The Minnesota Vikings walked into the 2025 season thinking they had their quarterback of the future. JJ McCarthy, their first-round pick, was supposed to be the guy. Instead, he spent most of the year either injured or inconsistent, and the offense paid for it. By season’s end, the Vikings had one of the worst QB situations in the league. So they did what any team in win-now mode would do: they went out and signed Kyler Murray.
Murray is a fascinating fit for head coach Kevin O’Connell, who has spent his entire Vikings tenure working with bigger, traditional pocket passers like Kirk Cousins and Sam Darnold. Murray stands maybe 5-foot-10 on a good day and relies on improvisation, elusiveness, and the ability to make plays with his legs. It’s not exactly the same playbook.
But O’Connell has shown he can adjust. ESPN’s Ben Solak pointed out that in 2023, after Cousins went down with an Achilles injury, O’Connell got functional football out of both Nick Mullens and Joshua Dobbs by tweaking the offense rather than scrapping it. Dobbs got more bootlegs and rollouts. Mullens got more play-action shots. Neither guy looked like Cousins, but O’Connell found ways to make them work.
Murray is a different animal entirely. He’s far more talented than either Mullens or Dobbs, but his game is built on movement. He’s at his best when things break down, when he can escape the pocket and create. O’Connell will have to adjust his dropback-heavy concepts to let Murray do what he does. That might mean more designed runs, more RPOs, and a heavier dose of play-action. The Vikings haven’t run an offense like that under O’Connell, but the roster is good enough elsewhere that they don’t need Murray to be a perfect pocket passer. They just need him to be Kyler.
McCarthy will still get a chance to compete in training camp, but after his 2025 disaster — injuries, inconsistency, and a general lack of command — it would be something of a surprise if Murray doesn’t get the first crack at the starting job this fall. The former No. 1 overall pick has always had the talent. The question has been health, consistency, and fit. In Minnesota, the fit might actually be better than people think.
The rest of the roster is built to win now. Justin Jefferson is still Justin Jefferson. The defense added pieces. The offensive line is solid. If O’Connell can figure out how to marry his system to Murray’s skill set, this team could go from bottom-feeder to playoff contender in one season. That’s the expectation, anyway. And with a coach as sharp as O’Connell, it’s not hard to imagine it happening.
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