Kyler Murray was always the Vikings' best option
Murray agreed to a contract with the Vikings on Thursday
By Matthew Coller
On Thursday, the Minnesota Vikings did something that the Minnesota Vikings have done many, many times throughout their history: They signed somebody else’s quarterback with hopes of that player maximizing their full potential.
You have to admit, it has worked.
Whether it’s Randall Cunningham coming out of retirement to lead the Vikings to a 15-1 season in 1998 or Jeff George coming off the bench to go 8-2 the following season or Sam Bradford posting his best career numbers in 2016 and the start of 2017 or Sam Darnold throwing for 35 touchdowns en route to a 14-win season, there is something about this franchise that seems to elevate previously downtrodden, yet talented QBs.
The explanation is probably pretty simple. They have had offensive coaches with very good resumes and great wide receivers. Moss-Carter. Thielen-Diggs. Jefferson. It doesn’t hurt to play indoors either.
New Vikings quarterback Kyler Murray, who signed with the Vikings on Wednesday, will have those advantages too.
He joins a Vikings team that still has much of the core that went 14-3 with Darnold in 2024. The same Coach of the Year. The same No. 1 and 2 wide receivers. The same two good tight ends. A better offensive line (when healthy). The same defensive coordinator that strikes fear into the hearts of opposing offensive coaches and quarterbacks. Heck, the same excellent kicker.
Murray is also in a similar place in his career to his predecessors that have found success in the Upper Midwest. Throughout his career, there have been flashes of the talent that made him a No. 1 overall pick in 2019. He went 17-13 as a starter for the Arizona Cardinals in 2020 and 2021, making the Pro Bowl both years while posting a 97.2 quarterback rating and racking up over 1,200 yards rushing.
But in recent years, things have been tougher on the former Oklahoma Sooner. He tore his ACL in 2022 amidst a rough season and then didn’t have the same juice when he returned in 2023. In 2024, he had a reemergence with a middling Cardinals team that went 8-9 but an injury and then the team deciding to sink to the bottom with Jacoby Brissett ended Murray’s 2025 with only five games.
The Vikings find themselves in a familiar position as well. For the third time in the last two decades, they have drafted a quarterback in the first round that did not become their franchise player. For different reasons, by Year 3 of Christian Ponder and Teddy Bridgewater’s careers, they were no longer The Guy and the same goes for 2024 first-round pick JJ McCarthy.
In a perfect world for McCarthy, the Vikings would be able to slowly develop him over multiple seasons and land on a conclusion about whether he can reach his full potential or not. That’s not how the NFL works. So the Vikings find themselves in a position where they cannot afford to risk McCarthy continuing to struggle. With a roster full of veteran talent and a head coach that needs a playoff win on his resume, they are forced into a position to turn to a veteran quarterback.
There are plenty of folks who will argue that sticking with McCarthy was the best way to go. None of the people with that opinion are in the primes of their NFL careers looking to win like Justin Jefferson. None of them have ever lived in the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately NFL coaching world like Kevin O’Connell does.
In Murray, they found the player with the best odds to repeat history. Unlike George, Bradford and Darnold, we don’t have to imagine his upside. Murray has twice ranked in the top 12 quarterbacks by Pro Football Focus and four times been ranked in the top 15 by NFL executives and coaches in Mike Sando’s QB Tiers rankings. By Pro-Football Reference’s Approximate Value, he has three years (2020, 2021, 2024) in which he has produced a top 40 most valuable QB season since 2020.
In this case, the high end is all that matters. Among all of the other potential options, the odds of producing a top-15 season in 2026 were either much lower or much more costly.
Kirk Cousins at 37 or Aaron Rodgers at 43 did not have much evidence that they could be anything like the QBs that they were years ago. Maybe they could make the playoffs but anything more was an extreme longshot.
Malik Willis, who signed a $67 million deal with Miami, had a tiny sample size of performance and was very expensive in comparison to Murray’s $1.3 million contract due to Arizona footing the bill. Daniel Jones signed for two years, $88 million in Indianapolis. He has never played better than Murray’s best and is coming off an Achilles injury.
