Rich Breaks Down How the Vikings’ Kyler Murray vs JJ McCarthy QB Competition Played Out

The news broke during the show. Adam Schefter reported the Vikings had named Kyler Murray their starting quarterback, and Rich wanted to know how. He texted Schefter during a commercial break. The answer: they told the team it's over.

That is a decision made before a single preseason snap, in a summer with only two preseason games.

Kevin O'Connell's explanation leaned on experience and reps. Murray, he said, "has demonstrated what he's capable of," both from playing at a high level in this league and from being challenged since arriving. Naming him now buys rhythm, timing, and what O'Connell called "the mastery of our system," a phrase the show flagged as either a fantasy team name or a Metallica album.

Rich's position is that this was decided the day Murray signed, though he is careful to say it was not a sham competition. Murray has more experience, a skill set the staff wants to take for a spin, and upside worth chasing in the one year Minnesota has him. He is also cheap, which matters when the roster around him is a veteran team with a top-five defense.

Remember who the Vikings chased first. They tried to keep Sam Darnold from Seattle and Daniel Jones from Indianapolis, and both looked at a franchise committed to seeing what it had in its second-year player and said no thanks. Murray knew all of that, knew Arizona was finished, and knew a team paying him this little would give him a longer leash than he had under Mike LaFleur.

Add it up and J.J. McCarthy needed to show up like Fran Tarkenton at his peak to win the job.

Murray was gracious about the process. "Full transparency from KO to me to J.J. to everybody in the room," he said. "I didn't expect to be handed the job or anything like that." On opening at home against Green Bay and then going to Chicago, he called it a blessing, pointing out he has a great surrounding cast and doesn't have to do too much.

He has a case. Murray spent recent years in the deepest end of the pool in the NFC West, where three teams made the playoffs last season and one won it all.

The room he walked into helps. Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison when healthy, and now Juwan Jennings, who Rich argued would be a Super Bowl MVP if San Francisco had a better overtime. T.J. Hockenson. A running back room. And the offensive line, which Rich keeps insisting is the actual key.

None of which closes the door on McCarthy, and O'Connell said so. He has played only 10 games, has improved, and "he's holding the pen on his story." This could also require an immediate response, O'Connell noted, not just a long-term mindset.

Rich then gave voice to what a head coach in that chair is really thinking. He got born into this league as a backup to Tom Brady, coming off a nearly undefeated season, and everyone knows what happened to Brady next. Keep your head on a swivel. Shut no doors, because week two is Chicago, the same building where McCarthy had the fourth quarter of the ages last year.

And if McCarthy needs perspective, the schedule provides it. Weeks eight and 15 bring Detroit and a first overall pick who had to go somewhere else. Week 13 brings a quarterback in Carolina who went first overall, got benched by his new coach, and is now in year four.

New opportunities come to people who stick around and do it right. Inhale, exhale, stay ready.