What was the point? Kyler Murray finally given the starting job we knew he had locked up

Ten practices and nearly two weeks into a quarterback competition that most considered to be more show than substance, Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell finally announced the decision we expected all along: Kyler Murray had “won” the team’s quarterback competition against J.J. McCarthy.

Tuesday’s news came two days after a practice in which Murray was mostly awful and McCarthy started strong but finished feeble. If there hadn’t been concern inside TCO Performance Center about the quarterback play before that practice, Sunday’s futility should have had the offensive staff in a panic.

The guess here is that when O’Connell decided to announce that Murray would compete with McCarthy, his goal was to have Murray stack enough strong practices that everyone could see who should win the job.

That never happened.

Instead, splitting reps mostly wasted two valuable weeks of training camp for everyone. Murray and McCarthy never got into any type of rhythm as they split reps — Murray did get more with the first team — and the rest of the offense had little chance to build chemistry with either quarterback.

That changed on Tuesday as Murray took over as the No. 1 QB but left one wondering what was really accomplished through this process. The Vikings signed Murray to a one-year, $1.3 million contract in March after being jettisoned by Arizona (the Cardinals owe Murray $35.5 million this season).

From the moment Murray put pen to paper, everyone knew he was going to be the opening day starter. The 29-year-old visited no other teams and signed a contract that prohibits the Vikings from putting the franchise tag on him after the season.

Murray and his camp want to see if he can bounce back with a big season and get another lucrative contract. Serving as McCarthy’s backup wouldn’t have allowed that to happen, and Murray almost certainly would have explored his options if he thought he might not start in Minnesota.

But it was important for O’Connell to feel he was conducting a competition — no matter how difficult that was to believe. “It's been a true competition, and we feel like we're at a place where we've made a complete evaluation,” O’Connell said.

O’Connell said at the beginning of training camp that he had a timeline in mind for how long Murray vs. McCarthy would last, and on Tuesday he said this was around the time he planned to call it.

The issue is that now the race is on to get Murray as many first-team reps as possible. O’Connell might be satisfied with how this worked out, but any NFL coach will tell you that there is no time to waste once camp starts. If certainly feels as if O’Connell wasted a lot of time.

This is especially true because the Vikings have made changes to their offense, including the run game and, undoubtedly, some tweaks to fit Murray’s mobile style of play. O’Connell said he plans to play his starters in the preseason, beginning with Saturday’s game against the Giants in New Jersey. But how much of the new offense will the Vikings actually show in a preseason game?

Those are the things that should be worked on in the 19 training camp practices the Vikings had scheduled. Ten of those are gone, and now it appears Murray and the offense will be getting down to business.

Why?

Because O’Connell wanted to make everyone believe he was conducting a quarterback competition that few considered to be real. That charade ended Tuesday as Murray was given the keys to the car and McCarthy was parked in the garage.

O’Connell sounded satisfied with the result in a 7-minute opening statement at his press conference on Tuesday, but he also might have been trying to convince himself that he hadn’t just wasted everyone’s time.