Friday Mailbag: Camp is rolling

The QB competition is off and running and fans have questions

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By Matthew Coller

Happy camp, everybody! Things are off and rolling, so let’s get into your questions…

(Quick note: I’m partnering with Sports Illustrated this year and they have agreed to use five questions from the mailbag to promote my newsletter. So I’ll pick five each week that I really like to send to them.)

Mike… Hi Mr. Coller - I’m in the JJ McCarthy camp. What will happen to the Vikings roster if they sign Kyler Murray to a 40 or 50 million per year contract?

I think we can all agree that it would be advantageous if McCarthy won the job, showed massive improvement, turned into Brett Favre and still had next year as a cheap quarterback. But is that really realistic?

I completely believe that he can become a good quarterback someday with a lot more development but the history on this does not suggest there are great odds of it happening quickly.

Out of 84 quarterbacks to have at least 200 passes in their first 10 games since 2010, McCarthy was 70th in Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt. The most comparable first-round QBs to him are: Christian Ponder, Dwayne Haskins, Kenny Pickett, Blake Bortles, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, Zach Wilson, Bryce Young, Blaine Gabbert.

There are a couple top draft picks like Caleb Williams, Sam Darnold and Jared Goff who were similar but their circumstances were wildly different.

Does that mean it can’t happen? Of course not. The fact that it’s possible is why they’re having a QB competition. But you can’t ask the Vikings to make that bet unless they are super duper sure in training camp that he’s a totally different player.

Maybe you would be willing to start him in 2026 regardless of what he did last year and regardless of how he performs in training camp on purely the hopes and dreams of him turning into the quarterback that they were looking for when they drafted him in 2024. Again, is that really realistic?

This is a very good football team with very good coaching that has the capability to win the division if they get quality quarterback play. We can’t ask Kevin O’Connell to bank their careers on a QB who played that way in real games unless he is either incredibly convincing in practice or Kyler totally flames out.

By the way, why are we talking about Kyler’s next contract before he’s even played a game? Can we see him a few times before we decide that the franchise is screwed for the next five years because they paid him?

Not to mention that paying a QB isn’t a death knell to your chances anymore. Every team in the NFC playoffs except Chicago last year has paid their quarterback. The Seahawks paid Sam Darnold. The Rams have paid Matthew Stafford.

The way that a QB middle class has developed in recent years combined with the structures of contracts being way different than they were during Kirk Cousins’ time here allows for the Vikings to sign Kyler and still have flexibility with the cap into the future if he plays great and they love him.

Jimmy B… Is there a stated plan for Mr Banks going into camp?
Are the Vikings easing in any Veterans into camp as to not over extend their work load.

They haven’t talked about exactly what the plan is going to be with Banks but we can see it pretty clearly. They are working him into the first-team reps slowly and I suspect that he will get more and more as the days go along and his conditioning catches up with everyone who had full offseasons.

In terms of the vets, they have hit the ground running in the early part of practice. As the days go along, they will give vet days and ease certain guys back.

Jason… I was very confident about JJ because of camp reporting last year. Has the good camp from JJ last season relative to his performance changed how you are looking at Kyler and JJ this season?

I’ve gotten quite a few questions about McCarthy’s camp last year and why it didn’t translate. A few things come to mind. The first is that it’s a little bit of revisionist history. There were definitely warning signs in practices last summer. I remember the night practice being particularly rough and I also remember that Kevin Seifert got ripped to shreds on my podcast for saying that he hadn’t been wowed at any point.

It was really the way that things ended in 2025 camp that shaped our opinions. He was so outstanding in the joint practice against New England that it looked like he was following the same arc as Sam Darnold in 2024. Darnold had been up and down and then everything clicked. We were just willing to give McCarthy a lot of grace in camp because he was young.

I’m not saying that I was putting up red flags. I wasn’t. But when we look back at the whole picture of the summer, there were a lot of sacks, a lot of inaccurate throws that we forgave because he didn’t have 18 and was going against Flores’ defense.

