The first overall pick in the 2019 draft had his first NFL practice on Friday. And apparently he got his first taste in a while of what it feels like to run around in new shoes.
“My feet hurt a little bit,” Murray said after the rookie minicamp sessions, via ESPN.com. “It’s been a long time since I put cleats on. I’ve been running around. The cleats were pretty new.”
The fairly minor concern underscores the fairly major problem that comes from thrusting players who haven’t played football for four months onto a football field for football practice with no break-on period. As one league source recently put it, “The veterans go through Phase I and II [of the offseason program], and we throw the rookies straight into Phase III.”
Murray seems to welcome the change of circumstance, however.
“It was good finally touching the field again,” Murray said. “A lot of this process has been just a lot of talk and evaluation and stuff like that. Just to actually be able to play football again, get out here with the guys and do what you love, it was fun.”
He loves it for now. The real question is whether he’ll love it later. And that will depend on whether it comes as easy for him at the next level as it did at the college level. For plenty of great college players, it does. For more than a few, however, it doesn’t.