Has Kyler turned a corner?

Echoing a lot of sentiments, lots to see from Murray yet to call it any kind of corner-turning. Its a very winnable game Sunday in New Orleans and if the offense can improve incrementally, it should be a W. We know the D will show up. I think it might be tempting for KOC to keep a player like Jefferson out one more Sunday to hit the bye and really have him 100% for the stretch run. Always a gamble for wins and losses. Maybe the team feels like they are playing with house money anyway this game considering they are 4-0 with abysmal offensive output.

I think the offense needs Jefferson (or even the threat of him). Saints run game doesn't scare me with the Corpse of Kamara and Kendre Miller. Shough has shown he doesn't handle pressure well. Winnable road game if the offense shows up.

I don't think I would call it turning a corner, but he did play a little bit better, and then better still later in the game. So the modest improvement we needed to see is happening. Again, I think that week 7 Colts game will be key. Kyler will get one more start, then they'll get a week off to make adjustments and we'll see what we have.

Just throwing this out there.

Is it more likely that Murray continues on his current level of production?

OR

Is it more likely that his production returns to the mean of what he’s done over his 7 year career?

If critical thinking isn’t your strong suit, ask CoPilot.

No need to answer in the form of a question.

Good luck!

I agree that the offense hasn't come together and certainly last Sunday was yet another WTF game but Murray's stats at the end of the day were hardly pedestrian. He finished the game with 27 of 37 passes for 247 yards and the offense had sustained drives to close it out in spite of the offensive penalties and line injuries. That's about all you can expect from Murray with another 40-50 yards rushing added in. As it is every time that Jets is out, the WR's had a rough go of it when they're forced to face normal coverage. Addison is not a WR1. I'm starting to think that he's KJ Osborn 2.0...he's a great compliment to Jefferson but how would (will) he do without Jets drawing all the attention? Osborn hasn't done anything since he left the Vikings. I think he's buried behind two other WRs on Tennessee's PRACTICE SQUAD. The other big thing...I love Jones but he doesn't have the burst any more. I'll be pounding the table for a bell cow RB during the draft next year.

So..4-0 and a team that still hasn't found its footing (9 straight wins going back to last season). It can still go either way and certainly the line injuries aren't going to help. I'd also like to start seeing more of the playbook. We really have been fairly vanilla thus far likely allowing Murray to acclimatize.

badgervike wrote:

I agree that the offense hasn't come together and certainly last Sunday was yet another WTF game but Murray's stats at the end of the day were hardly pedestrian. He finished the game with 27 of 37 passes for 247 yards and the offense had sustained drives to close it out in spite of the offensive penalties and line injuries. That's about all you can expect from Murray with another 40-50 yards rushing added in. As it is every time that Jets is out, the WR's had a rough go of it when they're forced to face normal coverage. Addison is not a WR1. I'm starting to think that he's KJ Osborn 2.0...he's a great compliment to Jefferson but how would (will) he do without Jets drawing all the attention? Osborn hasn't done anything since he left the Vikings. I think he's buried behind two other WRs on Tennessee's PRACTICE SQUAD. The other big thing...I love Jones but he doesn't have the burst any more. I'll be pounding the table for a bell cow RB during the draft next year.
So..4-0 and a team that still hasn't found its footing (9 straight wins going back to last season). It can still go either way and certainly the line injuries aren't going to help. I'd also like to start seeing more of the playbook. We really have been fairly vanilla thus far likely allowing Murray to acclimatize.

Nailor too has done less than nothing to start the year in Vegas. Few are shocked by this.

JustInTime wrote:

Just throwing this out there.
Is it more likely that Murray continues on his current level of production?
OR
Is it more likely that his production returns to the mean of what he’s done over his 7 year career?
If critical thinking isn’t your strong suit, ask CoPilot.
No need to answer in the form of a question.
Good luck!

It would be more likely to return (and hopefully exceed) to what he's done in his prior 7 years if we ran an offense that fit his play style.

