Win-Win Situation
The argument here isn’t that Murray should choose football over baseball, but to automatically suggest the move would be fiscally irresponsible is misguided. It assumes that Murray will reach the heights of the best players in baseball and accentuates the financial risks of playing football. Seeing what Dalton, Ryan Tannehill, Case Keenum and even Kirk Cousins is hope that being an above-average quarterback is a safer path than having to fight through the minor leagues and wait five or six years for an arbitration hearing to even sniff annual salaries nearing seven figures.
Baseball carries its own injury risk, but if Murray came out and said I don’t want to put my body and brain in danger he would be right to choose the MLB. On the flip side, if he decided he likes playing football more and chooses the NFL that’s within his right, too. If he chose baseball because of concern over the conservative, anti-player rights NFL owners who throw guys like Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid under the bus, he would also have a point, although MLB owners can’t be trusted, either. If he chose football because a middling quarterback like Derek Carr is more well known in Oakland than any Athletics player, he’d be correct, too.
Football only becomes an extremely risky proposition if he is a mid-round pick without a guaranteed salary and an organization invested in seeing him succeed. Luckily for him, the unwanted specter of being spurned for baseball means any NFL team taking Murray in the first round would need an absolute guarantee that he would choose football, essentially allowing him to choose his own destiny with one of the quarterback-needy teams. He could limit his preferences down to the exact coach he wants to play for, the situation he wants to be in, or the city he wants to live in. He could allow a team to take him at the beginning of round two and have the leverage to still get all of his money guaranteed, and a chance at a second contract in four years.
Whatever he decides, the decision shouldn’t be painted by what some talking head is saying on television, or by the pipe dream getting a Bryce Harper contract. Whether or not you believe money can buy happiness, Murray is projected to be a high earner whichever way he chooses. All he has to do is figure out if the stuff money can’t buy is easier to find with baseball in Oakland, or with football somewhere else.
All salary information comes from Spotrac.com
