Cardinals owner private texts about Kyler Murray’s contract leaked

Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill had his texts leaked about him and then-general manager Steve Keim discussing the fear of heading into neogatations with Murray and his agent Erik Burkhardt. The fear was because of the Browns offering Watson a fully guaranteed $230 million contract extension, with the hope from owners and teams that this doesn’t become the new norm. Burkhardt wanted fully guaranteed money, but Bidwill and Kiem find a way around those demands.

Leaked text conversation between Cardinals Bidwell and Kiem:

Bidwill: “We are going to load up this contract with … so many incentives to earn the real money.”

Keim: “Why the Browns felt so compelled to pay Watson like that is baffling.”

Murry’s contract ended around the same value of Watson’s but only $103 million was fully guaranteed, with the final two years having zero guaranteed money. The new deal reset the contract market with quarterbacks, with owners texting Bidwill to thank him. Chargers owner Dean Spanos congratulated the Cardinals owner and stated “your deal helps us for our QB [Justin Herbert] next year.”

Bidwill’s response: “Thanks Deno! These QB deals are getting expensive but we limited the fully guaranteed money and have some pretty good language. Thankfully, we have a QB that’s worth paying. I think many teams will be happy with it once they have a chance to review. Cleveland really screwed things up, but I was resolved to keep the guaranteed money relatively ‘low.’”

Arizona got the quarterback market back in check, with many of the owners grateful for the shift back to normalcy. The NFL PA lost its claim of collusion from teams withholding guaranteed money. However, it does appear that owners aim to limit the guaranteed money in those big contracts from what can be inferred in those text messages from Bidwill and others.