Kyler Murray Named Starting QB for Minnesota Vikings
Kyler Murray replaces J.J. McCarthy as the starting quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings, marking a significant shift. Murray looks to revive his career.
Video Transcript
And it turns out, shocker, Kyler Murray is now your starting quarterback with the Minnesota Vikings and not J.J. McCarthy.
And boy, if I was a betting man, I would have bet McCarthy likely not going into the season as the starting, quarterback, but Kevin O'Connell- the head coach, yeah, he told the team and told the media and told everyone else, "Yeah, J- J.J. McCarthy's just not very good now, is he?"
No.
This was a- He's- an outcome that most people expected.
This was an outcome if you were following the news and really following the off-season.
It should not be too much of a sur- shock frankly if KOC and the Vikings front office, which has gone through quite a bit of turnover recently, if they truly believed in J.J. McCarthy, they would have just never brought in Kyler Murray, right?
They never would have signed him.
They would have allocated those, salary dollars elsewhere to upgrade the line, upgrade this position, that position, whatever it is.
But we have basically every quarterback battle wrapped up outside of the Browns.
The Falcons, that's really just due to injury, if Michael Penix is gonna be ready, and then the Raiders.
Those are really the only three teams remaining for starting quarterbacks.
The Vikings, we know there's been a very tough posi- division and position overall, where to me they look like a seven, maybe eight-win team.
I don't think they're gonna be in the playoffs.
Yeah.
I, and I love how they just, you know, they're, they're, they're trying to still make it seem as if McCarthy, who a- all indications were was bent to begin with that they brought Kyler Murray in, was not very welcoming.
And now they're making it seem like, "Hey, listen, guys, he's only got 10 games.
He's only played in 10 games.
He's got a, he's got a big, yeah, he's got a big future as a backup," is what's gonna happen here.
Minnesota's fourth starting quarterback in four years.
That is not A- and I like O'Connell.
He's a good coach.
I think he's a very good coach, just ask Sam Darnold.
But man, four quarterbacks in four seasons is not a good look here, Tom, for this team.
I- it's certainly not.
And again, the, the turnover at the GM position and, and the issues- Oh that they've had with the, the front office is, okay, we You know, Sam Darnold just won a Super Bowl, so it's like, okay, and everyone's gonna have this revisionist history that they didn't wanna re-sign Sam Darnold.
Well, it looks pretty bad now.
And like, I hate buying into revisionist history, you know, to, to my point, but they've had so many different starting quarterbacks.
And granted, sometimes it's dealing with injuries, which they had to de- deal with a lot last year with J.J. McCarthy.
But when you are in this tough of a division where every team is viable to, I'm gonna say borderline win the division and make the playoffs- you need to have stability at the most important position in all s- in all of sports, which is quarterback.
So can they still believe in J.J. McCarthy?
Sure.
But maybe he should be resting a year or, or learning a year, because in his first year he wasn't learning, he was recovering from knee injuries.
He wasn't in the week-to-week process of running the scout team, learning the playbook, reading defenses, watching film.
He may have been doing some of that, but it's just not the same if he's actually recovering from an injury.
He needs a year to learn.
Yeah.
It, it, exactly.
It is, not a great situation, but at least as they head into week, one of the preseason, they know who their quarterback is.
They certainly have some wide receivers and some weapons there.
Can they protect Kyler Murray, and will he stay, oh, I don't know, invested long enough a- and not play, you know, Madden, the new version's coming out, so you know, that, might take up a lot of his time there, Tom.
He's much more into gaming- than he is actually playing quarterback in the NFL.
