Star quarterback Kyler Murray plays too much Call of Duty, it's well known. But calculations now show he plays worse football after gambling.

Glendale, Arizona – When a game captivates the player, it's easy to forget about time while gambling. Other projects then tend to move a little further down the list of priorities. This is apparently also the case for star quarterback Kyler Murray. He's a self-confessed Call of Duty fan and plays Activision's popular shooter so excessively that it's said to affect his football performance. But his team wants to do something about it.

Too much Call of Duty: professional athlete gets “no CoD” contract

This superstar is what it's all about: Kyler Murray is a quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals, which means he's the star player. Teams flock to him, earning him millions. He lives the American Dream. When he's not excelling at football, he's passionately gambling, and that always gets him into trouble.

This is the “No CoD” contract: His team has extended Kyler Murray's contract in 2022, for a whopping $230.5 million (about 230 million euros). But the contract, which runs until 2028, has an unusual clause: Murray is not allowed to gamble Call of Duty when homework is due.

• Homework here stands for tranig and analysis of matches and plays.
• Kyler Murray has attracted attention in the past for CoD gambling: He left a championship party early because he wanted to play Call of Duty.
• Pro contracts often have weird special clauses:

  Eric Reddle, after being traded to the Los Angeles Rams, had it written into his contract that he would get a big ice cream sundae after every game.

  The Dallas Cowboys included a clause in wide receiver Dez Bryant's contract prohibiting him from drinking alcohol or visiting a strip club.

The curious contract attracted the interest of fans. They have now analyzed that there is a connection with Murray's performance and Call of Duty – unfortunately to the detriment of the professional athlete.

Too much Call of Duty: professional athlete plays worse because he daddes CoD

This was analyzed: A very observant fan of the quarterback now noticed that his performance on the field can actually be linked to CoD. Kyler Murray, in fact, seems to go all out in the shooter when it comes to XP. Because after every double XP weekend, Murray's performances were demonstrably worse. Among other things, his pass rate decreased and his team even lost more games after the XP weekends. The exact analysis can be found on Reddit:

And this is not an isolated case, because the professional soccer player Mesut Özil was also accused that his poor performance was due to too much gambling. But the latter sees the whole thing a bit more calmly, because Mesut Özil is aiming for an e-sports career after his time as a footballer.

ESPN says: The reporters of ESPN, a well-known sports news network in the US, have picked up on the analysis. They say they will pull the stats every time the Arizona Cardinals deliver a bad game. So watch out Kyler Murray, the PlayStation might want to run in incognito mode.

Arizona Cardinals remove clause: However, the criticism about the controversial CoD clause became probably so loud that the team decided to delete it already again, as the franchise reports. The Cardinals explain that they trust their quarterback, of course, and that this should be reflected in the contract.