From a footballing point of view Kyler Murray has already beaten J.J. McCarthy for the Minnesota Vikings’ starting quarterback role. From a leadership position, however, head coach Kevin O’Connell seems to be leaving the door open … for now.
“The goal going into this offseason was to elevate the quarterback position because when we have a certain standard of play that we feel like we have multiple guys in that room that we feel are capable of reaching that standard, the Minnesota Vikings win football games,” he explained on The Dan Patrick Show Thursday. “The best way to achieve that is having a daily attempt to have guys push each other and not just always need the outside noise or not always need what the narratives may be.”
That may sound like a rather safe answer from a head coach trying to avoid declaring a winner prematurely, but if a “daily attempt” to assess quarterbacks is required and the expectation is another guy could surpass the other every 24 hours, then something’s not right. Murray has already complained about not getting enough snaps with the first stringers and the longer O’Connell keeps McCarthy in the hunt, the worse off it’ll be for Minnesota’s offense.
Will Kyler Murray be able to lead Vikings better than J.J. McCarthy?
It’s unclear what O’Connell is specifically hung up about that he’s being so coy about the Vikings’ QB competition. His comment, though, betrays the thought process just enough to speculate.
“Kyler has come in and done a great job,” O’Connell continued. “J.J., I think, has benefit[ed] from [the competition]; he’s had a really good spring … As a guy who’s played seven or eight quarterbacks in four years, the two years we had our starter play the whole season, we won 13 and 14 games. So we want to try to get back to the standard of having the quarterback position be a driving force behind us winning by doing their job.”
Now that tells the story. O’Connell is referencing the team’s 2022-23 and 2024-25 campaigns in which Kirk Cousins and Sam Darnold, respectively, started every game and the results were impressive. Courins and Darnold were healthy those years and clearly O’Connell has Murray’s health at the forefront of his mind with McCarthy having already missed serious time across his first two NFL seasons.
That raises questions about leadership ability. Will a locker room take the quarterback seriously enough if they are not playing every game, especially if they carry the unfortunate reputation of being a part-time player to begin with? O’Connell’s “daily attempts” may be an evaluation of durability rather than quarterbacking ability.
Having Murray not clinch the starting role publicly until training camp is well underway makes more sense in that context. O’Connell doesn’t want to rush into naming him QB1, as much as his quick signing suggested such a decision, so as to avoid the unfortunate scenario where Murray is injured in preseason action and a begrudged McCarthy takes the reins.
“I’m excited about where we’re at, but we won’t really know until we go calcifying, forging our team together,” O’Connell added. “We’re gonna compete in the NFC North. It’s a very, very competitive division.”
Indeed it is. As the division’s arms race heats up, O’Connell wants to make sure his best weapon (outside Justin Jefferson, of course) is fully operational before deploying.
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