“I’m all about loyalty,” Dwight Schrute once said. “In fact, I feel like part of what I’m being paid for here is my loyalty. But if there were somewhere else that valued loyalty more highly. . . . I’m going wherever they value loyalty the most.”
Kyler Murray is Dwight Schrute.
According to Mike Leslie of WFAA, Murray wants a $15 million contract from the A’s. Otherwise, Murray will enter the NFL draft.
That’s a risky position for Murray. If the A’s say yes, he gets the money. If the A’s say no, does that really close the door on the A’s changing their mind later? That’s the dilemma any NFL team that drafts Murray would face.
If $15 million is Murray’s financial goal, that would peg his NFL floor in the range of pick No. 11 or 12, based on the 2018 contracts given to first-round picks. If a team takes Murray below that spot, will the A’s step up and match or beat the slotted contract value that Murray would get from his NFL team?
But what if Murray goes higher than 11 or 12? Would the A’s match the value of Murray’s rookie deal?
None of this helps Murray maximize his NFL earnings, because it introduces another factor — a short-term focus on what he’ll make via his initial baseball or football contract. The NFL team that drafts Murray will be limited by the slot in which he’s taken, and Murray’s decision to sell his loyalty to the highest bidder means that the team that takes Murray in round one could lose him to the A’s, if the A’s ultimately are willing to pay more for his loyalty.