Kyler Murray was always going to be the biggest story of the NFL scouting combine. Well, biggest or smallest. Murray should exhale and interested teams, including the Cardinals, sitting with the No. 1 pick, can look more closely at the Heisman Trophy winner, who is not quite as short as some had feared. The intriguing quarterback, who turned down baseball for an NFL shot, measured in at 5-10 1/8 and 207 pounds, when most had predicted a shorter height. At Oklahoma, Murray was listed at 5-10 and 195, but so often colleges inflate numbers to make their players look more attractive for professional opportunities. At the poking-and-prodding-and-measuring combine, Murray was expected to be closer to 5-9, which would have stacked the odds against him. Still, he would be the shortest quarterback taken in the first round, should that happen. Previously, Johnny Manziel held the title at 5-11 3/4. The NFL has taken a kinder eye to undersize quarterbacks, as the position is protected by the rules more than ever and the evolution is leading to more athletic types and less pocket-passers. Baker Mayfield had a record-setting rookie season last year with the Browns, and his combine height was 6 feet 5/8 inches. Russell Wilson, the model for short quarterbacks, had measured at 5-10 5/8.<doc-sep>The hottest debate topic in the football world is just how short one quarterback prospect is. At Oklahoma, Kyler Murray was listed at 5-foot-10. A Sooners staffer swears that the figure is accurate, claiming the program’s training staff measured Murray at 5-foot-9 and seven-eighths inches. When Murray was drafted by the Oakland A’s last June, he apparently grew an inch, as the franchise listed him at 5-foot-11. Several betting sites allow users to bet on Murray’s eventual NFL combine height, with one putting the over-under at 5-foot-10 and another at 5-foot-9. In advance of the measurement, I prefer to go off the most unassailable data point we have available—this photograph of Murray standing next to 6-foot-1 Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa at the Heisman Trophy ceremony. As you can see, Murray is 5-foot-4, tops. But unlike with randos claiming to be 6-foot-1 on dating apps, teams will know Murray’s true height by the time they meet with him. This week he’s attending the NFL combine, and will have his vitals precisely measured. We will know Murray’s official height, down to the eighth of an inch. Regardless of whether Murray checks in at 5-foot-8, 5-foot-9, 5-foot-10, or 5-foot-11, he will be shorter than NFL teams have historically considered acceptable for a quarterback. If he’s taken on the first night of the 2019 draft—and all signs indicate that he will be—Murray will become the shortest quarterback ever selected in the first round. And regardless of whether Murray checks in at 5-foot-8, 5-foot-9, 5-foot-10, or 5-foot-11, teams shouldn’t care. There is little compelling data to suggest that short NFL quarterbacks are doomed. What matters with quarterbacks is not how big they are, but how good they are at throwing footballs. And my goodness, Kyler Murray is really, really good at throwing footballs. There are some benefits to professional quarterbacks being taller than the average adult. I would think that it’s easier for taller people to throw things hard than it is for short people, because they have longer arms. The list of the hardest-throwing pitchers in Major League Baseball last year features players of all heights, but is disproportionately populated by taller pitchers. The list includes 6-foot-4 Aroldis Chapman, 6-foot-8 Tayron Guerrero, 6-foot-8 Dellin Betances, and 6-foot-6 Noah Syndergaard, among others. However, the NFL has taken this relatively basic assumption and turned it into team-building law. Traditional football logic suggests that short QBs could struggle to see over their offensive line, and that taller quarterbacks are less likely to have their passes tipped by opposing defenders. I suspect that scouts believe taller quarterbacks are superior leaders too, because, hell, other players literally have to look up to them. This logic does not necessarily hold up. For example, Murray had only five passes batted down at Oklahoma last season, the fewest among this year’s elite prospects. Daniel Jones, a 6-foot-5 QB prospect out of Duke, had 12. (Similarly, tall players tend to lead the NFL in tipped passes.) The reason is relatively easy to parse. Murray is spectacularly mobile, one of the best running quarterback prospects the game has ever seen. Most 6-foot-5 QBs are … not that. Murray is great at throwing from the pocket, and can also ably move his body to create throwing lanes if needed. A large number of taller quarterbacks amount to stationary prey for hunting pass rushers. Look at this clip of Murray, from December’s College Football Playoff semifinal matchup against Alabama. While the world yells about whether Murray can see over his offensive linemen, he simply scoots around the pocket and unleashes a perfect bomb: TOUCHDOWN Kyler Murray finds Charleston Rambo for his first career touchdown.