and honestly, more.”
While we’re on quarterbacks, there’s an interesting commonality to the contracts Jordan Love and Tua Tagovailoa signed this weekend. Both contracts, to be sure, are rock solid. They also set up, logistically, as three-year deals, with teams given outs after 2026. The trade-off there is that they each expire after the ’28 season, which allows each to cash in again at around 30 years old.
Love’s deal has $142.5 million over the first three years, and guarantees another $20 million (subject to offsets) if he’s cut after 2026. Tagovailoa’s contract has $149.17 million due in its first three years, and guarantees another $3 million (also subject to offsets) if he’s cut after ’26..
So what’s the catch?
A smart agent, who liked both contracts, pointed this out to me over the weekend, and it’s something I hadn’t thought of—in these cases, the shorter contracts also shortened the term of the guarantees, which protected the teams. He raised the case of Carson Wentz, who did a four-year extension in 2019. At the time, it seemed a sure thing that he’d do a third contract with the Philadelphia Eagles down the line. Instead, his career careened off the road, and the shorter deal was easier for the Eagles and the Indianapolis Colts to trade to other teams.
Conversely, a longer contract, with longer commitments, might have made it tougher for the Eagles to move Wentz, and given Wentz another chance in Philly, with the improved roster and new coaching staff Jalen Hurts wound up with. Contracts like this, of course, won’t impact someone such as Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen or Joe Burrow, all of whom did longer deals anyway. But in the case of a quarterback with a shorter track record (Love) or injury trouble (Tagovailoa), it certainly could have an impact down the line.
That said, this is stupid money. If Love is somehow cut after 2026, he’ll have essentially done a two-year, $132 million extension with the Packers, at a new money average of $66 million per year. In Tagovailoa’s case, if that were to happen, his would be a two-year, $126 million extension, or $63 million per year in new money.
For now, those guys should be celebrated for what they’ve accomplished, and Love for his patience and Tagovailoa for his resiliency. Each has the ability to take care of generations of their families, with at least $300 million combined coming for the draft classmates of 2020. A big hat tip to them both.
You’ll know how Antonio Pierce’s first year is going maybe not as much by the record, but by the look of the team. After spending Tuesday at the team hotel, that much, to me, was obvious. As a former player, Pierce has a really clear idea of what he wants his group to look like—a tough, hard-nosed unit that reflects its coach who played middle linebacker in the NFL.
So if you can see it watching the Las Raiders play, a pretty big first step’s been taken. Mostly because so much of what the offseason’s been for Vegas has been about building that.
“Hugely important,” says GM Tom Telesco, who was hired after Pierce was picked. “If you don’t have an identity, it’s just hard to build the team. You’re just grab-bagging. Having a team identity, on offense and defense, What are we? Then you build that. You’re not just randomly drafting and signing players that look really good on a sheet of paper. We’re not just buying stocks and putting them on a sheet. Everything has to fit together as a team.
“To have that identity, it makes it easier for the head coach and assistants to tell scouts this is what we’re looking for in each position.”
That, in turn, should make it easier for Pierce to grow into a job he got with less than two years experience as an NFL assistant, which leads us to other thing that’s pretty cool about how he’s putting all of this together—he’s aware of, and secure with, what he doesn’t know.
If he wasn’t, he probably wouldn’t have been comfortable putting former NFL head coaches Joe Philbin and Marvin Lewis on staff. Phibin, who Pierce says has been incredible for him, is a valuable sounding board for the head coach, and backstop on offense for new OC Luke Getsy. Lewis, who Pierce worked with at Arizona State, is another resource for both the head coach, and incumbent defensive coordinator Patrick Graham.
On top of that, Pierce has also leaned on his old Giants coach Tom Coughlin, who’s on the books for a visit to Raiders camp in Orange County this week.
Put it all together, and you see a guy who knows what he is and what he wants. And after the success ex-players such as Dan Campbell, Mike Vrabel, Kevin O’Connell and DeMeco Ryans have had of late, it’ll be fascinating to see how this one—with some similar markings to it—plays out in 2024.
Speaking of knowing what you want, it’s pretty obvious what the Los Angeles Chargers are going to be in 2024. And that looks a lot like what Jim Harbaugh has been over the years. Through my two days with the team last week, it was abundantly clear how the organization is moving as one with the new guy in charge.
