How does Kyler Murray joining the Vikings impact the betting markets?
Yahoo Sports Daily host Caroline Fenton is joined by senior sports betting analyst Ben Fawkes to explain how the odds have moved for the Minnesota Vikings now that they signed Kyler Murray to be their quarterback. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV .
Video Transcript
To me, it's always interesting just kind of the potential difference against the spread because we always try and measure, right, the quarterback relative to their backup because it's not the quarterback against any backup.
That's somewhat irrelevant.
It's the quarterback over the specific backup who would go in the game if that starter got injured.
I, I think for Kyler, it's a little interesting for me.
I would have thought it'd be a little higher, than that.
Now, obviously this is a reaction in, in March.
We haven't seen Kyler for a long time since he hurt that foot.
Seemed like maybe he was healthy enough to come back.
The Cardinals said, "We're good.
We're gonna put you on IR."
So we haven't seen him play football in a long time, which I think probably depresses that value a bit.
And J.J. McCarthy did play a little better towards the end of the season, so maybe that increases his value a little more.
But ultimately, I think this is just where odds makers are gonna see.
We saw a little bit of the Super Bowl impact as well.
obviously, we'll still have the draft.
We still have some of free agency, so the teams aren't completely, formulated.
But this is a very lucky, I said fortuitous thing for the Vikings to be able to get a quarterback who when he's played, I believe at least double digit games, he's had a QBR over 50, which is basically the league average in each of those seasons, including one where he was an MVP candidate for the first half of the season.
So we know that Kyler kind of has proof of concept as an elite quarterback in the NFL, whereas with J.J. McCarthy, the hope is that one day with a lot more seasoning, he could get to that point of being, you know, we'll say an above average, league average starter, maybe if everything goes well, an MVP candidate.
But Kyler's already done that previously.
And so I think it raises the ceiling of the team overall, and you assume that if that defense is better, and certainly it seems like it'll be okay even with a couple, players that they lost.
Mm-hmm.
It's just a team that because they were so bad and they were out of the playoff race, I don't think the national consciousness understandably was kind of paying attention and whether or not it was good that they won a couple games late and got a worse draft pick.
I don't think people realize that the Vikings were above 500 with a combination of Carson Wentz, J.J. McCarthy, and Max Brosmer as their quarterbacks.
They went nine and eight with those quarterbacks.
So if you have Kyler Murray, even him playing kind of at his worst is better than J.J. McCarthy last year at his best.
So I think you just have a much higher floor and certainly a much higher ceiling.
As, again, assuming he can stay healthy, I do think him getting cut as well, right?
All of those things we heard about in Arizona, potentially concerns about off the field or work ethic things.
He now has an opportunity for one year, prove it with a very good veteran team, and then there's also that clause in the contract, he can't be franchise tagged, right?
So this is a real win-win.
Incentives are aligned for both sides, for Kyler to rebuild his value, the Vikings to have a shot to help J.J. McCarthy maybe grow in the long term and win in the short term, and that's what they didn't have last year.
They just They didn't have that quarterback who could elevate a roster that was ready to win now.