We saw KOC make some adjustments to more quick passing plays in the 2nd half of the Dolphins game... but it isn't what KOC wants to do. It's why we've seen Kyler with happy feet. He doesn't want to be a pocket passer on longer developing routes looking for explosives. He wants to get the ball out quick or use his legs to extend plays.

We'll see if KOC adjusts his passing offense this week against the Saints. If Jefferson plays, I'm guessing KOC will want to go back to the style of offense he wants, which is not what Kyler is most comfortable running.

So to answer your question, yes it's likely he'll continue his current poor level of production if we run KOC's preferred passing plays/concepts. If we switch to a quick passing game, then I think we'll Murray play closer to his career averages.

Just for context, there's a lot of content out there about a wide variety of QBs not playing as well as they historically have. The NFL is hard. So many things need to go right to perform well. There's a fixed amount of time to get everything working as expected and if something isn't working right, it can just tank the whole process.

For us, I think it's more a KOC problem than a Kyler problem. I think he's just a young coach surrounded by other young coaches. I don't think anyone on the roster fully understands what exactly it takes to get an offense fully implemented. He runs a complex offense that takes a while to get, which is tough to match with switching your QB up every year. I also think it's a problem that we have a bunch of yes men on offense rather than getting the best of the best and leaning on them.

That said, I'm optimistic. I think we'll figure things out and we have enough wins stacked up to make things interesting later in the season, but I think the team is going to have to figure out what they want to do on offense next year from a coaching perspective, because these last two years haven't been working and we've had to figure everything out on the fly. There's 100% a gap in expectations and what was implemented on the field. If it were me, Philips and McCown need to be shown the door, and more experienced guys should replace them. Then the scheme needs to be reshaped to best suit a lower caliber of QB, because that's who's available to us. I think if he's not interested in changing things, you go out there and see who's available for OC and roll with Flores as HC and best available OC.

MAD GAINZ wrote:

It would be more likely to return (and hopefully exceed) to what he's done in his prior 7 years if we ran an offense that fit his play style.
We saw KOC make some adjustments to more quick passing plays in the 2nd half of the Dolphins game... but it isn't what KOC wants to do. It's why we've seen Kyler with happy feet. He doesn't want to be a pocket passer on longer developing routes looking for explosives. He wants to get the ball out quick or use his legs to extend plays.
We'll see if KOC adjusts his passing offense this week against the Saints. If Jefferson plays, I'm guessing KOC will want to go back to the style of offense he wants, which is not what Kyler is most comfortable running.
So to answer your question, yes it's likely he'll continue his current poor level of production if we run KOC's preferred passing plays/concepts. If we switch to a quick passing game, then I think we'll Murray play closer to his career averages.

I don't think KOC has a choice. He talked about "adjusting to Kyler" last summer, but KOC talk is the cheapest talk in the universe as most of us know. Then he dialed up the usual KOC stuff in Tampa and vs. the Dolphins, until finally the light went on late last Sunday. At least I think it did lol. It's his job on the line if he fucks this up and I think he knows it. Hearing the boos in the stadium might have woken him as well, who knows.

Unfortunately he's simply not a great playcaller or in-game strategist, something I've said since day one five years ago. He can design plays but he should be a CEO HC and let someone else actually utilize all the weapons and skillsets on this offense to actually score a lot. It could be done but Kevin's offensive EPA #'s over 5 years show us he's never been more than average at best. It's some sort of playcalling/big ego thing that coaches have, he will never give it up unless Teasley makes him. Let us pray it happens.

JimmyinSD wrote:

Some of that can be on the QB though too, his cadence and timing can be erratic.

Murray admitted some of it was his. The formation issue was on the coaches. But they seemed to clean most of that up in the second half. Credit for making adjustments.

Posted this in another thread:

54 snaps from shotgun vs the Phins, most since 2022

18 runs from shotgun, previous high 11

Neither of these metrics align with what KO’s preferred concepts are.

Feet were unhappy.

The #Vikings lined up in the shotgun formation 54 times Sunday, the most in a game since O’Connell was hired in 2022, @alec_lewis. Trying to get Kyler comfortable.

