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Kyler Murray never forgot Kevin O’Connell’s belief in him. Now the Vikings are betting on their bond.It would have been easy enough to dismiss the interactions as small talk: a side conversation after an interview at the 2019 NFL combine, a couple brief postgame exchanges in the years that followed.But to Kyler Murray, they revealed something deeper.Seven years later, Murray can’t recall exactly what he and Kevin O’Connell, then the Washington offensive coordinator, talked about at the combine. But Murray still remembers how the current Vikings head coach made him feel, days after he told the Oakland Athletics he wouldn’t report to spring training.“I was kind of putting the money on myself that I was gonna do what I was capable of,” Murray said. “But it’s still just the unknown: how’s this gonna go?”O’Connell was a familiar face, having first worked with Murray at the Elite 11 QB camp in 2014. The two ended up crossing paths often in the NFL. Murray, who was selected No. 1 overall by the Cardinals, faced O’Connell six times when he was the Rams offensive coordinator, then twice more in 2023 and ’24 after O’Connell was hired by the Vikings.After those Cardinals-Vikings games, O’Connell would seek out Murray at midfield.Occasionally, Murray said, he would talk with other coaches after games. The interactions with O’Connell “usually stuck out more.”“When you see that a coach sees what you’re capable of — obviously, they watch a ton of film. They watch everyone. They see it all. So I don’t think he was just doing that for … giggles,” Murray said, with an extra phrase attached to the word ”giggles.”“You want to play for a guy that knows what you’re capable of, and is fond of your ability. I’m not gonna go risk playing for somebody that doesn’t realize who I am.”Murray returned to those conversations this spring after the Cardinals released him in a cost-cutting move.The Vikings, with a starting job up for grabs and an offense stocked with weapons, would give him an opportunity to reframe his career. O’Connell could provide him with an advocate.Their relationship is now critical to the Vikings’ hopes in 2026.Murray, who signed a one-year deal, is looking to revive his career and earn a long-term contract in Minnesota or elsewhere. O’Connell is still in search of his first playoff victory entering his fifth season with the Vikings and needs a clear direction at quarterback. Both are betting they can make this work. “When I have the opportunity to play for somebody who acknowledges what I’m capable of and is excited about what I could do if I was in the system, that played a huge part, for sure,” Murray said.Why the Vikings believe Kyler Murray and Kevin O’Connell can workThe Vikings hope Murray’s arrival leads to a return of the coach-quarterback synergy that O’Connell has deemed so valuable to the franchise.That synergy appeared to wane through 2025’s rocky experiment with J.J. McCarthy, who’s dropped to No. 3 on the team’s depth chart after losing a training camp competition with Murray. The Vikings, who finished a half-game out of the playoffs at 9-8 last season, have just $1.3 million committed to Murray in 2026, with the Cardinals paying the remainder of his $22.835 million salary.That modest investment has the potential for a big payoff for players like wide receiver Justin Jefferson, the affable superstar whose patience came as a relief to team officials during a trying 2025 season.Murray showed he has the touch to connect with Jefferson downfield in training camp. The quarterback’s presence also seemed to reinvigorate the receiver heading into his seventh year.“I’ve known how he is as a person, as a player,” Jefferson said. ”What surprised me was his arm talent, him being vocal and being more of a leader than I‘d seen in Arizona. It’s really cool just seeing him step up into a role we needed him to be in.”Murray has been in the spotlight since O’Connell met him as a 17-year-old back in 2014.He was preparing for the final year of his high school career in Allen, Texas, at the time, one that’s regarded as one of the finest in the state’s storied football history. O’Connell was two years removed from his NFL playing days, and working as a private QB instructor in Carlsbad, Calif., while calling college games as a TV analyst for ESPN and CBS Sports Network.Their interactions at the Elite 11 camp were nothing “too in-depth,” Murray recalled. But it gave O’Connell a chance to network with young QBs, something he continued to do once he became an NFL coach.“His experience with those guys going way back, from Sam [Darnold] to Kyler and all those guys he was around, I think it helps,” said Vikings quarterbacks coach Josh McCown, who was playing for the Browns in 2015 when Cleveland made O’Connell its QB coach. “His reputation precedes him, but they have something they can draw on. It’s a personal interaction that they can remember and go, ‘Man, I enjoy being around that guy. I saw what he’s about.’ And so, they can trust that.”How Kyler Murray is adapting to Kevin O’Connell’s Vikings offenseMurray says he wants to be coached hard, and McCown‘s been able to see quickly he means it.The Vikings have given the quarterback some grace as he learns the details of the team’s expansive playbook, while holding a tighter grip on the techniques they view as essential: where a quarterback’s eyes are as he starts his read, where his feet are positioned and his posture in the pocket.“Those are non-negotiables, so it’s got to be consistent,” McCown said. “How you get there may look a little different from guy to guy, but the top of the drop has to be consistent. That’s good, because some of the things that maybe they’ve not been coached hard on, we coach them hard.”Murray said he has appreciated critical feedback from O’Connell and McCown, given they know what it’s like to suit up on Sundays. He likes coaches who get on him if he doesn’t do his job and ask, “OK, how can we be better?” if he does.“I enjoy the coaches that look at the position through the lens of a quarterback because they understand,” Murray said. “They understand what it is back there when there’s 80,000 [people in the stands] and Aaron Donald’s on the other side.”It’s well-known by this point that the Vikings offense demands a lot of quarterbacks. Murray said his three years with Cardinals offensive coordinator Drew Petzing gave him familiarity with some concepts in O’Connell’s system, but he knew the scheme would be “totally brand new for me.”Murray signed with the Vikings on March 12 and was in Minnesota that same week to start studying and watching film.“It was really trying to get the verbiage down and break the habits I had previously,” he said. “It’s a lot of hours, and I’m only, what, five or six months in? I feel very comfortable with where I’m at right now, to go play the first game of the season. This is probably the most difficult offense I’ve had to learn, but I think that’s why it’s been difficult to stop. The coaches are giving us every concept. However you can defeat a defense, it’s in this offense.”What it all means — for Murray, for O’Connell and for the 2026 Vikings — will be revealed in the coming months.Their new quarterback, though, believes the ingredients are there for a remarkable run with the coach he has known for more than a decade.“I mean, everything — and this is just me talking,” Murray said. “But, like, Super Bowl. That’s the goal, I would hope, for everybody in here. Even when I was in Arizona, like, call me delusional or whatever. But I feel like if I play my best ball, the sky’s the limit. The supporting cast, the coaching staff, the guys in the locker room from top to bottom, I just think we’re gonna compete. Me personally, I don’t think there’s a game on the schedule where we’re going, ‘Oh, we’re the underdogs.’ If we do our jobs, I feel like we should come out victorious.”Strib

Sure hope they're right!