NFL Media’s Dan Parr laid out<\/a> some early “dark horse” candidates for MVP and he included Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kyler Murray. He wrote, “We saw what Kevin O\u2019Connell did with a reclamation project two years ago, when he flipped the career arc of\u00a0Sam Darnold\u00a0by helping him become a Pro Bowl QB (and earn a few points in the MVP voting) in his lone season with Minnesota. Now I\u2019m fascinated to see what the QB guru can do with Murray, who\u2019s looking for the O\u2019Connell bump after cratering in Arizona. . .While it might not pop off every corner of the page, the supporting cast in Minnesota looks strong on paper, led by one of the league\u2019s top players in WR\u00a0Justin Jefferson. If\u00a0Jordan Addison\u00a0and\u00a0Jauan Jennings\u00a0stay healthy, that could be a tough trio of pass catchers for defenses to match up against. The offensive line is solid, anchored by LT\u00a0Christian Darrisaw.”<\/p>\nMurray with Kevin O’Connell is a pairing that is going to make the Vikings must-watch TV early on in the season. If he wins the job, Minnesota has a chance to come out of the gates with an edge that it hasn’t had since the middle of its season with Sam Darnold in 2024.<\/p>\n
Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"June 17, 2026, 6:55 p.m. CT The Minnesota Vikings quarterback competition is heating up, and no one is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":921831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2073],"tags":[95878,7,233,259,2529,6,119448,97234,97235,95882,100017,96065,95988,95895,95906,96163,95883,95881,234],"class_list":["post-921830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota-vikings","tag-accessfree","tag-football","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-vikings","tag-minnesotavikings","tag-nfl","tag-sourcevikings-wire","tag-sstssportsnflvikings","tag-sstsnvikings","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagjustin-jefferson","tag-tagkyler-murray","tag-tagminnesota-vikings","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagsam-darnold","tag-tagsports-news","tag-typestory","tag-vikings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116768692208435808","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}