Super Bowl-winning GM: Comments received on Kyler Murray 'worst' ever for top QB prospect

Charley Casserly, the man with the best hindsight in the NFL – Bill Polian excluded – has heard no-good, bad and terrible things about Kyler Murray. Let’s get to what he said before we take it apart.

First, and because Casserly – a Super Bowl-winning GM with the Washington Redskins and top personnel man for the expansion Houston Texans – rarely comes up, let’s review one of my favorite quotes about Casserly ever:

“Who’s been wrong more than Charley Casserly since he left the Redskins? His percentage is like a meteorologist. He has no relationship to this team. I’d say less than zero. Based on what? He’s never at a practice, never at a game. … At least he put his name on it, which is more than a lot of guys. But, like he usually is, he was 100 percent wrong.” — Bill Belichick

So if you’re in the "Murray is good" camp, take solace that one of, if not the, greatest coach of all time doesn’t really take Casserly’s reports seriously.

Now on to the actual quote.

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We are supposed to be led to believe that Murray, the winner of the 2018 Heisman Trophy, has no leadership skills, doesn’t study his opponents or film, and is horrible at deciphering plays on a board.

Well, who cares? Did Casserly watch this guy play at all in college? If Murray is bad at those things, I would love to have my team draft him and train him to be good at those things. Maybe he has a different style of leadership. Maybe he’s not a rah-rah type of player. We’ve seen quarterbacks succeed with all different type of leadership styles. Here’s Casserly’s full quote:

"(Murray) better hope (Cardinals coach Kliff) Kingsbury takes him No. 1 because this was not good. These were the worst comments I ever got on a high-rated quarterback and I've been doing this a long time...

"Leadership – not good. Study habits – not good. The board work – below not good. Not good at all in any of those areas, raising major concerns about what this guy is going to do.

"Now, people will say 'we're going to compare him to (Patrick) Mahomes, we're going to run an offense like Mahomes, we're going to run an offense like Baker Mayfield'... But those guys are much different. Those guys, you never questioned them about their ability on the board, you never questioned their leadership ability, their work habits. They were outstanding in those areas. This guy is not outstanding in those areas and it showed up in the interview." 

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Notice Casserly points to people not questioning Mayfield’s leadership ability. Was Casserly awake during the 2018 pre-draft process? People were questioning Mayfield consistently. Some of the biggest names in sports media were saying he was selfish and a bad teammate. That he didn’t celebrate with his team. There were comparisons between Mayfield and Johnny Manziel. All of those takes were wrong, so there’s that, but it’s like Casserly completely wiped his brain when it came to old Mayfield criticisms.

As for study habits and board work, that’s a bit more worrisome, but again if he was that good without those habits, imagine how good he will be if he’s drafted by a team that helps him be good at it. Study habits and board work aren’t something that can’t be taught. It’s not like, let’s say, arm strength — which Murray has a ton of — or athletic ability — Murray’s so athletic he was drafted in two sports. Murray has no character issues that we know of. He’s never run afoul of the law. Casserly is telling us that Murray can’t be taught how to study film and read defenses? Is that really what we are going with?

We also need to take into consideration that maybe this is a smoke screen. Maybe one team really likes Murray and wants him to drop so they said he has bad study habits. Again, how they know he has bad study habits after one day with him in a room is a bit odd. If Lincoln Riley said he had good study habits, then there’s one person I trust more than the other in this situation.

This report by Casserly is just really tough to swallow. A Heisman-winning, two-sport athlete who dominated college football for an entire season apparently has bad study habits, can’t break down a defense on a whiteboard, and has very few leadership qualities. It doesn’t jive with what we’ve all seen on the actual field.