If Kyler Murray gets blindsided by a particularly nasty hit in the pocket this season, keep your eyes on how the nimble, and newly more muscular, 5-foot-10 quarterback reacts, rolls and recovers should he get pancaked.

We say “if” because despite his size, the Cardinals’ starting quarterback only absorbed a total of 16 actual hits during his record-setting rookie season. In the 32-team NFL, that ranked 33rd among all quarterbacks, an incredibly low number.

Although it’s true he was sacked 48 times, tied for the league lead with the Seahawks’ Russell Wilson and the Falcons’ Matt Ryan, most of Murray’s “sacks” during his Rookie of the Year campaign came when he either scrambled and ran out of bounds behind the line of scrimmage, went down on his own because of a broken play, or because he sensed or saw imminent, incoming pressure.

And it never resulted in an injury. He dealt with a tender hamstring the last two weeks of the season, but he didn’t miss a single start in 2019.

After a tireless offseason that included learning a much more disciplined approach to operating out of the pocket in addition to training his body specifically to the art of something called myofascial flexibility through a series of intense and excessive range-of-motion exercises, Murray hopes to be impervious to pain in 2020.

“Well, I try not to get hit in the first place, so we’ll see how I do this year,” he said, chuckling under his breath.

It’s no laughing matter, though, to the Cardinals. The former No.1 overall draft pick is their bread and butter, their leader of the franchise for what they hope is at least a 10- to 15-year magnificent run with multiple playoff appearances complete with Super Bowl championships.

“I think we can cut that (sacks) number down in half,” Murray said. “That’s definitely the goal, is to limit the sacks and move around when I have to.”

Keeping the diminutive Murray upright and healthy for the long haul is essential, and according to the quarterback’s longtime personal trainer, it’s easily doable. Thanks to Murray’s commitment to myofascial flexibility, in addition to all the work he’s done with Cardinals’ strength and conditioning coach Buddy Morris, Stephen Baca is convinced Murray can stay healthy for the long haul.

“I’d love to say with 100% certainty that it’s going to keep him from ever getting hurt,” said Baca, a Dallas-area fitness expert who has been working with Murray for the past seven years. “What I say is that what we do is try to reduce the likelihood of injury without ever saying the word injury prevention because it’s not possible. We say the word injury reduction.” 

Myofascial flexibility or “release” is an alternative therapy for treating skeletal muscle immobility and pain by relaxing contracted muscles, improving blood and oxygen flow and stimulating stretch reflex in muscles. Fascia is the thin, but tough and elastic connective tissue in the human body that wraps around virtually everything.

Specific stretching and exercise drills are only half of the format, according to Baca. Closing the deal and making it all work requires a full mental acceptance to the treatment and the changes that can and supposedly will, occur. He explained it this way:

“At the end of the day, you, me or the Olympic gymnast who can put her nose to her knees, we have the same myofascial flexibility. You do, just as much as she does, or Kyler does. You do. The difference is your neurological ability to accept those ranges of motion. It’s training your mind to understand that the positions you’re putting yourself in, at deeper ranges of motion, are safe. And until your mind has signals that tell it that it’s safe, it’s going to lock up and tell you, ‘No, it’s not.’”

To put it another way, Baca said, if a quarterback gets hit on the field and his body gets contorted to an awkward position and his body has never been in those ranges of motion or can execute the mind control of telling his body, “This is OK,” then the quarterback’s body is going to naturally lock up and say, “This is bad.”

“When something is locked and it meets an immovable force, what happens?” Baca asked. “Well, it breaks. It bends. It snaps. So, for Kyler, much of it is neurological awareness and an adaptation to new ranges of motion. That’s the basics of it.”

Murray, who last season became only the just the second NFL rookie quarterback to ever pass for at least 3,500 yards and also rush for 500 yards or more, did something else this offseason to help keep him healthy and productive in 2020. He hit the weight room like a mini body builder, adding 8-10 pounds of solid muscle, especially in his upper body.

The physical appearance has been noticeable, but did it stutter any of Murray’s speed? He never ran the 40-yard dash at the NFL scouting combine, but everyone who knows him claims he owns 4.3-second speed and if you watched him at all last season, you couldn’t really argue with that.

“He’s stronger, a little bigger and he’s actually more explosive,” Baca vowed. “He’s just as fast. He’s incredibly mobile and now his range of motion has improved.”

Murray’s elusiveness kept him on his feet and out of danger despite 63 hurries last season, which was tied for the fifth-most in the league. Considering his average time in the pocket was just 2.3 seconds, tied for the shortest time in the league, that’s worth noting.

Murray’s number of pressures and the amount of blitzes he faced ranked in the middle of the pack. According to Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury, the extra work Murray has put in is only going to pay long-term dividends moving forward.

“That was one of his main objectives, to put that extra muscle on and keep his speed, obviously, but to also put some of that body armor on and he has changed his body,” Kingsbury said. “He’s been small his entire life in comparison to those guys he faces on the football field, so he has that natural ability to kind of avoid the big shot, if you will, and find the soft spot at times.”

There’s nothing soft about Kyler Murray, though. And thanks to a dedicated offseason in more ways than one, he fully expects to cut down on the sacks, the mistakes and stay healthy.

“There’s a happy medium when you can make plays with your feet of trying to do too much and not trying to do too much,” Murray said. “I think this year, just finding my check-downs, understanding where they are, when it’s time to give it up. And, also, understanding what the protections are, understanding what the O-line is doing, I have a way better feel of all that now being in Year 2 and I think that will help them out tremendously.

“As far as eliminating sacks, eliminating the negative plays, I think that will go down tremendously.”

Have an opinion on the Arizona Cardinals? Reach McManaman at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @azbobbymac. Listen to him live on Fox Sports 910-AM every Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 on Calling All Sports with Roc and Manuch and every Wednesday night from 7-9 on The Freaks with Kenny and Crash.

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