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Cardinals rookie Kyler Murray (3-for-8 for 12 yards passing) struggled in a preseason game against the Raiders. Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports

NFL claptrap a crazy distraction for Cardinals' rookie Kyler Murray

By Mike Tunison | Last updated 8/19/19

No matter how much a quarterback is deemed a can’t-miss prospect, he's bound to have growing pains as a rookie. And that’s exactly what happened to Cardinals starter Kyler Murray in his second preseason outing.

Following a promising debut, the No. 1 overall pick went 3-for-8 passing for 12 yards against the Raiders. In the process, Murray showed a lack of field awareness in a sack that resulted in a safety, seemed distracted and a little lost during a sideline interview, and perhaps worst of all in the long run, ran afoul of confounding NFL rules.

Experiencing most of those issues in the preseason is perhaps ideal in some ways. Better now than when the games count, right? People will forget about a poor preseason performance within a week, and those stats don’t count toward anything that can be held against him beyond this news cycle. But the fact that he was the victim of some confusing penalties is the sort of thing that can stunt his development and make him more self-conscious than he should have to be.

Against the Raiders, Murray was twice flagged for a false start for clapping before the ball was snapped. This has drawn confused reactions from a number of sources, including the Cardinals and their new head coach Kliff Kingsbury, who, according to the Arizona Republic’s Kent Somers, discussed the team’s planned pre-snap cadence with league officials earlier this year. The Cardinals were also visited during training camp by NFL referee John Hussey, who signed off on the use of clapping. Observant longtime fans of the NFL are certainly aware that prominent quarterbacks Philip Rivers, Russell Wilson and Drew Brees are regular practitioners of this act, and are seldom, if ever, penalized for it.

What’s more, former head of officiating Dean Blandino was critical of the penalties against Murray, saying what happened was an overly strict interpretation of the rules.

There is no prohibition against clapping. You just can’t do anything abrupt to try and draw the defense offside. The action has to be smooth and deliberate. They are calling it very tight on him. I didn’t think what he was doing was abrupt.
— Dean Blandino (@DeanBlandino) August 16, 2019

Carl Cheffers, the referee who worked the Cardinals-Raiders game, clearly saw it differently. When pressed by Somers for clarification after the game, the league and current head of officiating, Al Riveron, did what the NFL does best: circle the wagons and point to the rulebook.

Essentially, this means the league is leaving enforcement of the rules regarding pre-snap behavior up to the discretion of individual officials. This reinforces one of the more common complaints about NFL officiating: inconsistent application of rules regarding the minutiae of the game. Instant replay has been called in to fix this problem as it pertains to pass interference, and it remains to be seen how effective that will be. But what can replay do to show that pre-snap clapping was or was not overly deceptive to the defense?

In terms of what this means for how Murray will be policed by officials, it can go one of two ways. Because it’s a headline working its way around the league, officials may be advised by higher-ups to be more permissive with Murray to avoid the perception that he is being picked on, or referees might end up scrutinizing him more severely just because it’s a detail the news has forced them to watch.

Either way, it’s a detrimental distraction in the early development of a pro quarterback. Now Murray must focus attention on pre-snap clapping when his time would be better spent developing other aspects of his game that should be more central to his success. There’s also the danger that it will make him self-conscious at the line of scrimmage, when there are countless other factors that he must be aware of for a play to be executed well.

Even if this only comes down to being a concern the next time Arizona plays a game officiated by Cheffers, it’s a complication a rookie head coach and quarterback don’t need, and once again it shows deeper problems with how the NFL oversees its product.

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