Daily Norseman
As the Minnesota Vikings and the rest of the NFL move through the no-man’s land from the conclusion of the off-season program until the start of training camp, I took a stab at a 53-man roster projection after cuts are made at the end of August. I also provided some thoughts and insights into each position group and player including a trending arrow for each player on the roster and some useful information links and videos as well.
Part one is focused on the offensive side. Part two will be focused on the defensive side and specialists.
Here we go.
The Vikings kept three quarterbacks on the roster last year and given the injury issues they had at the position and the rule regarding dressing a third quarterback on game day (he has to be on the roster), I expect them to keep three on the roster this year too. This is a quarterback room in transition and part of the evaluation going forward will be how each quarterback handles the competition and their role going forward.
QB1: Kyler Murray ⬆️
Kyler Murray is the heavy favorite to win the QB competition, and I expect he will be named the starter early in training camp.
It’ll be a challenge for Murray to learn the Vikings’ scheme, but once he’s comfortable in the system, he’ll have the best team around him in his career which should lead to one of his more productive seasons. PFF divides quarterback accuracy into four categories: perfectly accurate, accurate, catchable but inaccurate, uncatchable and inaccurate, and other. Last season Murray had the highest percentage (69.3%) of accurate throws in the league, albeit on a smaller sample size given he only played five games. That is basically a 180-degree difference from the accuracy the Vikings had at quarterback last year between J.J. McCarthy, Carson Wentz, and Max Brosmer- all of whom ranked near the bottom of the league in accuracy.
If you look at every pass attempt from Murray last season, what stands out is a lot of routine completions in the short passing game to move the chains, which was a big part of offensive coordinator Drew Petzing’s offensive scheme, and more mixed results in the deeper passing game. There were a few issues that showed up on tape in the deeper passing game. Miscommunication on the route shows up at least a few times. There are a couple drops and on another deep attempt Murray was hit as he threw. Murray had only 16 attempts of 20+ yards in five games last season. Bottom line, I don’t see an accuracy issue with Murray on deeper throws when top QBs have just over 50% accuracy on deep throws. But Murray hasn’t had a great receiver corps to work with the last few years, particularly on deeper routes. He’ll have that again with Jefferson and Addison in Minnesota.
In any case, it’s a very low hurdle for better quarterback play compared to last season...
