Since my last training camp notes, there have been three practices- the rained out practice on Friday that was moved indoors and turned into a walk-through practice, so nothing significant to report on that one. Saturday’s practice was significant in the quarterback competition and also positive when it comes to contributions from this year’s draft class. Today’s practice, which I attended, has also been significant as the first padded practice of training camp.
Quarterback Competition Trends
For J.J. McCarthy, the first few practices
featured competent short passing, with a high completion percentage and shorter depth of target. Perhaps that was McCarthy being more conservative in his decision making and avoiding more difficult passes that could lead to mistakes, perhaps that was McCarthy simply trying to build a rhythm with a focus on completions. Perhaps those were simply the best options on a given play, or perhaps those were the best options McCarthy processed on a given play. Whatever the case, this was largely the McCarthy we saw last year in training camp.
Last year, the overall impression of McCarthy in training camp was that he was fine, as in some degree of okay or solid. He was not spectacular overall, although each practice he managed a deep ball or two that was completed, and seemed to have developed a good rapport with Jordan Addison (Justin Jefferson didn’t participate in training camp last year). But McCarthy’s targets were largely short targets with occasional intermediate ones. He was trying to gain a comfort level with the offense and in reading defenses, which led to some understandable indecision and more difficulty connecting downfield or really attempting much downfield. Brian Flores’ defense often won the day, which was understandable as well as defenses often have the upper hand early, and the first-team offense was missing some keys pieces in Jefferson and Christian Darrisaw. So, McCarthy’s performance was seen as basically fine under the circumstances. He was still developing and this was his first training camp with significant reps and Brian Flores’ defense was throwing a lot at him and led to a number of would-be sacks if defensive players were allowed to hit the quarterback. McCarthy showed he had a strong arm (some questioned his arm strength coming out) and he often drilled wide receivers with his fast ball, especially on shorter routes. I remember one time McCarthy hit Josh Oliver in the back of the end zone in a red zone drill and the ball went off Oliver’s outstretched hand and hit the crossbar so hard it rang like a bell and caused the it to shake back and forth afterward. That led to a brief discussion with Kevin O’Connell- presumably regarding managing velocity. So, while McCarthy might have been said to be doing fine under the circumstances last year in training camp, there were some hints of issues that were to come in the regular season. And with that being McCarthy’s first season playing, the expectation was for some growing pains but also that he could have one of the better first seasons for a quarterback given the strength of the team around him. Most said McCarthy had the best landing spot of any of the quarterbacks selected in the first round in 2024.
I mention all that because it provides more context and history in examining McCarthy’s career development path as a pro- in addition to his performance during the regular season last year. Most agree that McCarthy struggled the first half of his starts, except the fourth quarter of the week one Bears game, but showed some improvement over the last half of the season, although some point out that came against bottom tier passing defenses (Commanders ranked 27th is pass defense DVOA, the Cowboys 31st, and the Packers played their second-string in McCarthy’s last start). So both are true.
Fast forward to this year’s training camp, and we largely see a repeat of the McCarthy we saw in last year’s training camp. I don’t think we’ve seen the over-amped velocity issues to the extent of last year, and many commented on his improved mechanics/footwork over the offseason program, but we really haven’t seen much of the layering/touch passes that were missing last season. We’ve seen completions, but are we really seeing improvement?
The answer so far is probably not much. Saturday’s practice was also a setback for McCarthy as he struggled with accuracy and processing that led to his worst practice of training camp this year. An example:
Here McCarthy holds the ball too long and would’ve been sacked by Ivan Pace but still missed on the late checkdown to Jordan Mason. His footwork was problematic, demonstrating he hasn’t mastered that after reportedly spending the offseason working on it. Of course this is just one snap (and the only one I’ve seen of McCarthy on Saturday) but it is an extension of issues we saw with McCarthy last season. I have not read any comments to date of observers reporting McCarthy processing faster in training camp. There haven’t been reports from beat writers of his layering passes or throwing with anticipation either. There have been reports from the offseason program saying McCarthy’s footwork/mechanics looked improved/smoother/changed, but based on the video above it appears that improvement is not consistent.
After viewing McCarthy for the first time in person in training camp this year, in today’s first padded practice, my overriding impression is that 2026 training camp McCarthy looks very similar to 2025 training camp McCarthy. In fact, he looked worse today than he was overall last year in training camp. But taking a longer view of McCarthy’s development arc up to now, I’m not really seeing improvement from last year. He still looks a bit skittish in the pocket with mainly short targets- dump offs, check downs, or short over-the-middle routes. It doesn’t appear that things have really slowed down for him, as the saying goes for quarterbacks after gaining some experience and getting used to the speed and competition and complexity of the NFL.
