Now that Kyler Murray seems set to be the Vikings starting quarterback next season, it wouldn’t be surprising if the team entertains a trade for J.J. McCarthy.

The Steelers and Browns seem like teams that might have an interest in McCarthy, potentially as a starter. The Chargers, coached by Jim Harbaugh, who coached McCarthy to a national championship at Michigan in 2004, would seem a third possibility as a backup to Justin Herbert.

The Chargers do not have a designated backup QB. Last season, it was Trey Lance from Marshall, Minn. A trade for McCarthy would require a high enough draft pick.

—Don’t be surprised, if the Vikings were to trade McCarthy, if they bring Carson Wentz back to play behind Murray.

—Former Gopher Max Brosmer’s non-guaranteed contract next season is for $1.1 million, nearly what the Vikings will pay Murray. Brosmer’s NFL future in Minnesota, though, now seems dim.

—McCarthy, 23, has two seasons guaranteed left on his initial $22 million, four-year contract.

—Vikings owners Zygi and Mark Wilf clearly are trying to cut payroll after having spent nearly $350 million last year. The big factor in signing Murray, 28, was money. He cost only the NFL veteran minimum of $1.3 million. Another Vikings’ potential QB option, Geno Smith, 35, will play for $3.3 million from the Jets. Kirk Cousins, 37, and Aaron Rodgers, 42, would have cost at least $15 million for one year.

—The Pioneer Press reported last Dec. 7 that Murray probably would be the Vikings’ best choice among anticipated options.

—Murray is more accurate and has a stronger arm than McCarthy. It will be important for coach Kevin O’Connell to scheme to get the ball to Justin Jefferson, who can’t be expected to waste another season like he did last year.

—The Lions, who certainly wouldn’t trade within the division for McCarthy, last week signed free agent former Vikings QB Teddy Bridgewater, 33, to back up Jared Goff.

—With Jalen Nailor’s free agency loss to the Raiders, the Vikings have no choice but to add a fifth year to unpredictable wide receiver Jordan Addison’s contract. That will cost $18 million for 2027, unless he has another off-field incident.

—Ex-Vikings QB Tommy Kramer posted on Facebook that Murray has an uncle, Calvin Murray, a former San Francisco Giants center-fielder who has visited Kramer a few times in Minnesota. Kramer posted that he’s looking forward to having Kyler with the Vikings.

Kyler Murray, by the way, was the No. 9 overall pick in the 2018 major league baseball draft by the Oakland A’s and received a $4.66 million signing bonus. The A’s still retain his rights.

—If the Wild play Dallas in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs — and it currently appears they will — it will be Stanley Cup Finals-caliber hockey.

Already, if the Wild were able to get into the Stanley Cup Finals, lower level Game One tickets at Grand Casino Arena are on sale for $5,808 via StubHub.

—Niko Medved voted for Nebraska’s Fred Hoiberg for Big Ten coach of the year, but the Gophers’ first-year coach whose team upset three top-25 teams certainly warranted consideration.

Medved went into the season with an uncertain outlook.

“When you have this many (nine) new guys, it’s really hard to predict,” he said. “I’ve been coaching long enough to know it’s never going to go the way you maybe had planned. Things could be better, some things could be harder. I know we had really good guys, a group that would get better. Obviously, the (major) injuries kind of blew that up.”

The Gophers finished the season 15-17 overall, 8-12 in the Big Ten.

“One of the things we really talked about, even as coaches: ‘Hey, I don’t know how many games we can win,’ ” Medved said. “I don’t want to set any limits; maybe we’ll win a lot more than I think. But my hope was that when the season was over, people will be more excited about the future of Gopher basketball than they were when the season started.

“I think these guys have accomplished that. For this group to win eight (conference) games and finish 11th in the (18-team) Big Ten, basically playing six guys, is a pretty big achievement.”

—In his first head coach season at Furman, Medved was 9-21. Three years later at Furman, he was 23-12. In one season at Drake, he was 17-17. In his first season at Colorado State, 12-20. Seven years later, he was 26-10.

There’s a pattern here. No coach is more connected within the industry than Medved, who, if he gets adequate resources, is sure to build a Big Ten contending roster, even as early as next season.

—Medved will have to negotiate financial deals for players he wants to retain, then supplement via the transfer portal.

