NFL Network’s Kurt Warner: Why Vikes Should Stick with Kyler Murray. For Now.

Kurt Warner has studied the Kyler Murray tape and still can't fully explain what he is seeing. That didn't stop him from making a call on Minnesota's quarterback question: stay with Murray, for now.

Rich admitted he feels like he asks Warner about Murray every week. Coming out of the Vikings' game against the Lions, Murray threw a couple of touchdown passes, including one on "a nice circus catch from Justin Jefferson," his first multiple-touchdown game. But Rich said the offense still isn't clicking the way it did even with Sam Darnold, and he asked whether it is "Wentz time in Minnesota."

"It's a hard one," Warner said. He has broken down the same question on QB Confidential on YouTube, trying to find the disconnect. Murray can make really nice throws "when he sees it and knows where he wants to go." The problem is hesitation. "I feel like there's a lot of things where he's hesitant. Like he's not sure. And I can't figure out why he's not sure."

Warner said Murray appears to be looking in the right place and set as a quarterback, with things that look "pretty wide open from an NFL standpoint," yet he doesn't let it go. "Why is he playing tentatively?"

He offered a few possible explanations. It could be the process of learning a new offense. It could also be an old concern resurfacing, that Murray "has not been at his best when he's got to play and see the entirety of the field and kind of play on time and get past kind of his number one read." Warner also explained how progression reads can make an open receiver on tape harder to see in real time. A quarterback who has been looking at one side of the field has to flip to the other side "and figure out what the picture is there when they have no idea what was going on before."

So what about Carson Wentz? Warner laid out the trade-off. "The one thing with Carson Wentz is you know he's going to throw the football and he's going to attack down the field, which is something that they're not doing really well right now." Wentz would give Jefferson more chances to make plays. But Warner flagged the risk side too: more big plays and maybe more points, but also turnovers, "which has been a problem for Carson Wentz," and short fields that make life harder on the defense.

Murray, by contrast, is protecting the football, even while taking sacks and missing opportunities. That is the juggling match, Warner said, for Kevin O'Connell. Do you put your defense's back against the wall in exchange for big plays with Wentz, or ride it out and hope Murray gets comfortable enough to take what is there?

Rich pushed for an answer. It's Week 9, the division is getting tight, and the Bears are a half game back with the Lions winning three in a row and the Packers also at five wins. With Buffalo coming up in front of the whole country, what would Warner do?

"If it's me, I think I stay with Kyler," Warner said. The Vikings are winning this way, and his concern would be handing away games with turnovers given how well the defense is playing. "Yes, I want more offense, especially cuz I'm an offensive coach. But I like the fact that we are in every game."

Even in the loss to Detroit, he said, the game was in the defense's hands at the end. Ask any coach if they'll take a lead with a few minutes left and the ball in the defense's hands, and "they're going to say we'll take it every single time."

His bottom line: stay put, hope for more, and reassess if it starts costing games. "I think you stay where you're at right now."