The Cardinals’ Great Gatsby Was Kliff, Not Kyler

When Kyler Murray showed up for the 2019 NFL Draft wearing a pink suit and was proclaiming F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby as his all-time favorite movie, I felt compelled to write the story of “The Great Kylersby and the Valley of Ashes:”

https://www.revengeofthebirds.com/2022/2/15/22925119/the-great-kylerby-and-the-valley-of-ashes

Yet, as Time and Fate would have it, like the ill-fated switcheroo of the cars that Tom Buchannon and Jay Gatsby drove on their jaunt from East Egg, Long Island to Manhattan, it has now become —- as clear as a blinking green light —- that Kyler, not Kliff, was driving the “hit and run” car.

You see, old sport…

• Kliff met Kyler long ago when he tried to woo the young high school State Champion QB to sign his letter of intent to Texas Tech. After Kyler decided to sign with Texas A&M, years passed by before Kliff and Kyler would reunite —- just as Gatsby wooed Daisy , but would have to wait a number of years to reunite with her.
• Kliff, in closely following Kyler’s career, was like Gatsby keeping a scrapbook of articles related to Daisy Faye Buchanan.
• People wondered how in the world Kliff ever deserved getting a head coaching job in the NFL, just as Gatsby’s house guests wondered where in the world Gatsby was getting all of his enormous wealth.
• Just as Tom Buchannon represented “old money” due to the wealth that was handed down to him by his affluent family, so then does Michael Bidwill.
• When Kyler convinced Michael Bidwill to lavish him with a $230.5M contract, that was the day that Kyler married into the comfort and stability of old money.
• Gatsby said of Daisy: “Her voice is full of money.” Kliff in essence would say, “Kyler’s arm is full of money.”
• Gatsby said of Daisy that she was the only one he ever loved. Kliff said of Kyler, “He’s the only quarterback I want to coach.”
• Gatsby lived alone in a huge mansion and invited guests to come see the enormity of his wealth. Kliff lives alone in a posh Paradise Valley villa and invited the world to see how he has been living in the lap of luxury.

• Gatsby could be seen at night staring across the Long Island Sound at the blinking green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. Kliff could be seen at night staring at the twinkling stars above Camelback mountain.

• Gatsby spent his every waking hour working and dreaming of his goal to marry Daisy. For the past four years, Kliff spent his every hour working and dreaming of his goal to win the Super Bowl with Kyler Murray.
• “You always look so cool, Jay.”

• “it takes two to make an accident.”
• When things got too hot, Daisy screamed at Gatsby: “OH YOU WANT TOO MUCH!” Kyler screamed at Kliff: “CALM THE F^CK DOWN!”

• Gatsby was eager to take the blame and protect Daisy for the hit and run accident. Kliff was eager to take the blame and protect Kyler for every loss.
• In the end, Daisy played a complicit role in Gatsby’s murder, something she could have tried to prevent. In the end, Kyler played a complicit role in Kliff’s firing, something he could have tried to prevent.
• In the end, only a handful of people attended Gatsby’s funeral. Only a handful of players were around when Kliff told them he’d been fired (as captured by HBO’s Hard Knocks)
• Daisy never came to the funeral, nor did she even send a flower. There are no tributes or thank you notes to Kliff on Kyler’s Twitter page. Curiously, Kyler’s background photo remains a depiction of Gatsby’s mansion taken from across the Long Island Sound.
• Nick Carraway said: “No—- Gatsby tuned out all right at the end —- it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the way of his dreams…” Ah, to think of what “preyed on” Kliff…
• “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
• “They were careless people, Michael and Steve,, they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

The last thing Nick said to Gatsby:

• “They’re a rotten crown. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”
• “Gatsby had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.”
• “And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”