We’re going to have more on this, both on video and in print, soon. But I came away pretty excited to see what this winds up looking like. Because it has a chance to be a very Harbaugh-ish team, maybe a month or two into the season.
Why? Because Joe Alt looks like he was built in a lab to play tackle in the NFL and will help cement a hallmark of all Harbaugh’s best teams—a rock-solid offensive line—in Los Angeles. Because the defense has a real thumper, in Denzel Perryman, that GM Joe Hortiz imported in free agency. Because the tailbacks, Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins, are from a Harbaugh program, the one in Baltimore, and know the assignment. Because the edges should be rugged on defense. And because Derwin James Jr. is a near-perfect Harbaugh guy.
I don’t know if the Chargers will win 12 games or challenge the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC West.
But I bet other teams won’t want to play them in December.
I’d expect the Los Angeles Rams to lean even more into the physical edge they forged as a younger team in 2023. Sean McVay brought New England Patriots alums Nick Caley and Ryan Wendell on to his staff a year ago with the intention of diversifying his offense and his outlook. What he got was more hat-on-hat gap runs, and a tougher team. And that success led the Rams to double down on the approach in acquiring road-grading guards Kevin Dotson and Jonah Jackson, and drafting Michigan workhorse Blake Corum.
Even without pads on last week, you could see and feel that sort of energy with the team.
I’d be surprised, as the pads go on this week, if it’s not reflected in the way the team practices moving forward—and I do think, and this is my thought alone, that it’s becoming about who the Rams are up against, as well as what they want to be.
Kyle Shanahan’s San Francisco 49ers, when they’ve been able to beat the Rams, have done it by playing that brand of football. San Francisco practices in that sort of old-school way. Shanahan’s invested in it by building more old-school run schemes into an offense that long relied so heavily on wide-zone runs. And by doing some of these things, McVay’s not just readying his offense for those wars, but also the defense, and the overall team for them.
The NFC West race should be a blast.
One of the most interesting things I dug up last week related back to the Shanahan offense, as it will be constituted in New Orleans. Klint Kubiak, one of the Niners’ top offensive lieutenants in 2023, was brought over to be the coordinator for Dennis Allen’s Saints, who are camping in the Rams’ old digs at UC Irvine. And as intriguing as the hire is, the reasoning for it may be even moreso.
Sean Payton and Pete Carmichael arrived in New Orleans in 2005, with Carmichael becoming OC in ’09, and taking over play-calling after Payton left. So the Saints spent 19 years running their offense and it was one that, over the years, grew in volume, the reason being that Drew Brees, over all of his years, could handle it.
So the Saints added new concepts and wrinkles without ever subtracting much and, in doing so, created something that was specific to Brees and required certain types of guys around him to make it work. Which is what you do when you have a Hall of Fame quarterback. The problem came when you pulled the Hall of Famer out of the equation.
The hire of Kubiak was made to address that, with Shanahan’s scheme built to be simple for the players, and difficult for defenses—with window dressing, formations, movement and motion to create the illusion of complexity. By putting it in, the thinking goes, the Saints should be able to use younger players earlier, and get everyone playing faster around Derek Carr, who was one of the guys who could handle the complexity of the old scheme.
The dynamic, in fact, is very similar to what faced the Patriots post-Tom Brady, and the logic, in fact, is why Bill Belichick tried to import Shanahan’s concepts the year he made Matt Patricia the offensive coordinator, right after Josh McDaniels left for Vegas.
That, of course, didn’t work for New England. But I always thought Belichick had the right idea and just failed to execute it correctly.
I think, in this case, and with Kubiak aboard, the Saints won’t have that problem.
Travis Kelce said something last week that got my attention. And it confirms a lot of what we all saw through the 2023 season, before the Kansas City Chiefs’ future Hall of Fame tight end turned it on during the playoffs.
“Last year was pretty taxing on my body," he told reporters Saturday. “I’ve had more snaps than a lot of guys if not everybody in the NFL over the past five, six years, and I’m very prideful of that, but I know it has taken a toll on my body. So it’s just making sure that my body’s getting that rest and that ability to train harder and be able to withstand an entire 17-to-20-game season.”
The good news is that he’s on the right team to make that happen.
The Chiefs are in a position where—they can’t say this out loud—they know they’ll be in the playoffs. Barring something weird, they probably get back at least to the conference title game. And having that knowledge should enable Andy Reid and his staff to manage Kelce accordingly.
