John Madden is the person most often credited with this old football truism: When you have two starting quarterbacks, you really have no starting quarterbacks.
Right now, as we all know, the Minnesota Vikings are marinating in that reality.
Time is running out for Kevin O’Connell to make a decision between J.J. McCarthy and Kyler Murray when it comes to who will take snaps for his team in the 2026 season. Right now, you could ask 10 people who’s winning the battle, and you might get five people on each
side.
I’m highly interested in how well Murray’s predilection for off-schedule plays will mix with O’Connell’s passing game, which is high art and science at its best, while McCarthy has left me a bit cold outside of the occasional splash play. But that’s just me.
Regardless of who wins this battle, the Vikings have some things to figure out. After 2024’s 14-3 regular-season record and a wild-card demolition at the hands of the Los Angeles Rams, the franchise saw the best and the worst that Sam Darnold had to offer, and let Darnold walk. While Darnold was busy on a Super Bowl campaign with the Seattle Seahawks, the Vikings were left with McCarthy, Carson Wentz, and Max Brosmer, and the 9-8 record one would expect from that particular group. Brian Flores’ defense was its usual wrecking ball, ranking third in DVOA, while O’Connell’s offense dropped all the way down to 29th, from 15th the year before.
Back in January, O’Connell talked about the disappointment that comes with a season that ends without a postseason opportunity.
“Getting a chance to watch a lot of the football this past weekend – as we thought it would – it definitely stung to not be a part of it,“ he said. ”But what we’ve got to understand is we didn’t do enough to get into the playoffs, and that’s something that is not going to be acceptable for me or our team or our organization in any year. Going into it the way that we always try to do, which is to give ourselves an opportunity to win a championship and bring our great fan base and our ownership a championship.
“Improvement starts with me. Have already started that process of going through, layer by layer, every aspect of doing my job. Our coaching staff, and what we do schematically, how we prepare our team, how we build our offseason, how we build our training camp, to try to make sure that we’re the best possible team in 2026 that that we can be.“
Obviously, Point 1 when it comes to a brighter future for these Vikings is finding the one guy who can perform consistently under center. Beyond that, though, it’s crucial for everybody on the roster to bring their best, and that’s just as true of the lesser-known players as it is for the stars.
To that end, I’ve identified three Hidden Gems on the 2026 Vikings roster — one underrated veteran, one underrated free-agent acquisition, and one underrated draft pick.
Underrated veteran: RB Jordan Mason
When the Vikings signed former San Francisco 49ers running back Jordan Mason to a two-year, $10.5 million contract with $7.23 million guaranteed before the 2025 season, O’Connell seemed to think that he may have had the NFL’s next great thunder and lightning duo in Mason and Aaron Jones, and that he could make things really interesting by putting both guys on the field together.
“Maybe we activate some two-back groupings where we’ve got Jordan and Aaron in the game at the same time,” O’Connell said in 2025 as training camp started. “There’s a lot of things schematically that we’re going to try, and then as we get toward the season, what gives us advantages? What allows us to play the most multiple way that all circles back to the number one question of, ‘What makes the quarterback’s job easier, and [is] more likely to be quarterback friendly to apply to our whole system?’”
In the end, this didn’t quite work out as expected. Per Pro Football Focus, Jones and Mason were on the field at the same time last season for exactly four plays. There was a 1-yard Jones run against the Chicago Bears in Week 1, an 11-yard J.J McCarthy scramble in that same game, a Leonard Floyd sack of McCarthy in Week 2 against the Atlanta Falcons, and a 31-yard Jones run against the Detroit Lions in Week 9.
Jones played just 12 games last season due to injuries, and it was Mason who really stood out in the end. In his first year with the Vikings, the 5’11”, 223-pound Mason ran the ball 159 times for 758 yards (4.8 yards per carry), six touchdowns, 31 forced missed tackles, and 22 runs of 10 or more yards.
What really impressed about Mason’s tape is how he can intersperse nice straight-line speed and killer jump cuts with all the power you’d expect from a back his size. What that means for his deployment in the 2026 season is to be determined, but Mason has proven that you don’t need to get too creative with him — just give him the ball, and watch the bodies fly.
Underrated free agent: CB James Pierre
In the Vikings’ 24-21 Week 4 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers last season, Pittsburgh cornerback James Pierre had just 19 coverage snaps, but he made the most of them. Those coverage snaps included two Carson Wentz targets to receiver Jalen Nailor that Pierre broke up — one on the Pittsburgh 2-yard line with 2:20 left in the game, and one from the Minnesota 20-yard line with 1:02 remaining.
Brian Flores, who was the Steelers’ senior defensive assistant & linebackers coach in 2022 before he became the Vikings’ DC in 2023, clearly paid attention. It’s certainly one reason the team signed the former undrafted free agent from Florida Atlantic to a two-year, $8.5 million contract with $3.715 million guaranteed this offseason.
Pierre got more reps as the season went along and Darius Slay’s injury situation became more complicated. Overall in 2025, Pierre allowed just 16 catches on 35 targets for 163 yards, 75 yards after the catch, one touchdown, one interception, 10 pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 57.2. It was Pierre’s best season to date, and he proved to be the kind of cornerback every team wants — the big (6’2”, 185-pound) defender who can tangle up opposing receivers in both press and off coverage. Given the amount of zone coverage Flores likes to call behind all his crazy fronts and concepts (the Vikings played zone on 75.6% of their snaps last season), having someone who can run with and track opponents in off coverage is especially important.
When in off coverage last season, Pierre allowed a ridiculous seven catches on 25 targets for 3.6 yards per catch, and nine pass breakups.
Pierre is coming into his age 30 season, and he’s never been an NFL full-time starter — he maxed out with 415 defensive snaps for the Steelers in 2021, and he had 408 in 2025 — but this reunion with Flores could lead to bigger and better things. Based on the tape, he has everything to become Minnesota’s No. 1 guy opposite Isaiah Rodgers, with Byron Murphy in the slot.
Underrated draft pick: CB Chuck Demmings
There is another cornerback name to watch as the preseason rolls along, and that’s Chuck Demmings — another smaller-school (the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks) guy who has skills which would seem to transcend that status. The Vikings took the 6’1”, 190-pound Demmings with the 163rd overall pick in the draft, and the rookie is already making quite the splash with his unique personality.
I spoke with Demmings at the scouting combine because I loved his tape, and the way he handled himself? Well, his connections with his new teammates comes as no surprise.
“He’s a very confident individual, high energy, great teammate, hard worker,” Flores recently said of Demmings. “In those individual drills, you’ll see him working his footwork, hand placement. And then he tries to apply those in the group setting, in the team settings. So he’s done a good job so far, and just continued to improve on a daily basis. Obviously, we’ve got some really good receivers, so he gets a lot of good work against the guys we have on our roster. But he’s off to a good start.”
Last season, Demmings allowed 18 catches on 37 targets for 246 yards, 83 yards after the catch, one touchdown, four interceptions, six pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 39.8. And before you throw the stats aside because he was doing his thing in the Southland Conference… well, just watch the tape.
Jeremiah Trotter, Mark Moseley, John Franklin-Myers, and Larry Centers are among the most prominent Stephen F. Austin alums who also did (and are doing) damage in the NFL, and who’s to say that Demmings won’t be next?
