Albert Breer’s Free Agency Notes: Evaluating the Kyler Murray Deal in Minnesota

Murray's arrival with the Vikings should light a fire under J.J. McCarthy. Plus, how the Raiders and Maxx Crosby are moving forward, and the best bargain free agent signings so far.

Kyler Murray joins a Vikings quarterback competition with incumbent starter J.J. McCarthy. | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

And things are (finally) slowing down a little …

• The Kyler Murray deal in Minnesota has felt like a fait accompli for a little while now.

And it makes all the sense in the world. Last year, as J.J. McCarthy’s season was circling the drain, and a really talented Vikings team was playing out the string, the team’s brass quietly started to bounce options around. The hope was to take on a reclamation project like the Vikings did in 2024 with Sam Darnold (and later in the year with Daniel Jones), then put whichever quarterback was the subject of that project into a competition with McCarthy.

For a little while anyway, the hope was to have that sort of competition for McCarthy last year—until Darnold and Jones both chose to go to places (Seattle and Indianapolis, respectively) where they’d have more runway to become someone’s long-term answer. So the Vikings pivoted, and went all-in on McCarthy, giving him all the starter reps, and trying a sink-or-swim approach with the 10th pick in the 2024 draft.

Obviously, that didn’t go as anyone had hoped. Which is why they are where they are now, still trying to find the best answer at the most important position on the field.

Murray makes sense in that he gives Kevin O’Connell another weapon for his offense. He may not be the best on-script quarterback, and he has had issues throwing over the middle at times—which could make the fit in the West Coast scheme wonky—but he did play for a coordinator in that family of coaches the last three years in Drew Petzing. And O’Connell is plenty sharp enough to take advantage of Murray’s unique talents.

The other thing is that the Vikings’ crew of skill guys should be dynamite in the off-script situations where Murray is a real problem for defenses.

As for McCarthy, this is essentially a challenge that’ll either set his career back or ignite him and position the 23-year-old as Minnesota’s man for the future. The honeymoon for the former first-round pick is over, and we’ll see how he responds.

And we’ll see how a really talented team responds, too, to having a different look at QB.

• We’ve said for a couple days now that the Raiders and Maxx Crosby are moving forward together, at least for the time being, and Crosby himself more-or-less confirmed it Thursday.

Why should you believe it’s more than just lip service? A couple of reasons.

First, Crosby wasn’t of a mind to leave Vegas in the first place until December. Then, his injury situation got complicated, communication between him and the team got testy, and he opened the door to the idea of playing elsewhere. So he requested a trade in early January, and everyone was set to move on. Since then, that’s really been everyone’s mindset.

Then, earlier this week, the trade went sideways, and the Raiders brass pretty quickly showed it had Crosby’s back, reaching out to him after the Ravens called to call the deal off, and offering support. Crosby’s problem was never really with GM John Spytek’s ground, his interactions thus far have been good with new coach Klint Kubiak, and he’s always been close with new defensive coordinator Rob Leonard, who’d been his position coach until Kubiak promoted him. So the foundation of trust that was broken was being rebuilt.

It may not be perfect with everyone, still. But my sense is Crosby appreciated the way the Raiders handled really unique and difficult circumstances.

Second, realistically, it’s going to be tough for the Raiders to get fair value for Crosby in a trade now. It’d be risky, to say the least, for any coach or GM to put together a blockbuster offer for Crosby, after the Ravens failed him—mostly because it’d be their rear ends on the line if Crosby were to break down physically in the next year or two. That’s not to say other teams wouldn’t want to have him. It’s that they’d be less willing to make a monster offer.

And I feel pretty confident saying the Raiders aren’t going to move much off the price they were looking for before agreeing to send him to the Ravens.

So how does this play out? I’d guess Crosby starts the season as a Raider. If he plays great and the team doesn’t, maybe this is all revisited at the deadline. But for now, I think the idea is to link up with Kubiak and try to be what he’s wanted to be for a long time—one of the guys responsible for finally turning around one of the NFL’s legendary franchises.

• We’re now into the phase of free agency where teams can swoop in on bargains, and I do have a couple that I really like.

One is the Bills bringing in C.J. Gardner-Johnson—a move that I think will bring some edge to their secondary, and will probably be good for emerging young safety Cole Bishop. Another is the Bucs signing Al-Quadin Muhammad to a very modest one-year deal after an 11-sack season in Detroit last year. Muhammad’s ascent has been wild. He’s bumped around the NFL since 2017, and initially joined the Lions practice squad in October 2024. And while chances are last year was a flash in the pan for the 30-year-old, he’s worth taking a shot on.

• The more I think about it, the more I’m fine with the Daniel Jones deal for Colts coach Shane Steichen and GM Chris Ballard. If he doesn’t play well, everyone’s probably gone. And if he does, then they get the second year of control, that’ll allow for them to keep building with him. And by the way, $44 million per is a lot, but it’s not even 75% of the top of the quarterback market—everything is relative.

• Kellen Moore was a little dodgy on the Alvin Kamara question on Thursday with the media. And I’ll say that even before this week, when I’d heard Travis Etienne Jr. was likely headed for New Orleans, it was with the idea that Kamara could land in Denver attached to it. Sean Payton, as most of you probably know, is a very big Kamara guy.

• Jimmy Garoppolo is an interesting name still out there. And his best play still might be to return to the Rams. Sean McVay loves him, and sticking around could give him a shot to be the bridge quarterback in L.A. if Matthew Stafford were to retire after this year.

• Solomon Thomas is a nice addition for Robert Saleh in Tennessee, with John Franklin-Myers, who played for Saleh with the Jets, already there. Thomas was the first draft pick of the Shanahan/Lynch era in San Francisco, when Saleh was in his first year as a defensive coordinator there. Thomas then followed Saleh to the Jets, so few people are as equipped to be a flag-bearer for Saleh’s program than he is.

• On my best available list as the weekend nears: Packers OT Rasheed Walker, 49ers WR Jauan Jennings, Rams CB Cobie Durant and Commanders G Chris Paul. That’s excluding the older one-year contract guys like Joey Bosa and Jadeveon Clowney. And it’s certainly fair to look at Walker, Jennings, Durant and Paul and wonder if they overshot the market.