Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson are the MVP favorites, but Kyler Murray has history on his side.
Second-year quarterbacks Mahomes and Jackson won the past two MVP awards, and Murray is coming off an offensive rookie of the year season now with one of the NFL’s best receivers on his team.
It will take a big step up for Murray to contend for the NFL’s biggest individual award, but nobody considered him the Heisman favorite heading into 2018.
Murray, though, said he has only one goal: “Just win.”
“I don’t really pay any mind to it,” Murray said of the MVP talk, via Kyle Odegard of the team website. “They’ve got to put somebody in the talk. I’ve got to go out and play well, and if I play well, I can put myself in that conversation. But as far as people talking and stuff like that, I don’t really pay attention to it.”
After 3,722 passing yards, 20 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in 2019, Murray is receiving love from bettors after Mahomes, Jackson and Russell Wilson and alongside the likes of Deshaun Watson, Dak Prescott, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers.
Murray, 23, is unfazed, perhaps since the expectations are nothing new.
He was a five-star high school prospect, followed Baker Mayfield in winning the Heisman Trophy at Oklahoma and was the No. 1 overall choice in the NFL draft after being a top-10 pick in the Major League Baseball draft.
“His expectations for himself are so lofty and so high,” Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury said. “Anything we try to place upon him – or the outside noise tries to put upon him – it just wouldn’t faze him. He wants to be an elite-type player. That’s his mindset, and that’s how he approaches it every single day. I don’t see that being a negative for him at all.”