That, of course, doesn’t mean they put him on ice until January. But it should mean being careful with the 35-year-old, and limiting the mileage on his legs when possible.
I was talking to a GM over the weekend about this, in fact, and the point that GM made was that a player like Kelce, like Tony Gonzalez a generation before him, is so experienced and savvy that, when it really counts, he’ll find ways to get open for his quarterbacks. But the challenge is getting him there with gas in the tank. Which, I’d bet, will be a priority for Reid and his staff.
Players have gotten bolder in asking for mid-contract raises. Matthew Stafford just got one in Los Angeles. Christian McCaffery got one in San Francisco, which sure might’ve pushed Trent Williams to hold on and look for one of his own. Alvin Kamara got one in New Orleans, too. Maxx Crosby accomplished the same in Las Vegas. And all of these guys did it with multiple years left on their deals.
So what gives?
I think it’s players being more cognizant of a few things. First, their own football mortality, and the reality that when it becomes real, teams are rarely sympathetic in honoring the nonguaranteed years on the back end of contracts—which means if you can get money moved up, you should. Second, they have leverage in having some financial security, which lends the freedom to incur fines, and make their teams feel their absences, and what those can do to a team’s morale. And, third, that they’re helping their teammates more than hurting them by drawing a hard line, creating a precedent for guys to be paid their worth.
It worked for Stafford, who had the precedent the Rams set in paying Aaron Donald with three years left on his deal. Ditto for McCaffrey, whose success may have nudged Williams to try and get his. Same with Crosby, who got a promise from the team when things were chaotic, and held the team to that promise.
And because it worked for those guys, it’s a good bet we’ll see more of this moving forward.
Hearing Saquon Barkley say that he didn’t know his phone call with Joe Schoen was recorded for Hard Knocks was a great illustration of the pitfalls of doing it in the offseason for a team. And the work I did on that story keeps swinging back around as more episodes drop, and more fallout develops.
Really, what so much of this boils down to is each team’s offseason touches other teams, as well as players who may never play for that team. Those players and those other teams didn’t sign up to appear on Hard Knocks, but an offseason version of the show won’t work without all of those people getting sideswiped a little.
It’s a necessary consequence of a show like that. It will also make a lot of people leery about the idea of doing it in the future.
Based on what I’ve seen, and some private reaction from the Giants themselves, I think NFL Films might have trouble finding teams to do it in 2025. Whether the league would force someone to do the show remains to be seen.
And since we’re back in football mode, we’ll bring back the quick-hitting takeaways this week. Let’s roll …
• Picked this up visiting with the Raiders—Brady’s long-time body coach, Alex Guerrero, is working for the team. He’s made a big difference for some of the team’s star players, Crosby being one, and Pierce has become a big fan of his work. Many of Brady’s old Patriots teammates were, too. Good hire by Vegas, whether it’s a harbinger for Brady’s pursuit of a piece of the Raiders or not.
• Losing Sam Williams is a real blow for Dallas. And every hit the Cowboys take with their pass rushers will have a compounding effect, in that it could limit DC Mike Zimmer’s ability to move Micah Parsons around, rather than just using him with his hand on the ground.
• Russell Wilson’s calf injury doesn’t seem serious. But that doesn’t mean it’s not creating an opportunity for Justin Fields in Pittsburgh.
• Keon Coleman’s turning heads in Buffalo, and that shouldn’t be a surprise. He was an excellent college player, and the Bills felt like his GPS data, which showed he played faster than he’d run on a track, mitigated concerns over his 40-yard dash time (4.61). Looks like they might be right.
• Trent Williams might want to wait and see what Tristan Wirfs gets from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
• Based on the relationship between the families, no one should be surprised that Kyle Shanahan tried to bring Belichick to San Francisco.
• Belichick’s availability is going to create real pressure on a handful of coaches the next few months.
• All the best to Patriots defensive tackle Christian Barmore in his recovery from blood clots.
• Everything still looks easy for Marvin Harrison Jr. Even in the NFL.
• My schedule for the next seven days: Seahawks, Broncos, Packers, Lions, Bears, Colts, Bengals and Browns. And we’ve got takeaways from every camp, a mailbag, and my Tuesday notes coming for you as all of that’s going on.
