Man, all of this just sucks so much. Prepared for sad post below.
I’ve been watching Kyler since his days at Allen. Everybody know who Kyler Murray was whether if you were in DFW, West Texas, East Texas, etc, guy was a Superstar. From his days at A&M to OU. I’m not a fan of either college, but I still followed his progression throughout. I was happy we drafted him after moving on from Rosen. I’ve been rooting for him not only because he was the QB for my favorite professional team, but as a young black man myself, I have LONG rooted for a black QB to be the franchise QB for this team. This honestly hurts me a lot more than it does you guys.
He just doesn’t have what it takes to perform at the level where it’s most critical. Some of it is physical, some of it is mental. Really hurts to admit. I don’t hate Kyler & never will unless he commits a heinous crime. I will still root for his success, but I still care about this team’s success at the end of the day.
Maybe he'll have a Baker or Darnold resurgence elsewhere. However, we've seen enough to know its just not happening here.
Speaking of OU/A&M. I think bottoming out at A&M and having to go through years of backing up Baker, not being named starter until the week before at OU was the best thing to happen to his college career. Unfortunately, I think Kyler took the wrong lessons with him to the NFL.
He clearly didn't have the maturity early on to help uplift the organization. He believed there were crappy people in charge and he knew everything about winning. I bring this up because I truly do believe he has matured, but not closing the deal in 2020 and 2021 is what makes this recent 2nd half dip all the more disappointing. If we just saw multiple playoff appearances, maybe a win or two. We'd just look at the big picture of seeing we're still somewhat ahead of schedule roster wise, we still have a potential monster free agency, the young players can get better, etc.
However, 2020/2021 just make 2024 clear that he'll likely not be that guy. He couldn't close the deal with much better talent and TBH a better play caller. So why have hope in the future?
I fear we would have been better served sitting Kyler the entire 2023 season and just getting Williams, Daniels or Maye. And bite the bullet (if possible) like Denver did with Russ. Cause the gap isn't glaring and those guys at least have the potential to be better than what we've seen. Its sad.
He's gotta go undefeated to regain some goodwill and even then that wont matter if we don't make the playoffs. Some would say he'd still need to do more.