After a courtship that took longer to consummate than a Victorian marriage, Kyler Murray has signed a contract with the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikes are in trouble, with the Arizona Cardinals, the quarterback’s former employer for at least one season in the league, picking up the remainder of the tab. This is the same contract Russell Wilson signed with Pittsburgh after being held back by Denver. Except Wilson is five years older and a lot more dowdy. Of all the potential quarterbacks the Vikings could have plucked from the scrap heap, Murray was clearly the best of the bunch.
Of course, Minnesota didn’t have to be in this position to begin with. Two years ago, the Vikings signed Sam Darnold to a one-year deal to serve as a bridge QB, and the team spent a year developing then-rookie JJ McCarthy behind the scenes. Darnold had an incredible performance in 2024, throwing 35 TDs and leading the Vikings to 14 wins. Then he collapsed in the final two games of that season, including a disastrous performance in a wild card loss to the Rams, and the Vikings (and their fans) decided that one year of Darnold was all they needed of Darnold.
They decided wrong. Infamously so. Darnold went to Seattle and immediately won a Super Bowl with his new team. McCarthy – you’ve probably heard this – didn’t. In just one season, Minnesota went from having the best deep passing attack in football to having no passing attack at all. To make matters worse, the Vikings failed to retain QB Daniel Jones for the 2025 season, leaving Max Brosmer and the half-dead Carson Wentz as the only other options in the QB room. I had more fun watching fish die out of the water.
The Vikings went 9-8 in 2025, but only won once in the playoffs. So when the team did essentially nothing in free agency this month, they said all they really needed was a revitalized QB to get back into contention. And when coach Kevin O’Connell told reporters at the combine that he wanted a “baseline” level of play at QB after successfully pointing out the 2025 failures to the GM who hired him, he said the same. The rest of the Vikings roster was badass and all they needed was a QB who knew how to tie his shoelaces.
Kyler Murray is now that QB. He’ll be “competing” with McCarthy for the QB1 job in training camp, but no one believes this is actually a competition. Murray arrives in Minnesota with much the same pedigree as Darnold. A top-five pick, more than six years in the league, and the start of a disappointing career that feels like a lost opportunity. If you squint really hard you can see the similarities. Right?
They are not exact components. Darnold is a beanstalk, but Kyler is a fun size. Darnold is the best long-ball passer in the sport, but Murray makes a lot of money off of short to mid-range routes and the occasional scramble. And where Darnold is revered for his stoicism, Murray sits alone on the bench for five seconds and the football industrial complex suddenly asks, “Why is that guy so stupid?” Although these are significantly different quarterbacks, the Vikings clearly expect Murray to provide the same results that Darnold did in 2024. If that’s the case, they’ll be faced with the same dilemma they faced last offseason. Whatever choice they make will definitely be the wrong one.
