Kyler Murray, Oklahoma’s Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, has two major question marks heading into the NFL draft: Whether he can make it as the NFL’s shortest quarterback, and whether he’ll even play football at all, or decide instead to play Major League Baseball.
But if we judge a quarterback based only on his production, Murray is a huge outlier: On college stats alone, he’s easily the top quarterback in this year’s draft.
As noted by Hayden Winks of Rotoworld, Murray was far and away the most efficient quarterback in this year’s draft class. Murray has the best rushing stats of any quarterback in the 2019 draft, but his passing numbers are better still. His 13.0 adjusted yards per pass attempt (a statistic that takes yards per pass and awards bonus yards for touchdowns and subtracts yards for interceptions) is other-worldly. A year ago, Baker Mayfield’s 12.9 adjusted yards per pass attempt was considered an extremely impressive point in his favor as some observers questioned whether he was really an elite NFL prospect. And Murray’s number even exceeds Mayfield’s.
That doesn’t mean Murray is going to be the player it appears Mayfield will be after his excellent rookie year in Cleveland. But the talk about Murray’s height and baseball may be overshadowing just how ridiculously good his numbers are.