Oklahoma football: Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray face off in NFL Week 6
By John Makuch
As former Oklahoma stars and fellow Heisman winners Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray were OU quarterbacks and teammates, but on Sunday they went against each other playing for competing NFL teams.
Mayfield and Murray were opposing quarterbacks on Sunday for the Cleveland Browns and Arizona Cardinals, respectively.
These two former college All-Americans won the sixth and seventh Heisman Trophies for the Oklahoma football program, and both have seen plenty of success in the pros.
Mayfield and Murray were in the same quarterback room during their time at Oklahoma, and the two have built a friendly rivalry in their NFL careers.
This is not the first time these two have played as opponents. Murray got the better of Mayfield during Murray’s rookie season in 2019. Arizona took that victory 38-24, snapping a six-game Cardinals’ losing streak.
History repeated itself on Sunday in Cleveland. Murray’s Cardinals again defeated Mayfield’s Browns, and Arizona is now on a six-game winning streak with Murray at the helm.
The game was all Arizona from the start, with the undefeated Cardinals jumping out to a 20-0 lead, resulting from two of Murray’s four touchdown passes.
The Browns did not go down without a fight, though. Mayfield connected with Donovan Peoples-Jones for two touchdown passes in the first half.
The second of these included a miraculous, 57-yard Hail Mary pass to Peoples-Jones to end the first half of play. Despite that effort, the Browns entered the second half down 23-14.
Arizona did not take its foot off the gas, though, and Murray threw two more touchdown passes in the second half: one to Hopkins, and another to A.J. Green for a “garbage-time” TD.
In the second half, Mayfield took a rough but legal hit from Cardinals star J.J. Watt that sent the Cleveland quarterback to the turf and landing hard on his already injured shoulder.
After the game Mayfield was seen with his arm in a sling, but he did say that he plans on playing on Thursday night against the Denver Broncos.
As for Murray and his Cardinals, it is all positivity out in Arizona with a 6-0 record to begin the 2021 season. The Cardinals stand tall at the top of the league as the only remaining undefeated NFL squad and hope to keep their record flawless next weekend against a struggling Houston Texans team.
Murray may not be as much of an MVP candidate anymore, but a four-touchdown game with zero interceptions keeps him right in the hunt behind the likes of Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford.
Despite the differences in success, their times as Oklahoma football players prepared them for the bright lights of the NFL, and both will continue to do what they do best in this league.