“I think those things are going well, but it’s going to be kind of a wild next month here, not just for us but for everybody around college basketball,” he said.

Does he have enough payroll?

“Let’s hope,” Medved said. “I think we’ve made it better. I think the administration here is committed to find a way to make us really, really competitive and we’re working towards that.”

—It’s unclear how much payroll it will take to become seriously competitive soon.

“One of the biggest challenges, to be honest, I don’t know that anybody really knows 100 percent what the market is,” Medved said. “That’s kind of what we’ve created here right now: What’s this going to look like from a cost perspective. Ultimately, the cost can probably go up (only) so high.”

—It would be a no-brainer to pair the Gophers and the University of St. Thomas if both on Sunday receive postseason invitations to either the NIT or College Basketball Crown (CBC) tournaments. Of concern for both schools, though, is that a Gophers-Tommies game next season would be much more profitable through ticket, concession and parking sales for both schools than the NIT or CBC.

—Pooh Richardson, 59, the Timberwolves’ historical first draft pick in 1989, is assistant head coach for the College of the Desert men’s basketball team in Palm Desert, Calif.

—Former Gophers star Max Meyer, 26, has made a determined comeback after elbow and hip surgeries the last three years and is expected to start for the Miami Marlins this season. The right-hander from Woodbury has struck out 12 in seven spring training innings without allowing a run.

—Vic Wallace, the former University of St. Thomas football coach, recalled a meeting with one of his young players, a 5-feet-7 running back who after two shoulder injuries decided to retire as a player but remained in school to graduate in 1993.

“In that meeting he mentioned his career goal was to some day get into NFL administration,” Wallace texted the Pioneer Press.

That player was John Schneider, who has gone on to become general manager of the Seattle Seahawks, recent Super Bowl champions.

—It’ll be interesting if the Vikings consider Schneider’s assistant GM, Nolan Teasley, for their GM vacancy. The same for Reed Burckhardt, the Broncos assistant GM who spent 13 years in the Vikings scouting department.

Rob Brzezinski is the Vikings interim GM, but now coach Kevin O’Connell has the most power in the organization.

—It’s been 20 years this month since Kirby Puckett died of a stroke at age 45. His wife, Tonya, enjoyed fine dining. Kirby detested it.

At the height of Puckett’s enormous popularity, the Twins future Hall of Famer couldn’t go anywhere in Minnesota without being recognized. One time after Tonya dragged him to a gourmet dinner that he couldn’t stand, Kirby told me he had Tonya drive him, hidden low and out of sight in the back seat of their Jeep Cherokee, to a McDonald’s restaurant and ordered a bag of cheeseburgers.

—Former Viking Chad Greenway, whose daughter Maddyn of Providence Academy this year became Minnesota’s all-time prep basketball scoring leader and is headed to Kentucky next season, on parenting young athletes: “There’s a fine line of how hard to push them. The biggest thing for us — my wife (Jenni) is an athlete — is making it their journey. This isn’t about us, it’s about you and your opportunities.”

—Deep Haven’s Tim Herron, 56, of the PGA Champions Tour, still recovering from a third surgery on his right hand, made eight birdies the other day during a round at the very private Whisper Rock Golf Club (AZ).

Meanwhile, that was former Mendakota Country Club head pro Dale Jones shooting back-to-back 65s at the Encanto course in Phoenix.

—Ingenious: After Lou Holtz’s 1988 Notre Dame football team won the national championship, two students sat side by side among a capacity convocation center at the school celebrating the undefeated season. One wore an Afro rainbow-colored wig impersonating the guy who used to show up at sports events world wide holding a sizable “John 3-16” sign. The other student held a big sign that read “Lou: 12-0.”

—Holtz, the former Gophers football coach, died the other day at 89. His recruiting coordinator at Minnesota, Vinnie Cerrato, who is from Albert Lea and went on to become an executive VP with the Washington Commanders franchise, now hosts a daily sports radio talk show in Baltimore.

Cerrato’s son Charlie scored the first goal for Penn State in last Wednesday’s 6-2 Big Ten men’s hockey tournament game that ended the Gophers’ season.

