Although it wasn't that long ago, it's easy to forget that the Minnesota Vikings were 14-2 and one win away from securing the top playoff seed in the NFC for the 2024 playoffs.
They were a juggernaut. Head coach Kevin O'Connell had turned Sam Darnold, of all people, into an MVP candidate, and Justin Jefferson was the league's most dangerous receiver. The Vikings had spent money up and down the roster while initially looking to win with rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy on a cheap deal. Even after McCarthy went down with a season-ending injury in training camp, the rebirth of Darnold meant the grand vision stayed on track.
And then it all went, poof. Darnold morphed into the Darnold of New York Jets infamy, suffering a blowout loss to the Detroit Lions to close out the regular season before getting crushed by the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs.
That's when the Vikings faced a tricky decision: give Darnold a big contract and hope those last two games were a blip, or try again with McCarthy.
It couldn't have gone worse. McCarthy struggled in Minnesota last season, with his poor play disproving months of organizational whispers about his excellent behind-the-scenes work. Carson Wentz replaced him and performed significantly better. Carson Wentz! That's not what you want.
Meanwhile, that Darnold fella won a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks.
Whoops.
The unusual thing about the preceding couple of paragraphs is that the Vikings made defensible choices. Giving Darnold a significant contract after his late-season implosion would have been risky. It also would've meant bailing not just on McCarthy, a first-round draft pick only a year earlier, but on the whole strategy of building around a cheap QB deal.
But the key to taking that path was that McCarthy had to be good - or at least competent.
Which brings us to this preseason. Once again, McCarthy had the chance to prove to O'Connell and the Vikings staff that he could be an NFL starter. Instead, they gave the job to the guy brought in to compete with him: Kyler Murray.
It's a fascinating choice. While the former No. 1 overall pick is an incredible athlete with countless highlight-reel plays, the Arizona Cardinals decided that seven seasons of Murray (and one playoff game) were enough. They've effectively surrendered this campaign already, eating more than $50 million in dead cap money on Murray's contract rather than bringing him back to start again.
Murray is also the same guy whose massive pact with the Cardinals included a "homework clause," a stipulation that branded him as lazy, even after the club backed away from that specific contract detail once it became public. Fairly or otherwise, the accusation that Murray wasn't the ideal locker-room leader was part of his story during his entire time in Arizona.
But this is also the Cardinals we're talking about - a franchise that's on nobody's list of the most stable NFL operations. Arizona probably wasn't the best place for a high-upside athlete who was also a bit of an enigma.
Murray heading to Minnesota isn't quite on the same level as Matt Stafford going from the Lions to the Rams, but there are parallels: a talented quarterback being plopped onto a team with a loaded roster and a creative offensive coach.
The range of outcomes for Minnesota is canyon-wide this year. Murray is undersized, so it's unrealistic to expect him to replicate Darnold's success as a pocket passer in O'Connell's offense. But he's also mobile and dangerous with his legs, raising the possibility that the Vikings coach will scheme up exotic ways to take advantage of his unique skills.
Could Murray be reborn in Minnesota? Sure. However, he won more than eight games only once in Arizona, winning nine in 2021. The Cardinals also paid him a massive salary just to go away, which seems notable. Could the whole thing go bust? That's a possibility, too.
Considering Murray missed significant time in two of the last three seasons, it seems likely he won't be available for the Vikings at some point in 2026. No shame there, since NFL quarterbacks have a distinctly dangerous job.
Still, it would mean that Minnesota would have to go back to McCarthy, who's in his third training camp and failed to beat out a veteran castoff who just arrived. O'Connell just gave McCarthy the opposite of a vote of confidence, fuelling speculation that the Vikings could seek a trade partner just so both sides can move on.
If that happens, there's something to be said for a team that makes an early decision regarding a young quarterback instead of letting it linger for years. That is, after all, essentially what the Cardinals did with Murray.
Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.