The only player who was expected to be available that might have had a plausible high ceiling was Geno Smith. On Tuesday, the New York Jets traded for Smith, seemingly to keep him from hitting the market and becoming a possibility for the Vikings.
Just because Murray is the best option doesn’t mean he’s a perfect option.
There are plenty of questions to be answered about whether he can click with O’Connell and find a sweet spot within his offense that takes advantage of Murray’s accuracy on short and intermediate throws and playmaking skill out of structure while dealing with his lack of deep passing success recently and his intermittent issues dealing with pressure.
Murray has been questioned at times throughout his career as a leader. Does he want to be That Guy? When O’Connell arrived, Cousins had a similar reputation and he was able to help him take command of the locker room but that doesn’t guarantee that Murray will fit in the same way.
But within the range of outcomes, even if things go sideways, the team’s investment will be almost nothing. If things aren’t working out, they can pivot back to McCarthy or whoever else might come in as a QB3 (Anthony Richardson? Carson Wentz?) with no long-term harm done to the franchise. Had they signed Willis or Jones and had it go sideways, there would be salary cap implications down the road to deal with.
The upside also includes the possibility that Murray could be the starting quarterback over multiple seasons. If they win 11+ games and he becomes a Pro Bowl QB, they can extend him similarly to what Indy did with Jones and start building around him and Jefferson as a duo for the future.
That might look something like what the Detroit Lions did building around Jared Goff, who was cast aside once upon a time by the Los Angeles Rams, or Baker Mayfield, who found his true home in Tampa Bay after being let go by the Cleveland Browns.
If Murray does turn out to be a one-year solution and goes onto different pastures elsewhere after this, then it might turn out to be the best thing for McCarthy too.
While plenty of fans want McCarthy to get more opportunities after only throwing 243 passes as a Vikings QB since being selected 10th overall, we have seen a number of quarterbacks’ careers saved by time on the sidelines. Both Darnold and Mayfield cited their times as QB2 as providing a reset for their careers after tumultuous times. McCarthy hasn’t been able to spend time focused on his development in the last two years because he’s been so often rehabbing from injuries. When he was on the field, he faced immense pressure and scrutiny that he may not have been ready to take at his age.
It’s realistic to think that the Vikings can assess McCarthy’s progress behind the scenes (and have him as a quality backup QB in case Murray gets injured) and then make a decision prior to 2027 whether they want to go forward with him or move on. His career doesn’t have to end in Minnesota just because a more experienced player was given the reins for a year.
One more benefit of signing Murray that doesn’t get enough credit in the days of Super Bowl or bust: He is one of the NFL’s most entertaining players. Murray’s speed, creativity and playmaking are a ton of fun when they are at their best. Vikings fans know this from watching his 400-yard game in 2021 against them. He has some magic.
Is there a good shot that the Vikings will win the Super Bowl with Murray? Of course not. Has this exact type of decision resulted in some of the most memorable seasons in Vikings history and could that happen again? Absolutely.
Purple Insider has a curious penchant for describing the Vikings as if they are a kite dancing in a hurricane.
The FO made a series of deliberate choices. Whatever one's opinion of Cousins, he was 36 with a torn achilles. Moving on and using a high pick on a QB was the clear choice. The Vikings did that, but took a historical bust (bad play + an unbelievable lack of availability + bad make-up). Oops, busts happens to everyone. Happily, the rest of the operation was easily the most attractive landing spot in a year where a 28 year-old former pro bowler was available for the minimum. That's the clear choice now.
This is unlikely to work out, the overwhelmingly likely outcome is wanting (and ideally having the capital to) draft another QB high in 2027. But, these choices were all sound and it's impossible to have a bad 1 year, minimum salary contract. More than anyone on the roster, Murray has the best chance of providing surplus value.
This will be the best thing for JJ in my opinion, assuming he has the right attitude about it. And I think KOC probably believes that, too. I know the ankle sprain thing was real, but there was definitely a feeling with that of KOC not wanting to force JJ back into playing before he was ready. And I know part of signing Darnold and attempting to sign Jones was just standard CYA in case JJ stunk, but I think those moves were also part of his philosophy that you ruin QBs by forcing them to go out and do stuff they’re not ready for. The teams failing QBs bit is more about that than it is about giving up on QBs too early.