Minnesota Vikings training camp is set to begin today, meaning an answer about the QB competition is coming soon.
The duel between Kyler Murray and J.J. McCarthy has been one of the biggest talkers of the NFL offseason. Vikings fans are mostly tired of talking about it, and the national media knows who is probably winning.
Most believe that Kyler Murray is a lock to win the job. However, the Vikings are continuing to emphasize the “openness” of the competition.
Even with the popular belief that Murray will lock it up, it isn’t really going smoothly so far.
Vikings QB Kyler Murray Having Growing Pains in the Offense
On The Alec Lewis Show, Lewis himself raised a bit of a concerning point about Murray’s progression in the offense.
“Miscommunications”, Lewis began, “between Kyler and receivers, which I think are at this point, given where the offense is, I just go back to Kirk Cousins and his first training camp with Kevin O’Connell. I go back to 2024 with Sam Darnold’s first training camp in this system.”
“And I just recall early on, it didn’t always look the most fluid. This may come across as being empathetic to Kyler’s position. But I just think context is important as I’m walking through it.”
Some fans predicted Kyler Murray was just going to walk in here and immediately outshine J.J. McCarthy. This was never going to happen. Learning an offense, especially Kevin O’Connell‘s offense, takes time and a lot of repetition.
Lewis referenced a play with either Justin Jefferson or Jordan Addison as an example of the miscommunications. He claims that Kyler Murray threw a go route to one of the receivers when they were actually running a comeback.
Reps are important. As long as the Vikings want this competition to keep going, then it’s going to be longer before we get those errors cleared up.
TE Gavin Bartholomew Turning Heads at Camp
Per a report from Will Ragatz of Bring Me the News, Bartholomew had a good outing during Wednesday practices.
“It was good to see Bartholomew catch a couple passes from McCarthy after the former Pitt tight end, a sixth-round pick last year, missed his entire rookie season with a back injury. He’ll look to make the roster as TE3.”
Alec Lewis of The Athletic echoed the sentiment from Ragatz in a post on X.
“Semi-random Vikings camp takeaway, but I thought TE Gavin Bartholomew looked really good. Made two impressive over-the-middle catches. Moved well. First time really seeing him out there after back injury happened last year.”
It’s important that Bartholomew continues to string these days together. Bartholomew wasn’t an early pick, and his draft pedigree paired with his completely lost rookie season heightens his chances to fall off of teams’ radars if he doesn’t have a good camp.
Even if he doesn’t make it on the roster, he is likely to be retained on the practice squad. However, if that happens, then he essentially becomes available for any other team to sign to their roster.
Vikings’ Kyler Murray Gets Concerning Update Heading into Camp