Are We Sure Kyler is Better Than Carson Wentz? (Asking for All Vikings Fans)

A Minnesota Vikings fan named Adam called into the WeatherTech fan line with a line from a friend that may be the most honest description of a 3-0 team's offense you will hear all season: watching the Vikings "has been like watching an F1 team hand the keys to the car to Stevie Wonder."

Adam's complaint was not about the record. It was about the position that never seems to settle. "We cannot get it right at quarterback, Rich," he said, before running through the franchise's history of getting everything else right. Randy Moss at receiver. Adrian Peterson in the backfield. And then Christian Ponder. "What are we doing here?"

Rich tried to talk him down. Kevin O'Connell, he argued, does know what he's doing, and the roster is further along than the angst suggests. "Are you aware your team's three and 0?" he asked. The defense is championship quality. Justin Jefferson is championship quality at his position. The head coach is championship quality. "You're halfway there. It's week three."

Then Rich admitted the part that keeps him up, too. He does not know what to make of Kyler Murray.

"I watch Kyler Murray play and it's just so frenetic," Rich said. As a self-described native New Yorker built with "a certain sense of dread, guilt, anxiety, angst," he likes to be calm when he watches football. Murray's game does not allow it. Rich described the quarterback fading back, feet going "go go go," deciding to run, and then throwing with his entire body. TJ pointed out that this is how Murray has always played, which did not help Rich's heart rate. Rich compared the experience to the cafecitos the crew was served at the Super Bowl in Miami, then landed the line of the segment: Murray is "like a quarterback cafecito."

The numbers backed up the unease. The Vikings did not record a single snap in the red zone in their win, only the second time in 20 seasons they won without one. Minnesota has been outgained by 244 yards, the second-worst total yardage differential by any 3-0 team in history, behind the 2020 Seahawks. Murray has now made his second start, he did not finish one of them, and Carson Wentz made the other start. Jefferson left this latest game in the first quarter with an ankle injury after just two catches for 32 yards.

What is carrying the team is the defense. The Vikings have four or more sacks in each of their first three games, only the second time that has happened since team sacks became an official stat in 1963. They knocked Baker Mayfield out of the game, ran him into the ground and dislocated his thumb. Next up is Miami, and Rich suggested anyone in the building unsure what Brian Flores wants to do to the Dolphins "need to Google it."

That sets up Murray's first home start with a chance at a full game. If he can play successfully in O'Connell's system, Rich said, his future is set, either in Minnesota or somewhere else. If not, the team could simply tell Carson Wentz "the floor is yours because we're done with this nonsense."

Rich's actual prescription came from his old boss at NFL Network, Steve Bornstein, who knocked on his office door before Rich's first Super Bowl there and offered some very simple advice: "Richie Boy, go to the Super Bowl. It's going to be big. Don't f it up."

That, Rich said, is exactly what O'Connell should tell anyone quarterbacking this team behind this defense. It is what C.J. Stroud should have heard from DeMeco Ryans in the second quarter of that divisional playoff loss in New England, and what Drake Maye should have heard in the fourth quarter of week one.

Don't mess it up. With this defense, that might be the whole job description. Whether Murray can play it calm enough for Rich to watch is another question.