Lincoln Riley: ‘Trust, reps’ to help Cardinals’ Kyler Murray, Marquise Brown

The Arizona Cardinals’ acquisition of wide receiver Marquise Brown brings together an old college football powerhouse tandem.

There’s no one around the country who is more familiar with the chemistry between quarterback Kyler Murray and Brown both on and off the field than former Oklahoma Sooners head coach Lincoln Riley.

Riley, who is now leading the USC Trojans, was their head coach during the 2018 season when the Sooners reached the College Football Playoff semifinal and believes the two will fit perfectly together as NFL teammates.

“They were very much in sync. They’re both football guys,” Riley told Arizona Sports’ Wolf & Luke on Friday. “They both love ball. They love to work. They really enjoy the process. Both want to win. They were great obviously for us at Oklahoma. You never know in the NFL if guys get an opportunity to reunite like this.”

“I think it’ll be a great fit on so many different levels. I think it’ll open the field as Hollywood is typically able to do — open the field for Kyler and the rest of the offense to really operate. Obviously, it gives him somebody that he really trusts and has a lot of built-up trust, reps, experiences with over years that will certainly count.”

Riley has had success sending quarterbacks and wide receivers to the NFL in his career such as Baker Mayfield, Mark Andrews, CeeDee Lamb, “Hollywood” Brown and Murray just to name a few.

Although Brown was a 1,000-yard receiver of his own last season, the Cardinals will still heavily lean on No. 1 wideout DeAndre Hopkins.

Hopkins and Murray showed their trust grew throughout the last two years.

Riley attributed the trust that Murray has in Brown as a reason the team will succeed from the start.

“I mean, these are split-second decisions and without the ultimate trust, you’re never going to get elite results,” Riley said. “And when you get a league like the NFL where the quality of ball is so high, the other players are so good that trust to me becomes even more important.

“You don’t often get to see a lot of great continuity between receivers, quarterbacks and within an offense. Obviously, just that the initial benefit of bringing in a really good player is always going to help, but the added benefit of their experiences I think will help them start off so much further along than maybe if this was their first experience upcoming together.”

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