—Basketball head coaches who played for Hall of Famer Steve Fritz at the University of St. Thomas include Johnny Tauer of the Tommies, Bryan Schnettler at Wayzata, Jerry Kline at Cretin-Derham Hall, Josh Peltier at East Ridge, Jake Dammann and assistant Sam Eicher at Shakopee, and top assistant Sean Sweeney of the NBA Spurs.

—Electees for the Mancini’s St. Paul Sports Hall of Fame on May 11 at the Char House: Russ Newton, boxing; Corbin Lacina, football; Dave Hanson, hockey; Andy Persby, baseball; Tony Yazbek, basketball, and Gregg Wong and Mike Augustine, special award.

—Former Hill-Murray athletics director Brother Francis Carr and longtime St. Paul coach and St. Charles Borromeo AD Mark Kennedy will be inducted into the Catholic Athletic Association Hall of Fame on April 21 at DeGidio’s Restaurant.

—Bloomington (Minn.) native Jamie Erdahl posts on Instagram that her absence from the NFL Network show is due to personal and immediate family issues.

Don’t print that

—It’s a good bet that there was an understanding between the Vikings and Kyler Murray before he signed that he would be the No. 1 QB. Murray isn’t coming to Minnesota to be the backup. Signing Kyler was not a perfect solution for the Vikings, but there were no perfect solutions available.

—Murray’s signing improved the Vikings’ chances of winning next season’s Super Bowl from 50-1 odds to 44-1 odds, per Gambling 911.

—Mark Coyle spent seven years at the University of Kentucky, where he successfully oversaw men’s and women’s basketball programs. Mitch Barnhart is retiring as Kentucky athletics director in June, and Coyle, the Gophers’ AD, is expected to be among those considered for the job. At Minnesota, Coyle has made splendid choices in Niko Medved and Dawn Plitzuweit as men’s and women’s basketball coaches.

—A little birdie says there are five Gophers women’s basketball players being paid at least $500,000 each via either NCAA revenue sharing or name, image and likeness (NIL) deals this season.

—Of the $20.5 million NCAA revenue sharing paid to Gophers athletes this academic year, the priority sports providing money to players are football, men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball and men’s hockey. In the Big Ten, 98 percent of the $20.5 million goes to football, men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball. Minnesota has chosen men’s hockey to pay players.

—Former University of St. Thomas guard Miles Barnstable, with a relatively cheap $200,000 NIL deal for his senior season, is averaging 14.6 points per game for Tulsa (26-6).

Besides Barnstable, the Tommies the past few years lost Andrew Rhode (Wisconsin for $450,000) and Kendall Blue (Nebraska for $400,000) to NIL deals. Now, the concern is that St. Thomas sophomore Nolan Minessale, averaging a team high 20.0 points, will receive a can’t-refuse offer elsewhere.

—It took the Wild $17 million a season to extend Kirill Kaprizov, 28, through 2034. It probably will take $15 million a season for eight years to retain Quinn Hughes, 26, who is signed through 2026-27. Extension talks can’t officially begin until July 1.

As did the Wild with Kaprizov, the team is expected to give Hughes as much as he wants.

—Before he was hired to coach football at Notre Dame, which he led to a national championship in 1988, Lou Holtz coached the Gophers to a 10-12 record over two seasons (1984-85). I once asked Holtz what he thought of his Notre Dame predecessor, Gerry Faust, who had coached the Irish to a 30-26-1 record over five seasons before resigning.

“He couldn’t pull the switch,” Holtz said.

I asked him what that meant. Holtz said if Faust were asked to pull the switch to electrocute a person sentenced to death, he couldn’t do it.

I then asked Holtz if he could pull the switch.

“Absolutely,” he said.

—It would seem necessary for the floundering Twins to immediately find a way to persuade longtime president Dave St. Peter to return to his fulltime position. But St. Peter seems resolved to remain in a consulting and advisory role.

Meanwhile, it’s unclear whether new principal owner Tom Pohlad will hire a new club president.

—Jim Pohlad, who has stepped away as controlling owner, is a member of a newly formed Twins board of directors. Joe Pohlad, who was executive chairman of the Twins and younger brother of Tom, no longer is part of the organization.

Overheard

Recently deceased Lou Holtz on his hiring by the Gophers in 1984: “The heart and soul will have to come from Minnesota, but the legs and arms will have to come from somewhere else.”