The Minnesota Vikings brought in Kyler Murray this offseason, and the assumption was that he would be the starter. However, the Vikings maintain that there is an open competition for the team’s starting QB job in 2026.
This is more befitting of college football.
College coaches love to insist there’s an open quarterback competition into the depths of August, even when they’ve known since the previous December who their starter would be (especially in the NIL/compensation era). It’s a tired motivational ploy — to keep the QB “hungry” to prove himself — that is annual tradition at this point.
Ah, college sports.
This is the NFL, though.
So why the collective wink-wink indulgence of pretending the Minnesota Vikings have a quarterback competition this month between Kyler Murray and J.J. McCarthy?
Because surely nobody actually thinks that, right?
Right?!
And yet, turn on SportsCenter or scroll social media the last few months and one would be led to believe this is an actual thing.
All respect to the esteemed NFL media playing along with the bit, but just stop, please.
C’mon, guys …
There is not a fraction of a percentage chance that if healthy, Murray sits behind “Nine” to open the season. There never was.
0.00%
Kyler Murray Is With The Minnesota Vikings For A Reason
The very reason Murray is in Minnesota — and former Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is not — is because from the top of the organization on down, it was understood they’d thrown away an entire season with a playoff-caliber roster by turning the reins over to McCarthy in 2025, and under no circumstance could they go into 2026 with him as the starting QB.
(Adofo-Mensah, who drafted McCarthy No. 10 overall in 2024 and then let Sam Darnold leave town after a 14-3 season so he could clear the depth chart out for the untested second-year QB last year, was fired in late January after the Minnesota Vikings missed the playoffs and just before Darnold won a Super Bowl with the Seahawks.)
McCarthy, who missed his rookie season due to injury before being handed the job last year, passed for 1,632 yards, 11 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in 10 starts and rushed for 181 yards and 4 TDs.
The reality of it looked even worse than those numbers.
His QB rating of 72.6 ranked 52nd among NFL quarterbacks who started at least one game last season.
Fifty-second!
Worse than (barely, but still) 39-year-old journey Josh Johnson making his first starts since 2021 as the Commanders’ third option. Worse than Chiefs’ third-stringer Chris Oladokun, who not a single football fan had honestly heard of before Patrick Mahomes‘ and Gardner Minshew‘s injuries. Even worse than 44-year-old Philip Rivers, who went 0-3 for the Colts while coming out of retirement after five years away from the game. Worse than all three of the Giants’ starting QBs. Worse (by a significant margin) than Dillon Gabriel with the Browns, who may never start or play in another NFL game again.
We could keep going here, but that makes the point well enough.
McCarthy Simply Not Cut Out For Vikings QB Job
The Athletic’s Mike Sando polled 50 NFL coaches and executives to rank the top quarterbacks in the NFL. McCarthy landed at No. 34, which seems awfully generous until realizing that the voters were only asked to weigh in on 35 quarterbacks.
In which case, that’s spot on. (Shedeur Sanders was the only one voted worse.)
The panelists were asked to put each of the 35 QBs into one of five tiers. Let’s just quote from Sando’s story: “McCarthy’s 10 votes in Tier 5 are the second-most in QB Tiers history for a first-round quarterback entering his third NFL season. Anthony Richardson drew 11 last year. No other QB has had more than four (Tua Tagovailoa in 2022). ‘Football looks hard for him,’ an offensive coach said.”
Yes, it sure does.
And yet we have to pretend the Vikings are even going to even consider opening this season with McCarthy as the starter?!
No, we don’t.
Murray became the most-coveted free agent quarterback on the market after he was released from the Cardinals, and he chose the Vikings because it was the most desirable landing spot. Again, this was a 14-3 team the last time it had a legitimate NFL quarterback running the offense.
Murray isn’t a perfect QB either and never fully lived up to his expected potential in Arizona, but it wasn’t all his fault there and there were plenty of highlights as well.
Murray Is The Superior Option In Minnesota
Forget tiers, these two quarterbacks aren’t even in the same league talent-wise.
Murray has a 121/60 touchdown-to-interception ratio for his career. At his peak in Arizona, while playing for an offensive-minded head coach in Kliff Kingsbury, he threw for 3,971 yards, 26 TDs and 12 INTs and rushed for 819 yards and 11 TDs.
The Vikings didn’t sign Murray to come compete with “Nine” — they signed Murray to save their offense and star wide receiver Justin Jefferson‘s sanity.
Jefferson had career-lows with 1,048 yards and 2 TDs (and 84 receptions), down from 103-1,533-10 in the same number of games the previous season. His 12.5 yards per reception in 2025 was 2.6 yards below his previous career average.
That’s how bad the Vikings’ QB situation was last year with McCarthy, Carson Wentz and Max Brosmer.
What could McCarthy possibly do in practice to beat out an in-his-prime 28-year-old former NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and two-time Pro Bowl quarterback for the starting job?
The Path To The Starting Job Is Clear For Minnesota Vikings
Presumably, the Vikings coaches and executives saw him practice prior to last season and gave him the starting job only to see a much different version in real games. But a few weeks of August practices are going to make the difference and have the Vikings signing back up for more?
No. Just, no.
But it seems maybe the charade won’t last much longer anyway — McCarthy seems to be making certain of that, per the latest reports out of practice.
The Vikings will start Murray. They were always going to start Murray. And they’ll be a much better team because of it.
They have a loaded offense that added productive wide receiver Jauan Jennings to the returning duo of Jefferson and Jordan Addison. They were a 14-win playoff team before McCarthy and they can be a playoff team again after him. And Murray will thrive playing for Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell, after being trapped in (and sure, part of) a bad situation in Arizona the last three years with defensive-minded over-his-ski’s and since-fired Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon.
That’s why he chose Minnesota. That’s why Minnesota chose him.
And that’s why there was never, ever a quarterback competition in the first place — no matter what you might have heard.
