By Matthew Coller
EAGAN — In late August 2022, I sat with a handful of reporters up in the TCO Stadium press box for the final Minnesota Vikings practice of training camp and watched Kirk Cousins have one of the worst practices I’ve ever seen in my 10 years covering the team.
He threw five interceptions. It could have been seven if defensive backs and linebackers could catch.
After practice we talked to Kirk, who was exasperated. He looked like a kid who just bombed a test.
Walking out of TCO Performance Center that day, I thought that Kevin O’Connell’s new offense was about to turn Cousins into Jimmy Clausen.
This 2022 team is cooked, man. Get ready to draft No. 1 overall, everybody.
In Week 1, Cousins went 23-for-32 against the Green Bay Packers with 277 yards and two touchdowns. He outplayed Aaron Rodgers by a country mile and Justin Jefferson went for 184 and two touchdowns. Cousins had moments during the early part of that season where he was still adapting to KOC but he went on to play his most confident clutch football that year and win 13 games.
In 2024, I was in Berea, Ohio — a place I hope to never visit again — to watch joint practices. The first day was dominated so heavily by the Cleveland Browns defense that their players were laughing at Sam Darnold and mocking how few completions he put together.
With JJ McCarthy injured, it looked like the Vikings were going to need a top-five defense to even hang around .500 in a rebuilding season. Nope, they won 14 games.
On the other side of the coin, last year we treated joint practices with the New England Patriots like they were the Super Bowl. McCarthy’s hot run of completions at the end of the second practice was treated as concrete evidence that he would be taking the Vikings deep into the playoffs. Things didn’t exactly work out that way.
By now you can probably figure out where I’m headed with this.
The first 10 days of Vikings training camp have not seen either quarterback look like Joe Montana. The execution has been wobbly for Kyler Murray and McCarthy. The night practice was frustrating to watch as Murray struggled to get the ball downfield at all and McCarthy went full McCarthy by hitting several brilliant throws mixed with a 3-for-13 stretch that included overthrows and timing issues.
After Murray’s best two practices came within four days last week, I expected him to cruise out ahead and be quickly named the starting quarterback so we could all move on with our lives and escape the rain of constant online abuse that comes along with not crowning McCarthy as America’s Next Top Quarterback.
Instead it doesn’t appear that Murray is there yet. But the competition has not been even and the reps mean a lot. Overall, Murray has made far fewer mistakes and had days where the football basically didn’t hit the ground. He’s made decisions quicker and overall looked like he has command of the offense. McCarthy has been fine and he should be happy with the fact that he’s gotten so many reps to develop but it’s hard to identify any area that is vastly different from last year when it comes to the shortcomings.
When it comes to the reps, they always tell the story. Murray has gotten nearly three times as many reps with the first team, including Justin Jefferson, to this point.
The problem is, people get a little sniff of football and decide it is absolutely time to react like maniacs.
I’ve been receiving messages for days that the Vikings are going to lose every game with Murray so they might as well play McCarthy. I’ve been told because I consider a QB who ranked 12th by PFF and 9th by ESPN’s QBR and the same tier as Daniel Jones and Bo Nix by NFL executives as being a potentially good option for this team that I am “biased” and might as well marry Kyler if I love him so much.
I can’t complain because I’m part of the problem. Tracking every single pass and trying to paint a picture of camp every day has created an environment where practices are being treated like games. While WHO WON TODAY?!? is really not a rational way to analyze practices but there’s no other choice when the team is having a quarterback competition and everyone wants to know what’s going on.
Kevin O’Connell tried to point out to us before practice that things happen every day that might look different to the untrained eye than what’s actually going on. Pshh. What does he know!
Maybe we should ask ourselves: How would a rational person view what has happened so far. I know that’s not how sports media is done anymore but let me just try it and see what happens.
Rational take 1:
— We need to weigh actual football way more than five padded practices. Kyler Murray still makes the most sense as the starting quarterback because he’s been a quality player at the position in the NFL before and the Vikings have a lot of talent and great coaching across the board so they can compete for the NFC North if he plays like he did in 2020, 2021 or 2024. The team is too good to use 2026 as a “finding out” season with a young QB.
Rational take 2:
— We should be asking whether O’Connell’s offense and Murray are going to gel together and whether not start getting all of the first-team reps is starting to impact how far along he can come in a new system.
Rational take 3:
— If O’Connell feels like Murray isn’t getting it and loves the way McCarthy is playing, he should commit to this competition for the rest of camp and give McCarthy a 50-50 split of the first-team reps and see who does better with Jefferson. To this point, he’s probably thrown less than 10 passes to Jefferson all summer.
Rational take 4:
— If McCarthy were to make a surge and overtake Murray and win the job, it would be a good outcome for the Vikings because that means he will have played at such an exceptional level in the coaches’ eyes that they trust him over a proven veteran QB. We all agree that it would be better to have a young rising QB on a rookie contract.
Rational take 5:
— If the coaches are not convinced that they can make the playoffs with McCarthy and go with Murray, this training camp has been great for McCarthy to get as much work as he did.
It’s the first time since 2024 that he was actually able to have a totally healthy offseason and work day after day after day. O’Connell giving him this many reps in camp is exactly what he needed and has helped prepare him in the event that he has to play over a long period of time.
Rational take 6:
— The future of the QB position in Minnesota is so far off that trying to project it right now is useless. How is anyone supposed to know how this thing is going to play out, much less what other quarterbacks might be available in the future? In 2017, Sam Bradford had the best camp ever and the best Week 1 ever and then was done for the season. We have no idea what’s next and neither do the Vikings.
Rational take 7:
— The Vikings have had a bunch of things go right in this camp. Young defensive tackles look good, Christian Darrisaw has returned to his old self, Dallas Turner looks ready to take another step, Charles Demmings looks like a future starter, Tai Felton has made a bunch of plays and Will Reichard is booting footballs through the goal posts like always.
This camp hasn’t been a disaster by any measure and there’s no reason to push any panic buttons.
Conclusions:
Nobody wants rational takes. Folks want to argue and fight and drum up as much controversy as possible and that’s fine because it’s football and football wouldn’t be as popular if we couldn’t argue about it all the time.
But we shouldn’t lose sight of reality in the process. The Vikings got Murray to start and they are developing McCarthy along the way and giving him every opportunity to make things interesting. We are getting to the point where O’Connell has a fork in the road and must decide to go all-in on Murray’s reps or push the gas pedal down on a true competition.
Right now, things are still trending toward Murray being the quarterback and that’s best for the team as it is currently constructed.
If something changes, then the opinions will change with the information.
Oh, and a few padded practices are absolutely not going to give us all the answers to what’s going to happen in the 2026 NFL season.
Matthew, just when I was ready to say about the QB competition, "wake me up when it's over, I can't stand all the drama!" you offer this eminently reasonable take on what we're experiencing, what we should hope for, and to just lower the temperature on all the speculation. Thank you!
Rational Take 1 is probably the overriding factor here. Just based on the actual regular season football he has played over the last five years or so, you gotta give Murray the benefit of the doubt when it comes to base level, won’t embarrass the team, QB play. Outside of him totally regressing these next few weeks and McCarthy becoming super consistent out of nowhere, you gotta just start the season with Murray and see where it goes. I can kind of understand the mentality that you gotta play actual games to grow as a QB, but after what we saw last year, I don’t know how you could argue it is some kind of travesty if McCarthy doesn’t start week 1. Sitting the entire season would be good for him, in my opinion.