So, bottom line on J.J. McCarthy at this point is that I’m not seeing any noticeable or significant improvement. I don’t think that’s really a controversial assessment at this point. It’s disappointing to be sure, and I would be surprised if the Vikings’ coaching staff didn’t have a similar viewpoint.
Kyler Murray, since the start of training camp and even toward the end of the offseason program, looked to be working through some mishaps and difficulties learning what other veteran quarterbacks like Kirk Cousins and Sam Darnold have described as a complex offensive scheme. Murray appeared to be working the ball downfield with his pass attempts with some impressive throws alongside some misfires. He had some interceptions and some miscommunications with receivers, fumbled snaps, and also some long passes that hit receivers in stride.
As a veteran starting quarterback with seven years of experience, Kyler Murray has developed the core skills required for the job. Namely the ability to process quickly and deliver the ball accurately, make all the throws, pocket poise/management, and good decision making. His issues are more with consistency with these core skills, rather than still needing to develop them. Murray also demonstrates advanced skills like throwing with anticipation and his off-schedule scramble/run ability.
In more recent years as a starting quarterback Murray has thrown more shorter passes than in his early years, and has done very well with those in terms of accuracy and completions, but hasn’t been as successful with deeper passes since he led the league in PFF deep pass grade (99.2) in 2021. Some say the changes to his receiver group since 2021 and the team overall has contributed to his struggles in deep ball stats but his deep ball accuracy has also declined since that time as well, along with his number of deep ball attempts. Overall, the jury is still out whether Kyler has lost something on his deep ball or if other circumstances have led to a decline in those stats. Murray wouldn’t be the only quarterback to see declines in deep ball stats when they lose a key receiver(s). For example, Aaron Rodgers had several years of elite passing grades, including deep passing grades, until 2015 when they suddenly dropped off significantly. His elite grades resumed the following year before declining again his last season in Green Bay. Why? In 2015 Rodgers’ top receiver Jordy Nelson was lost for the season on IR, and Rodgers’ last season in Green Bay followed Devante Adams’ departure- Rodgers’ top receiver for several years prior to Adams leaving Green Bay. Patrick Mahomes has suffered a similar fate in recent years with deep passing stats (accuracy worse then Murray) as the Chiefs have struggled with their receiver group outside of tight end Travis Kelce. So there is precedent for quarterback passing stats, including deep ball stats, varying based on changes to their receiver group.
During Saturday’s practice things started to come together for Murray. The mishaps and miscommunications were gone, but the impressive throws remained. That marked a notable uptick in Murray’s trajectory since the offseason program, as it was his best day of practice as a Viking and was virtually error-free for his part.
In today’s padded practice- the first time I’ve seen Murray in-person- my first impression of him is that he is calm in the pocket, very deliberate in his movements, smooth passing motion. He doesn’t throw with a ton of velocity, but he throws very catchable passes and he throws with touch. The first three-quarters or so of team drills Murray looked pretty sharp- I don’t think he had an incompletion over this stretch. Most were routine and generally short throws, but there were two that stood out to me. One was a scramble (and I couldn’t tell from my vantage point if he avoided the pressure or not) but he scrambled to his left and was able to hit Justin Jefferson over a defender at the sideline for around a 20-yard gain. The other looked like a 15-20 throw to tight end Gavin Bartholomew who had a few defenders around and in front of him and Murray dropped it in the bucket. That might have been the nicest throw of the day, which did not feature any bomb attempts. But the last part of practice Murray was a little off on a couple of short throws over the middle in tight coverage that resulted in pass break-ups (PBUs). His last pass of the day was a miscommunication with Josh Oliver, who ran a short route while Murray threw it long. No way to know if that was Murray’s fault or Oliver’s.
But overall it appears that Murray is slowly becoming more comfortable with the offense, especially in the last couple of practices, and looks like a starting quarterback in how he operates.
The Vikings’ quarterback ‘competition’ has been treated with skepticism from many viewpoints. From the very beginning, it was a competition nearly everyone thought Kyler Murray would win. A big reason for that is that each quarterback has a different starting point. Murray is a longtime starter with an established skillset while McCarthy is still working on the skillset he needs to be a successful starter. That’s kind of like the two competing in a 40-yard sprint with Murray having a 20-yard head start. The only way McCarthy was going to win that race is if Murray fell down (i.e. wasn’t able to learn the offense) or if McCarthy really sprinted, making big improvements across the board, while Murray kinda walked or jogged, not really putting in the effort to win.
It’s clear at this point that Murray is making progress, while McCarthy is not- and he needed to be making more progress than Murray if he was to win the competition. It could be said that it’s still early in training camp and anything can happen, but any realistic assessment of this competition is that it is over and Murray won as expected.
