30 years ago, a 5-foot-10 Heisman winner was relegated to Canada. This year, another could go first overall.
Toronto Argonauts quarterback Doug Flutie, left, in 1998, and Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray in 2018. By Adam Kilgore Adam Kilgore Reporter covering national sports Email Bio Follow April 9 at 10:00 AM Doug Flutie, a quarterback consigned professionally to Canadian glory and journeyman status in his own country, admits he often thinks about how he might fit into the NFL today.
Lincoln Riley coached both Mayfield and Murray at Oklahoma. He never prioritized height, because his system — shotgun-heavy and reliant on Air Raid principles — did not require it. He now has even less regard for the importance of height at the position. “We were doing all that stuff even before it got popular at the college level,” Flutie said. “I remember Chip Kelly saying he came up before he was at [New Hampshire], and he came up to Toronto and he watched all our game film, all the stuff we were doing. Then he went back to UNH and lit it up, and then he got the Oregon job.”
“It’s no different than an NFL quarterback, a Drew Brees or Tom Brady, that ends up in a similar system for a lot of years,” Riley said. “These guys started in this similar system when they were 12 years old, if not younger. They just kind of got a lot of stock built up in it.” “I’m always the smallest guy on the field,” Murray said last month at the NFL combine. “I’ve said it multiple times — I feel like I’m the most impactful guy on the field and the best player on the field at all times. I’ve always had to play at this height.”
Sports science backs up Riley’s point. The greatest soccer players in the world tend to come in pint-size packages, because those body types allow for quick movement in confined spaces. For many NFL offenses, those same movements place more pressure on a defense than the ability to see over the line scrimmage.
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