Well, that all ended rather hilariously, didn't it? Just a few days after the whole world found out that Kyler Murray's $230 million contract with the Cardinals included a clause requiring him to do four hours of independent study every week, the team announced that homework has now been removed from the agreement.
This followed several days of widespread public backlash that raised all sorts of questions about just what the hell is going on within the skulls of the Cardinals' front office executives and Murray's agent. It seems like job No. 1 for a competent GM is not alienating your star quarterback at precisely the same moment that you are committing your franchise to him, and I have to imagine that jobs No. 1 and No. 2 for a decent agent are something like "don't allow your client to sign a contract that could be voided entirely by some vague and gimmicky clause," and "don't allow your client to sign a contract that actively demeans his work ethic."
Anyway, it's possible that this would have eventually died down even with the entire football world uniting to call everyone who was involved in crafting this contract a big dumb idiot. But then Murray decided to hold an impromptu press conference at mini-camp yesterday, and even though he wouldn't come right and say that he was mad at the Cardinals, he did say this:
So now the clause is gone, but what difference will that make, really? Everyone involved in this saga has already been publicly debased and humiliated (that was probably the point all along), and now the Cardinals are headed into what should be a promising season as the laughingstock of the NFL. So take some comfort in knowing that no matter how bad of a week you had at work, you did a better job than several people who are in charge of a billion-dollar sports franchise.
