Kyler Murray is a Minnesota Viking, ladies and gentlemen! Let the jokes and memes fly!
Kyler Murray entering his Sam Darnold redemption arc in Minnesota pic.twitter.com/onVZXcqkVo
— GhettoGronk (@ghetto_gronk) March 13, 2026
Kyler Murray when Nine says he’s not giving up the Vikings QB1 job pic.twitter.com/EkxJGonUQl
— GhettoGronk (@ghetto_gronk) March 13, 2026
FIRST LOOK at Justin Jefferson and new Vikings QB Kyler Murray 🔥 pic.twitter.com/sRxJrL6nnk
— NFL Memes (@NFLMemes) March 12, 2026
It’s Nine vs. 5’9” around here. After spending most of last season with our heir apparent starting quarterback being meme’d into oblivion and turned into the literal laughingstock of football, hopefully, the proliferation of short jokes and Call of Duty jokes will balance out all the Nine gags from last season.
All jokes aside, it makes sense that Vikings Twitter is having fun with all this, since humor is a coping mechanism. And that’s good, because the need to cope is real.
Clearly, this is not how anyone in the Vikings organization dreamed of their quarterback situation playing out this time 12 months ago. The idea that, due to a mix of poor play and a rash of injuries, they’d already be making an organizational pivot like this away from the quarterback they moved up into the top 10 for, cements this as one of the darker possible outcomes from the night they selected J.J. McCarthy.
That said, there is a tiny glimmer of hope. And I say “tiny” not because this glimmer of hope is more dim or desperate than the others, but simply that it stands 5’10” in lifts.
Kyler Murray should come with a healthy amount of cautious optimism. Still, all it takes is five minutes watching his highlight reel, and suddenly you don’t have to squint too hard to imagine him thriving in Minnesota.
Couple that with the fan favorite storyline that he grew up a Vikings fan, something anyone from Minnesota is a sucker for, and I don’t think it’ll take too long for Kyler to become someone this fanbase can rally around. But while most of the national media have been talking about Murray as the presumptive starter, like it’s a forgone conclusion, is it really that simple?
According to the first press conferences after signing Murray, this is going to be a “competition.” Kevin O’Connell says he got both Kyler and J.J. on a Zoom call and told them they would compete and that he hadn’t anointed a starter yet. I can see why that could be appealing, and why you’d want to push that from a PR standpoint. Let the best man win, iron sharpens iron, or any other competition-based clichés you want to insert here.
However, if you based your opinion solely on the tape released last season by these two players, the Vikings shouldn’t anoint anyone. The Arizona Cardinals benched Murray, and McCarthy played terribly for most of his starts. Both had real problems that this coaching staff will have to find a way to work around and rehabilitate. The difference is that Murray also has a body of work outside of last season that shows a proof of concept that he belongs in this league, something McCarthy still lacks.
Generally speaking, I’m all for competition. I genuinely believe it can bring out the best in players. But, contrary to my core principles, I’m hoping this quarterback competition is one in name only. Or more accurately, J.J. McCarthy is welcome to compete for this starting job, provided he does so in the new offensive infrastructure built for Kyler Murray to thrive.
One of the most weighty criticisms of Kevin O’Connell was his refusal to adapt his offensive structure or procedure to help a floundering McCarthy for the first half of the season. Desperate to remake the version of this offense that thrived in 2024 with Sam Darnold at the helm, O’Connell baptized McCarthy by fire in an offense that clearly overwhelmed him, both pre- and post-snap. While we’ve seen evidence of O’Connell adapting to his quarterbacks in the past (Josh Dobbs, Nick Mullens, etc.), our most recent evidence suggests he can be stubborn to a fault about his offensive philosophy.
Signing Kyler Murray signals a clear departure from that philosophy. Murray represents Kevin O’Connell’s desperate attempt to maximize his upside and save his job — even if it means completely reorienting his offensive principles. Because what Murray does well is not what this offense ran so successfully in 2024.
Murray plays his best ball as a point guard at the line of scrimmage with quick, rhythmic passing. He’s a good distributor close to the line of scrimmage and saves most of his intermediate passing to concepts outside the numbers in the form of deep outs, corner routes, and comebacks. Essentially, the only time you see him throw in structure over the middle of the field is up the seam. Otherwise, it simply isn’t an element of his game.
Asking Murray to spam in-breakers and backside digs all day, as he did with Darnold, will set Murray up to fail. Put him in a position to make the throws he excels at, though, and you’re cooking with gas.
Touch passes are back on the menu in Minnesota pic.twitter.com/1STSy0QyZQ
— Ted Nguyen (@FB_FilmAnalysis) March 12, 2026
The Vikings will also have to change their formations. One of the reasons the Cardinals eventually favored Jacoby Brissett over Murray last season was Kyler’s inability to operate under center, which Arizona wanted to run to unlock more from their running/play-action game. It’s just a reality that Murray’s size is going to limit his ability to operate the closer the big bodies get in his face, and it’s going to affect his ability to read the field. Therefore, the Vikings must still find ways to run an effective, diverse run game out of the shotgun.
Quick reads. Run-pass options. Perimeter screens. Quick outs. All of these are concepts that have not been a part of Kevin O’Connell’s modus operandi. It’s also not the offense that J.J. McCarthy has spent most of his time in Minnesota learning to run. But if you’re going to attempt to insert Murray into this offense while refusing to overhaul the offensive structure, then this whole venture is destined to fail.
Even if it stunts J.J. McCarthy’s development into the vision Kevin O’Connell had in his head a year ago of an ideal passer, that opportunity has passed. The Vikings are marrying themselves to a very different kind of player so he can give them the best chance to succeed. Shoving this square peg into a round hole isn’t going to work. Minnesota needs to run a Kyler Murray offense, for better or worse. If J.J. McCarthy wants to beat out Kyler, he needs to beat him at his own game.
Because, ultimately, Murray came here to be the QB1, whether the Vikings name him the starter outright or give him a head start in a facsimile of a competition. Otherwise, he would’ve signed elsewhere to be Sean McVay’s successor to Matthew Stafford, or lie in waiting for Jalen Hurts to stumble in Philly.
Murray spoke to multiple teams at the NFL Combine about the possibility of being their backup quarterback, but he signed with the Vikings immediately. What did Minnesota offer that those other teams couldn’t? Not money, considering he’s taking the veteran minimum regardless. They offered him a clear runway to a starting job, and Murray would be shortsighted to accept that if Minnesota didn’t couple that with a clear plan to build around his skillset.
Talent like this doesn’t just disappear. pic.twitter.com/LdralaY5Ky
— VikingzFanPage (@vikingzfanpage) March 12, 2026
Kyler Murray has a skillset that’s worth getting excited about. There is a tremendous amount of talent here.
There is a world in which Kevin O’Connell rehabilitates Kyler’s career, and the Kyler Murray era in Minnesota extends far beyond 2026. I just hope this coaching staff is willing to go all in on that possibility, because a half measure likely leads to the same type of disjointed mess Murray was hoping to leave behind in Arizona.