Getty Image / Cooper Neill
Over the course of the NFL offseason, football fans will see plenty of lists.
They get fantasy football rankings.
They’ll see rookie rankings. They’ll get lists of bets they should make. There will be rankings for the best players in the NFL.
There are also plenty of rankings for each position in the league.
It’s a product of people wanting to talk about football when there isn’t actually any football happening.
Recently, there was one list that seemed to be pretty far off on one NFL star.
It was a tier ranking of NFL quarterbacks from CBS Sports that had Kyler Murray ranked in the 6th tier of QBs, ahead of only the league’s rookie QBs.
Yesterday, Murray responded to this shocking ranking.
😂😂😂I love it.
— Kyler Murray (@K1) July 6, 2023
That list is just flat out disrespectful to Kyler Murray.
His tier includes Baker Mayfield, who was traded by the Browns and then cut by the Panthers lasts season, Sam Howell and his one career start, Desmond Ridder and his 2 touchdowns in 4 career starts, and Jordan Love, who hasn’t looked all that impressive in his limited playing time over the last 2 years.
On the tier above him is Kenny Pickett. In 13 appearances as a rookie, Pickett scored 10 total touchdowns and threw 9 interceptions while leading the league’s 7th worst offense. At one point during his rookie year, his star receiver supported the idea of the team’s 3rd string QB getting a shot to start.
On the tier above that is Derek Carr, whose team went out and got him Davante Adams last season. He then struggled badly enough that the team benched him for Jarrett Stidham, couldn’t find somebody to trade for him after the season, and cut him.
Yet somehow, Kyler Murray finds himself on the bottom rung of non-rookie QBs. This is the same Kyler Murray that joined a team that was 3-13 the year before he was drafted and finished with a record of .500 or better in 2 of his first 3 seasons, making the playoffs in one of those.
He went over 4000 total yards in each of those 3 seasons, was responsible for 37 total touchdowns in one of those seasons, and made the Pro Bowl twice.
He did all of that while playing for a team whose head coach had a losing record at the college level, went 13-12 with Patrick Mahomes as his quarterback, and was fired by Texas Tech and getting ready to be a college offensive coordinator before the Cardinals hired him.
You would think that would factor in to the rankings since Mac Jones seems to have been given a break on this list because of the bad coaching he dealt with last year.
For whatever reason, it seems one disappointing season for Kyler Murray has completely changed the perception of him as a player.
He’ll unfortunately have to wait a while to prove his new doubters wrong because of the ACL injury he suffered late last season, but it looks like they’ll serve as some extra motivation for him once he has recovered.