TEMPE, Ariz. – In this week, Marquise “Hollywood” Brown there’s a secret he can’t tell one of his best friends, Kyler Murray: He can be traded with The Arizona Cardinals.
Murray tries to gather any little information from Brown about the possibility of the transaction eventually sending it to a wide audience from Baltimore Raven for the Cardinals, even while the two were working together in Dallas. But when Raven tries to figure out a landing spot for Brown, he keeps playing pranks on Murray. Whenever Murray tried to summon his in-house reporter, Brown always got the same answer: “I don’t know, Kyler. I’m trying to find out.”
But Brown knew all the trades to Arizona were being made. Even when it was finalized, before it was made public, Brown kept it hidden from Murray.
“I can have [told him]but I want it to be a surprise for him as well,” Brown said during his introductory press conference in Arizona on Friday. He knew it could happen, but he didn’t know it actually happened. “
Now, the two are reunited for the first time since 2018, when they played together at Oklahoma. Not long after that season, they began discussing the idea of playing together in the NFL. It only took three years for it to finally happen.
After Murray returned to the green room at the 2019 NFL draft in Nashville, Tennessee, Brown, who remains on the board after falling with a leg injury, told the quarterbacks to tell the Cardinals to change the first round to draft him. . Murray said he would pick his next pick, which the Ravens used to pick Brown.
Their NFL reunion was set on ice.
However, it became possible again after last season, when Brown asked the Ravens to trade him in. Brown told SiriusXM he wanted to end up in Arizona. The Chief of Kansas City and Green Bay Packers — the team he thinks he’ll come to in 2019 — is also involved in trade talks, Brown said, but he knows where his ideal destination is.
“I’ve always wanted it here,” Brown said. “Me and Kyler talked about it in January, February, and for it to really happen, it was pretty crazy.”
In addition to reuniting with Murray, Brown will play in an offensive game “quite similar” to the one he ran in Oklahoma. Brown was also recruited by Kliff Kingsbury when he was the coach of Texas Technology and had 125 yards and a touchdown in two wins over the Red Raiders.
Even though Brown started hearing last week that a transaction could happen, he still doesn’t think it’s possible.
“I’ve been lucky enough to have it all back,” he said. “It’s pretty good.”
Brown went from being one of the most dynamic quarterbacks in the NFL to Lamar Jackson to another place in Murray.
“Both are passionate about the game,” Brown said. “That’s what brings Lamar and me together. They’re passionate, they want to win and each has their own style. There’s nobody like Lamar Jackson. Nobody’s like Kyler Murray.”
But leaving Jackson wasn’t easy for Brown.
“It was very difficult,” Brown said. “It was one of the hardest things for Lamar. I talked to him. He understood, and we were fine at the end of the day.”
There was a point this season when Brown paused on whether he would play against Murray in Arizona.
As the season drama surrounding the potential expansion for Murray ushered in this season – including the quarterback scouring his Instagram page, a letter from his agent said they had proposed a deal. co-detailed with the Cardinals and Murray tweeted that he wanted to win a Super Bowl in Arizona – Brown said he watched like everyone else. He demanded his trade before all the Murray ramblings began. When it happened, he called Murray and asked, “Hey, what’s going on?”
Now, however, he was convinced Murray was not going anywhere.
“I’m pretty sure you know he loves it here, and I know they love him,” Brown said. “So they’ll figure it out.”