I don’t know if Kevin O’Connell will declare a winner in the coming days or not, but I suspect that the primary reason for O’Connell to have the competition at all was to help get the most from McCarthy. McCarthy won a competition to get the starting job at Michigan and perhaps the O’Connell felt that having a competition would fire up McCarthy’s competitive juices and lead to notable improvement. There wasn’t a competition for McCarthy in 2024 or 2025 so maybe adding that element this year would aid McCarthy’s development. But that doesn’t appear to be the case at this point. I’m guessing McCarthy understands he’s not the better quarterback at this point, as much as he would like to be, and (perhaps) will understand when Murray is named the starter- whenever that happens.
The bigger concern for McCarthy, however, is not that he is losing this competition with Kyler Murray- which was expected. The bigger concern is that he isn’t showing much (if any) improvement. Perhaps the light may come on for McCarthy at some point- and maybe he’ll have a chance to compete again next year- but the odds don’t favor it.
There is a large contingent of Vikings’ fans that have invested in McCarthy since he was drafted and understandably so- he was a winner, charismatic, and he was the Vikings’ quarterback- their draft pick- not a hand-me-down or reclamation project who used to play for another team(s). It’s been a long time since the Vikings have drafted and developed a quality starting quarterback after all. I’m not ruling out McCarthy improving at some point- some quarterbacks develop slower- but McCarthy’s path to returning as a starter would definitely be a road less traveled. I wouldn’t rule out McCarthy looking good in a preseason game against a base defense either, which could generate some buzz. And I wouldn’t rule out McCarthy being traded either at some point if the coaching staff felt a sufficiently upward development trajectory wasn’t likely by this time next year.
Vikings First Padded Practice Notes (8/3)
To wrap up the quarterback competition topic, the rep count for each quarterback wasn’t really relevant, but what did seem more relevant was that Murray seemed to have more pass plays scripted to him than McCarthy did. Reps were mixed between 2nd and 1st team for most of the team periods (whether 1st team offense vs. 2nd team defense or vice-versa) but there were relatively few 1 vs. 1 snaps and most of those came at the end of practice- which the defense dominated. In that sense, Murray seemed to get notably more passing reps than McCarthy and it has been a trend since the first practice of training camp (except maybe the indoor practice) that Murray gets more reps or more passing reps than McCarthy, although not a lot more. That looks to be a reflection of how the competition is progressing.
The defense dominated overall, which is kind of expected for a first padded practice. Defense usually wins early in training camp. Neither quarterback had any deep attempts- too much pressure- and particularly toward the end of practice there were a number of pass break-ups. The defense also shut-down the run game for the most part as well. Jordan Mason had one nice gain- and a nice hole to run through- and there might have been a couple other runs that went for a decent gain (4-5 yards) but the majority went for less than that it appeared.
Other Position Group Notes
Of course with this being the first practice I’ve attended this year I focused on the quarterbacks. But I’ll devote more attention to other positions including linemen in future padded practices. But here are some observations from today’s practice regarding other players/position groups.
- CB Charles Demmings looks like the real deal. He’s physical- and that could lead to some penalties- but he had a nice pass-breakup against Jordan Addison in 7-0n-7 drills that was noteworthy.
- Tai Felton stands out more this year than last- he looks improved and more confident. Watching the receiver drills ahead of the team drills, Felton looked in the Jefferson/Addison skill group, rather than others group. He’s had some notable catches since training camp started, but this one in red zone drills today was probably the catch of training camp so far:
- It looked like Felton and Myles Price had a lot of the reps with the second-team offense at wide receiver, although others mixed in. Price has stood out a bit so far in training camp (although I didn’t notice much today). But it’s looking like a long shot for any receiver besides Jauan Jennings to make the roster this year who wasn’t on the roster last year.
- Caleb Banks was working with the first-team defense, but I couldn’t tell how well he did. I’ll focus more on linemen in future practices.
- Jalen Redmond stood out- even from a distance. He looks bigger in the upper body too.
- Seventh-round pick Gavin Gerhardt looks surprisingly small to me. He’s listed at 6’4”, 310 pounds, but he doesn’t look nearly that big from 10-15-yards away.
- Vershon Lee- listed at 6’4”, 318 pounds- looks a lot bigger than Gerhardt- particularly the weight. He was also practicing his snapping in drills before practice so he’ll likely compete at center this year. He played a bit of center last year in preseason.
- Will Reichard was making all his field goal attempts before practice officially started- until Brett Thorson was the holder and then he missed a shorter one. He made the next couple with Thorson holding, however.
- Myles Price was first in line among punt returners, which included Dontae Fleming and Trayvon Rudolph.
- Defensive tackle Jahvaree Ritzie was getting reps with the 2nd team (although it could’ve been a mix of 2nd/3rd team) toward the end of team drills.
That’s all for this edition but I’ll be back tomorrow.
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