Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals recently made headlines over a controversial clause initially stipulated within his $230.5 million contract. Murray was designated to spend at least four hours per week studying game film, which many saw as a knock on the quarterback and his love for video games. The man loves football, but he also has a love affair with Call of Duty.
The Cardinals have since reneged on the highly scrutinized clause after both the franchise and Kyler Murray himself took some heat over what the condition ultimately meant. Safe to say this story won't ever completely die probably until either of two things: Murray leads the Cardinals to a Super Bowl or he hangs up his controller for good.
One fan on Reddit that goes by the username u/NegativeBee took some time to break down Kyler Murray's performances on the football field juxtaposed with weekends where Call of Duty was offering special incentives to play. In online games like Call of Duty, players often compete to earn in-game credits in order to purchase skins or aesthetic upgrades for their characters and on some weekends the game offered double the credits per session or 2XP. The user measured the QB's play during weekends with such COD promos and ones without and it's not exactly the results that Cardinals fans were hoping for:
Murray's average passer rating on non-2XP weekends is 97.43 and 89.65 on 2XP weekends, showing a -7.77 difference on 2XP weekends.
Kyler Murray's average yards per game is 251 on non-2XP weekends and 245 on 2XP weekends, showing a -6 YPG difference on 2XP weekends.
Murray's average comp% on non-2XP weekends is 67.29 and 67.17 on 2XP weekends, showing a -0.12% difference on 2XP weekends.
Kyler Murray's record on non-2XP weekend is 18-16-1 (0.529) and on 2XP weekends it is 4-7-0 (0.360), showing a -0.169 win% difference on 2XP weekends.
The sample size isn't too large with the results not being extremely stark either way. But it's pretty interesting to say the least that Kyler Murray indeed underperformed during weekends where he would've had the opportunity to earn double the in-game credits in Call of Duty. The results probably could be more indicative if they could cross-reference whether or not Kyler Murray actually played during those weekends, if that's visible on the streaming platform Twitch or through any other means to check and see if the data lines up.
But it's not the only measure that's portrayed Kyler Murray as potentially being affected by Call of Duty on the field. In a recent piece from Matt Bonesteel of The Washington Post, the Cardinals QB has underperformed significantly past a certain threshold every season – once the annual Call of Duty release comes out.
In games played before the annual Call of Duty release date over his career, Murray has averaged 22.5 fantasy points. In games played after the annual Call of Duty release date, Murray has averaged 17.4 fantasy points — a decline of 22.7 percent.
The Cardinals were the hottest team in the NFL to start last season, winning seven straight games to start off the year. Their first loss came on October 28 against the Green Bay Packers, who finished tied for the best record in the NFL, with Arizona also facing them on just four days rest. After that loss, they finished the season going 4-5 while also losing four of their last five games. What also came after that Packers loss was the release of Call of Duty: Vanguard which came out on November 5, 2021.
In all fairness to Kyler, they also lost DeAndre Hopkins for most of the second half last season. However, it's been the same story throughout his career with the Cardinals.
In 2020, the Cardinals started off the season going 5-3. Those first eight contests came before the 2020 release of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, which was available on November 13, 2020. After that date, Arizona went 3-5 and lost five of their last seven games to close out the season.
Even during Kyler Murray's rookie season, the trend held true. Through Arizona's first seven games in 2019, they started off 3-3-1. They were riding a three-game win streak right before the October 25 release of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reboot. What came next was a six-game losing streak with the Cardinals finishing the last nine games of the season with a miserable 2-7 record.
Obviously, it's impossible and downright silly to directly pin the Cardinals' second-half struggles on Kyler Murray and his love for Call of Duty. But it's hard to deny that the data thus far through his first three seasons lines up perfectly with the results of the (mostly) humorous investigations.