The real QB competition begins in training camp
Kevin O'Connell broke down the timeline for the QB competition on Thursday
By Matthew Coller
EAGAN — The Minnesota Vikings’ quarterback competition has been a bit of an ink blot test already.
You might look at the quarterback competition and see two QBs who had rough 2025 seasons that need to prove that they deserve to be starters via a battle in training camp.
You might look at Kyler Murray as the next Baker Mayfield or Sam Darnold — a top talent who was victimized by one of the worst organizations in football.
You might look at JJ McCarthy as a QB who just needs to improve his game a bit in order to become a quality starting quarterback.
You might look at JJ McCarthy as a QB who will probably never be able to sand down his sharp edges.
You might see the truest of competitions coming in camp. May the best man win. Or you might see a competition designed to make sure it looks like McCarthy got a fair chance but the job really belongs to Murray.
At the end of minicamp, nobody knows exactly who is seeing this picture correctly.
Here’s what we do know: Head coach Kevin O’Connell is presenting this as a “true competition” with both quarterbacks getting equal reps in minicamp practices and he said that the same thing will happen in training camp until a winner is crowned.
When will they be crowned?
“We want to make sure by the time we play the Green Bay Packers that there’s been ample time to have the best possible offense we can have to help our football team,” O’Connell said. “The quarterback’s going to play a big role in that. So that’s kind of where we’re at right now as far as the timeline goes. I think to give an actual date would not necessarily be accurate from a portrayal of how we see it, but there is a timeline.”
If this is a sham competition, then O’Connell is doing a great acting job with his commentary and by giving both of them reps in minicamp. But just because there is a competition doesn’t mean both QBs have the same starting point.
Murray has been considered league wide to be a top-15 quarterback in the past, whereas McCarthy struggled mightily during the majority of his debut season. That’s like the two competing in the 100-yard dash and Murray starting at the 40-yard line. Technically it’s a race but one guy’s odds are lower than the other.
But the fact that O’Connell hasn’t ruled out McCarthy despite signing a proven QB means he is going to at least give him a chance to become the starting quarterback.
So, whether McCarthy becomes the player that the Vikings dreamed about him becoming at this time last year is entirely up to him.
Clearly it would benefit the franchise if they could reach the point where they expected to be with McCarthy and still have him under contract on his rookie deal and in line to be the franchise quarterback rather than a veteran rent-a-QB who will need to be highly paid if he has a big season in 2025.
The question is: How high will the bar be for O’Connell to go back to a quarterback who struggled so much as a second-year player?
“There’s obviously data involved, but I think there’s a layer of feel to it from them and us,” O’Connell said. “Some things where maybe we didn’t spend 20 minutes in the meeting that morning, but we’ve talked about that, and they apply it in a period where it’s real football. There’s no scripts. We’re calling plays. Flo’s calling it. He’s the best in the league at what he does….There’s high stress that goes into that with 11 players up at the line of scrimmage on some snaps. And I love every aspect of it because I think these guys are handling it in such a great way that they’re both going to massively improve.”
In the areas that McCarthy struggled the most in 2025, O’Connell was complimentary of him following minicamp. Both he and offensive coordinator mentioned fundamentals and throwing the football with some touch.
“His fundamentals and the way he’s really tried to apply the different types of throws, he now has the experience, and you’re not talking about hypotheticals anymore,” O’Connell said. “He can learn plays based upon reps…he’s worked on a lot of those throws and the rhythm and the timing and the trajectory of those throws. Then he gets to come out and practice them.”
O’Connell will have to see more than just progress from McCarthy in order to give him the job over Murray. He is going to need consistent execution to the point of believing that McCarthy is on track to be a top-15 quarterback in 2025. That’s how high the bar is since Murray has been in that range multiple times during his career.
On the other side, the biggest challenge facing Kyler Murray is learning O’Connell’s offense.
Justin Jefferson noted on Thursday how difficult the offense can be to learn. We saw that with Kirk Cousins when O’Connell got the job in 2022 and it took Sam Darnold until a few days into padded practices before he started to look comfortable.
Murray has a chance to prove that the things that have been said about him based on a “study clause” years ago are wrong. He has an opportunity to come back and be totally locked into the offense from top to bottom and show the potential to be a franchise quarterback and se the bar too high for McCarthy to reach in one summer.
But he will have to master the offense on limited reps, which Murray acknowledged this week was a challenge.
“A lot of the real growth we’ve all probably had in life comes in those uncomfortable times where you work through it and you find a way out the other side and you’re that much better off for it and I know that’s Kyler’s mentality towards it,” O’Connell said.
At the end of minicamp, we got one answer that was pretty unclear going into the spring: That this QB competition is going to last into the summer.
If we know anything from Vikings QB history, we can never predict what’s going to come next.
You could reasonably conclude from looking at the team in minicamp that the roster that they are going to be strong from top to bottom around the QB. The offensive line being healthy is promising and the receiving corps is excellent and possibly deeper than it has been in years if young players step up and there’s reason to think they have an improved run scheme.
Knowing that Brian Flores sets a high floor for the team, the pressure will be enormous on O’Connell to handle the QB competition the right way and to get the quarterback play that they were so desperately missing last season.
Is it over dramatic to say that the way the QB competition plays out in the summer will shape the franchise’s future? Probably not because right now the future is wide open at quarterback and determining the long-term at the most important position begins in late July.
“The limited time you do have… challenges those guys to see who responds, see who handles adversity well, and ultimately see who elevates the offense,” O’Connell said. “Regardless of what we’ve been this year’s version of the offense, because it’s going to look different at times, we’re going to do some different things. And that player that elevates the group as a whole is going to be the guy that’s under center against the Green Bay Packers.”