— VikingzFanPage @vikingzfanpage Oct 6, 2026

𝕏 X / Twitter — VikingzFanPage @vikingzfanpage

The #Vikings lined up in the shotgun formation 54 times Sunday, the most in a game since O’Connell was hired in 2022, @alec_lewis. Trying to get Kyler comfortable.

View on X

Seeing adjustments, no?

badgervike wrote:

I agree that the offense hasn't come together and certainly last Sunday was yet another WTF game but Murray's stats at the end of the day were hardly pedestrian. He finished the game with 27 of 37 passes for 247 yards and the offense had sustained drives to close it out in spite of the offensive penalties and line injuries. That's about all you can expect from Murray with another 40-50 yards rushing added in. As it is every time that Jets is out, the WR's had a rough go of it when they're forced to face normal coverage. Addison is not a WR1. I'm starting to think that he's KJ Osborn 2.0...he's a great compliment to Jefferson but how would (will) he do without Jets drawing all the attention? Osborn hasn't done anything since he left the Vikings. I think he's buried behind two other WRs on Tennessee's PRACTICE SQUAD. The other big thing...I love Jones but he doesn't have the burst any more. I'll be pounding the table for a bell cow RB during the draft next year.
So..4-0 and a team that still hasn't found its footing (9 straight wins going back to last season). It can still go either way and certainly the line injuries aren't going to help. I'd also like to start seeing more of the playbook. We really have been fairly vanilla thus far likely allowing Murray to acclimatize.

Yeah, add 2 yards and a TD onto his stats as well. Not too shabby given all that you mentioned. And they adjusted and started moving the ball at will in the second half.

The other thing we have criticized KOC for is not sticking with the run. Well, he has this year. And that is a big part of being 4-0. Grinding the clock, controlling the ball and playing stellar D. That is a recipe for success in the post season. All this while missing the better half of his starting RBs. He needs to get creditfor that.

I agree on Addison. Kinda glad we have seen this before signing him to a huge contract. He is good at going deep, but he isn't a WR1. A great compliment to Jets, but so was Nailor, KJ Osborne and others.

As to the crowd booing the kneel downs, that is just silly. Typical fans. You can guarantee the win or you can score and then have to hang on and risk more injuries or big plays.

medaille wrote:

. I think if he's not interested in changing things, you go out there and see who's available for OC and roll with Flores as HC and best available OC.

IMO, this is a terrible idea. We end up with a repeat of the Zimmer years. Great defenses, good records and revolving door at OC.

greediron wrote:

IMO, this is a terrible idea. We end up with a repeat of the Zimmer years. Great defenses, good records and revolving door at OC.

Well we're comparing terrible options. You lose Flores and keep KOC is a terrible option as you lose the one guy single handedly responsible for half our wins. You lock into a defensive minded coach, which has the terrible options you mentioned. You try out a different unproven or proven failure at HC, also not great.

The only great option is if KOC recognizes his own faults and self corrects and Flores is blacklisted from the HC positions. Are there other good options out there?

badgervike wrote:

I'll be pounding the table for a bell cow RB during the draft next year.

Line starts right here behind my fat asz...Ive been pounding that table for the last 2 drafts (at least).

We're going to have a game when that D is just going to have an off day, its 100% inevitable...

Not sure the Saints are the ones to do it offensively?

But the Bills are certainly capable and I am leery of how we match-up to that Colts team too.

I think some of you are disrespecting Addison. Can he be a knucklehead? Yes. But his on the field play when we have a QB that can attack the intermediate and deep part of the field (Cousins and Darnold), he's been very good.

"Jordan Addison has had 39 catches for 489 yards and has scored 4 touchdowns in 8 games without Justin Jefferson in his career."

At that pace, he's over 1000 yds and 8 TDs in a 17-game season. He's much more talented than Osborne, Nailor, etc.

Canthony wrote:

Our offense has been so terrible, that we went in Victory formation to go 4-0 and the crowd booed. That should tell you whatever you need to know with it. I can't be one of those people that want to put anything positive on this. We took our lumps and got blasted last year. Now people want a pass.

The crowd was booing, because they wanted to see a TD, it was the decision, not the team they were booing.