#BoomerSooner pic.twitter.com/ehSKH5KBRp — Sooner Gridiron (@soonergridiron) December 30, 2018 Yet faulty football logic has endured, and it’s long dictated that mostly tall players have been scouted at quarterback. There has never been a QB under 6 feet tall selected in the first round of the NFL draft. Going back to 2000, only 10 quarterbacks have even measured in under 6 feet at the combine, and nobody under 5-foot-10. Since the AFL-NFL merger, only seven QBs shorter than 6 feet have started a regular-season NFL game. Meanwhile, 114 quarterbacks who are exactly 6-foot-3 have started at least one. Despite being rare, the few diminutive quarterbacks who have made the league have excelled. That seven-man list of sub-6-foot quarterbacks includes a Hall of Famer (Sonny Jurgensen), a Pro Bowler (Doug Flutie), and a Super Bowl champion (Russell Wilson). Since 2000, only five quarterbacks 6 feet or shorter have been picked in the first three rounds of the draft: Wilson, Drew Brees, Michael Vick, Johnny Manziel, and Pat White. Manziel and White were busts, but Wilson is one of the best quarterbacks in the league, Brees is one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, and Vick is one of the most dynamic quarterbacks the game has ever seen. Compare this to the much longer list of quarterbacks 6-foot-6 or taller taken in the first three rounds over that span: Joe Flacco, Josh Freeman, Paxton Lynch, Brock Osweiler, Mike Glennon, Ryan Mallett, Sean Mannion, Matt Schaub, and Andrew Walter. Just one of these players, Flacco, has achieved any meaningful NFL success. The only person excited about these guys is Tall Quarterback Enthusiast John Elway, who has stockpiled as many as possible on the Broncos roster. (I believe his endgame is to build a Tower Of Tall Quarterbacks from atop a Rocky Mountain peak that allows him to touch outer space.) The above list of short QBs has five names and three superstars; the above list of tall QBs has nine names and eight crappy guys. Here’s a scatterplot of every quarterback measured at the NFL combine since 2000, sorted by their official combine height and Pro Football Reference’s Approximate Value stat. (This metric isn’t perfect, but is designed to assess how valuable a player was for how long, which is noteworthy with regard to the draft.) My first takeaway: 6-foot-5 has been the most successful quarterback height.<doc-sep>Kyler Murray is the biggest storyline heading into the NFL combine, which starts this week, and when he arrives in Indianapolis he'll weigh in at 206 pounds, according to "Football Morning in America"'s Peter King. That's 16 pounds more than the 190 pounds Murray played at during the 2018 season at Oklahoma, and perhaps assuages some concerns from NFL teams who considered Murray too slight to play the position. We've never had an issue with Murray's height -- he's not 6-foot-0, and probably closer to 5-foot-9 -- but his weight has been a talking point since he declared for the draft. Because while Russell Wilson is 5-foot-11, he's also listed at 215 pounds, which means he can absorb hits from bigger defenders though Wilson is one of the best in the league when it comes to avoiding those big collisions that derailed Robert Griffin III's career shortly after it started. A question NFL teams might now have: Will the reportedly weight gain affect Murray's speed? One way to find that out, of course, is to put Murray through the drills. We still don't know if he will throw at the combine -- as recently as last week he was undecided -- though Ohio State's Dwayne Haskins, our No. 1 quarterback in this class, will reportedly throw. Either way, Murray's coach at Oklahoma, Lincoln Riley, said last week that one of the quarterback's best attributes is not just his pace, but his ability to avoid contact. "His speed, obviously, is off the charts," Riley told King, via NFL.com. "He'll be the fastest quarterback in the NFL by a longshot the day he walks in the door. But on top of that, I think the things as a runner and athletically he brings, and his elite quickness, will be important. And then he just has a feel. He knows how to play the game. He knows when the moments are big and he needs to strain to get a first down. "He's not going to take unnecessary hits. He's kind of got the body to withstand a few, but I almost compare him -- I know this is high praise -- but I mean, it's almost kind of like a Barry Sanders effect. Yes I'm small for the position but I'm so athletic and so smart that I just rarely take big shots. Kyler took a lot less hits even than Baker (Mayfield) did. A lot less. He was never really beat up after a game. The guy can stay healthy and he's pretty smart. He's got just a really, really unique skill set of having home-run speed but also home-run quickness to go with that." In our latest mock draft we have the Jaguars trading up from No. 7 to No. 3 to take Murray -- even ahead of Haskins.