Number Trouble

I was among those who enjoyed the fact that Oklahoma University quarterback Kyler Murray was already signed to play professional baseball for the Oakland A's when he won the Heisman Trophy. I appreciate football and follow several teams, but it's one of the games I stop watching when my teams are done. I prefer baseball, but that's just me. If you think differently, well, it's a free country and you are entitled to be as wrong as you want to be.

At some point, someone convinced Murray he should give the National Football League a try. No one truly knows his reasons. I have heard people speculate that a football payday could be larger than the one he had guaranteed with the A's, but I haven't really followed the matter closely enough to know if that's true.

If it is so, however, someone might want to make sure that Murray knows what the athletes in different sports are actually paid. On hearing that the Philadelphia Phillies will pay Bryce Harper $330 million over 13 years, Murray said, "Everyone makes a big deal of him making $300 million. There's quarterbacks making more per year than him."

Harper's money is guaranteed. Whether he has one at-bat for the Phillies or a thousand, one thing is certain: Come 2032, Bryce Harper will have paid Uncle Sam a substantial portion of $330 million.

Aaron Rodgers made $33.5 million last year, which is certainly more than the $24 million per year Harper's contract averages, but Green Bay will not be paying Aaron Rodgers $33.5 million for the next 13 years. Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan has $100 million of his $150 million guaranteed. No NFL player, according to sources cited in the story, has ever made $300 million from the NFL.

And the chances are pretty good that the first player to do so won't be a 5'-10', 195-pound quarterback with only one full college season under his belt.