We have to remember that camp is just not real football. On my show the other day, Dave Campbell of the AP recalled the 2005 Daunte Culpepper camp where the football never touched the ground and he looked unbelievable and then things fell apart quickly. Case Keenum was terrible in camp in 2017.

We’re going to do our best to get a feel for how good Kyler might be in the offense but there’s nothing guaranteed in football. Think about how huge samples of playing in actual games don’t even tell the true story of what’s going to happen next and folks think that we can watch 15 practices and know all the answers?

Kris… What is the smarter play for the Vikings, signing a depth edge rusher or going bigger game hunting and acquiring Vita Vea? One option requires less assets and is more sustainable long-term. However, Vita Vea could absolutely change the run defense that was so lacking last year but will cost a lot more (contract and draft picks). You the man Matthew!

I like the idea of going after Vita Vea because I think he’s a force multiplier. If you have him, everyone else is better and you can live in two-high safety looks without any concerns that the other team is going to pound your face in with the run game.

It’s funny that the Vikings signed a 31-year-old Brian O’Neill to a four-year contract and nobody blinked but the idea of acquiring Vita Vea (six months older than BO) is terrifying to some folks. He’s still playing at a top-15 level and elite DTs often last into their mid-30s. Look at Cam Heyward, Leonard Williams, DeForest Buckner, Calais Campbell.

I’m not saying that I’d sell the farm for him but imagining him alongside Caleb Banks for the next three years is pretty enticing. If his play was declining like Hargrave/Allen last year, I’d view it differently.

At the same time, Nolan Teasley was brought here to win through the draft. If you’re giving up big-time assets for a guy like Vea, it’s harder to do that.

I’ve just started to think a lot about how teams are built in three-year windows. The roster is wildly different than 2023, right? So if you can grab an elite talent for three years, do it.

IceColdNorth… Now that you’ve had a chance to see Caleb Banks in person, of what former NFL player(s) does he remind you in terms of frame & body type? Also, in what defensive line positions did the coaching staff use Banks, so far, in practice?

There truly aren’t many guys that are his size in the NFL ever. He’s in the 98th percentile in height and 98th in wingspan. The most comparable is probably Jordan Davis. He’s 6-foot-6, 340(ish). Historically, Marcus Stroud of the Jaguars was mentioned to me by Ross Tucker and that makes sense too. Akiem Hicks was in the ballpark.

He’s only taken a handful of snaps so it’s hard to say exactly how they are going to use him but it looks like he’s going to be a 3-technique who can line up all the way out to the 5-tech (over the tackle). That gives him some space to use his quickness and hit gaps rather than just being instantly double teamed by centers and guards like Vita Vea gets.

Arin J…. Cannot agree more that Brian O’Neill signing that was huge. He would have been a big loss. Even if draft picks work out Trent Williams is to and still trucking. O’Neill has at least a good 5 years or so . CBs and RBs face the largest drop off when they get older. WR, they are tons of examples although most on the high end rice, Carter, the technicians route running can win when speed slows down. For CBs lack of speed is a killer. I am ready for some football! KOC and the bounce back year 11 wins 12 wins Let’s go! Regardless of the QB as long as we get top 10 QB play we should be good, wrs and the O line are better than 2024. Flores and the defense lots of questions but I believe until proven otherwise because of Flores

Football!

The cornerback age curve is a little different than RB. They don’t have quite the same steep and predictable cliff and the great ones can often play into their 30s at a high level. Patrick Peterson, for example.

Tackles are also the most predictable players on the field. Circumstances effect them sometimes but usually their job is to just keep the freaky edge rushers from getting to the passer. If they are able to do that at 25 years old, they’ll still be able to do it at 30-35 years old as long as they don’t have catestrophic injuries and they rarely have down years. It’s much easier to slump as a QB, RB, WR where the situation dictates production.

Brent M…. Hey Matthew, I know that it is an extremely small sample size, it’s only day one, etc. But, I am curious how you would rate the QB battle if things continue to play out like day 1, where JJ is more efficient and less explosive and Kyler is the opposite? The initial results made me wonder how KOC would decide the winner, if they both performed well, just in different ways. Like, in a best-case scenario, picking between a Cousins and a Darnold? Any initial thoughts?