<doc-sep>The 2019 NFL Draft is just under two months away, but NFL teams have been analyzing talent for months. Earlier this week, the NFL combine kicked off, giving NFL teams a close-up view of the college football players making their case for a top draft selection. While the quarterback class is deemed to be “weak,” Dwayne Haskins and Kyler Murray could force an NFL team to move up in the draft in order to select them, but each has their own red flags. The biggest question mark facing Murray headed into the draft is his height. While some NFL teams claim height doesn’t matter, one NFL GM all but ruled out drafting Murray. Denver Broncos general manager John Elway “hinted” that Murray might not be a good fit in the Broncos offense due to his height. According to Elway, “height comes into play when taking a snap from under center.” Murray played the majority of his snaps at Oklahoma in the shotgun. Elway hinted Kyler Murray might not be a good fit for his offense cuz height comes into play when taking snap from under center. Height not a factor from shotgun. #9sports — Mike Klis (@MikeKlis) February 27, 2019 Elway’s comments here don’t make a ton of sense. The team recently traded for Joe Flacco, who played a significant portion of his snaps from under center with the Ravens. However, in Baltimore, Flacco had the most batted balls at the line of scrimmage (11) when he was benched in favor of Lamar Jackson. Elway is just enamored with tall quarterbacks: he drafted Brock Osweiler and Paxton Lynch, both of whom stand over 6-foot-7. Of course, the point could be moot as the Broncos hold the No. 10 overall pick. Murray could be long gone by then.<doc-sep>
Dan Orlovsky says it would be a "monumental" move if the Cardinals drafted Kyler Murray with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 NFL draft. (1:11) INDIANAPOLIS -- In the measurement heard around the NFL world, or at least all around the NFL's scouting combine in a matter of minutes, Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray came in at 5 feet, 10⅛ inches tall and weighed 207 pounds. The Heisman Trophy winner's physical dimensions have been one of the hottest topics around the annual gathering of the NFL draft's top prospects. Murray's combination of high-end performance in the passing game, electric running style and overall athleticism makes him one of the most intriguing prospects for a quarterback-starved league. His height would also make him one of the shortest starting quarterbacks in league history. Two quarterbacks Murray has been compared to in terms of size are the Saints' Drew Brees and Seahawks' Russell Wilson. Brees was 6-0¼ and 213 pounds at the 2001 scouting combine, while Wilson was 5-10⅝ and 204 pounds at the 2012 combine. Wilson is the only starting quarterback in the NFL under 6 feet tall. Other quarterbacks at the combine had more prototypical size. Ohio State's Dwayne Haskins measured 6-3⅜ and 231 pounds; Missouri's Drew Lock was 6-3¾, 228 pounds; and Duke's Daniel Jones was 6-5⅛, 221 pounds. On Wednesday at the combine, Denver Broncos president of football operations/general manager John Elway said he believes Murray has the ability to be a "great player'' in the NFL. "He's a great athlete and has had a great career,'' Elway said. "The one year he played at Oklahoma was great there and shows he's a great athlete. Obviously the size is always the question, but we've seen guys that have had success in the league that are not necessarily the prototypes as far as when it comes to height. He's got the ability to be a great player." In his one full season as a starter at Oklahoma, Murray finished with 4,361 yards passing, 42 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He had 1,001 rushing yards with 12 touchdowns, averaging 7.2 yards per carry. Murray has said he is committed to football even though he has a contract with the Oakland Athletics that includes a $4.66 million signing bonus. The A's selected Murray with the ninth pick in the 2018 MLB draft. "I think [height] has been proved to not be as much of a factor maybe as it was years ago,'' Oakland Raiders coach Jon Gruden said Thursday morning, adding that he didn't know if height had a "true impact'' on "the position for the performance'' of a quarterback. Oakland has the fourth pick in the draft. Elway added that any quarterback's height could be an issue if he was asked to play under center a great deal instead of being in the shotgun, so any team that would select Murray, or a player like him, would have to consider putting him in the shotgun all or most of the time. "I will say this, having played the position: When you're shorter and you're in shotgun, it doesn't have nearly the effect because you see much better out of shotgun,'' Elway said. "So if you're in shotgun and starting in shotgun and that's the only place you've ever been, you can see the field much better from shotgun. So really, the height from shotgun doesn't matter nearly as much as it does if you're coming out from underneath center all the time, because by the time you get back there, the pocket a lot of times is caving on you. That's where height does matter a little bit more." Murray is not expected to throw at the combine, but there has been no confirmation from his camp. He is expected to throw at Oklahoma's pro day.