After graduating from Clemson, Murphy, like most prospective NFL players, focused a large portion of his training on performing well at the Scouting Combine and in other pre-draft exercises. That made him the 28th overall pick in the draft and helped him get to Cincinnati, but it didn’t put him in the kind of shape he needed to be successful on the field.

After altering his preseason regimen, Murphy feels he’s on track for greater things. He finished with 20 tackles and three sacks on 305 defensive snaps.

According to Bengals radio host Dan Hoard, “There’s a difference between combine condition and football condition,” Murphy stated. While I wasn’t in excellent football shape last year, I was in great combine condition. I’m in excellent football shape right now.

Trey Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard are returning for the Bengals, so Murphy won’t have too much pressure to perform come fall, but if he can convert greater conditioning into more output, the Bengals defense will be much more difficult to handle.