The Fantasy Case For Kyler Murray... And J.J. McCarthy, Too

What the outcome will be shouldn't come as a surprise.

It isn't a quarterback controversy if everyone already knows who will be the Minnesota Vikings' Week 1 starter. | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Minnesota's quarterback competition is being framed as a foregone conclusion. Your fantasy draft strategy shouldn't treat it differently.

Kyler Murray, a man with a child's haircut, is going to win the starting job in Minnesota. Head coach Kevin O'Connell has made little secret of his preference, Justin Jefferson has said J.J. McCarthy "has to step it up" with Murray in the building, and every credible fantasy outlet has Murray penciled in as the Week 1 starter. None of that is in dispute.

What is in dispute is whether Murray deserves a roster spot on your fantasy team and, more specifically, whether he is worth the draft capital required to get him. At his current average draft position (109), I believe Murray is a no-brainer, and I am the biggest Murray hater you'll ever find.

Murray's fantasy track record is more cautionary tale than endorsement

Before buying into the hype surrounding Murray's arrival in Minnesota, it helps to zoom out and look at the full picture. In 2020, his best season, Murray rushed for 819 yards and 11 touchdowns to go with 26 passing scores and nearly 4,000 yards through the air, finishing as the QB2 in fantasy football. He earned back-to-back Pro Bowl selections and looked like a generational dual-threat talent.

That was six years ago.

His touchdown rate has sat below four percent in each of his last three full seasons, and he has never thrown for 4,000 passing yards or 30+ passing touchdowns in his career. The lone season he cracked 30 total touchdowns was 2020, when 11 came on the ground.

In 2024, playing a full season for the first time since 2020, Murray finished as the QB10 in fantasy, throwing multiple touchdowns in a single game just three times and needing four scoring passes in a meaningless Week 18 to crack 20 on the year. Then in 2025, a foot injury held him to five games, 962 passing yards and six passing touchdowns.

Former Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray (1) runs for a touchdown against the Los Angeles Chargers. | Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images

There is a version of Murray in Minnesota where Jefferson, Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson drag him to QB1 numbers simply by existing.

ESPN's Eric Moody noted that Murray has averaged 18.0 fantasy points per game over the past three seasons when healthy, and now enters his best supporting cast since 2020. That's a fair amount of optimism. It is also a lot of faith to place in a 28-year-old who has played more than 12 games in a season exactly twice since his Pro Bowl peak.

However, all that precaution is built into his ADP (109). Again, he is currently being drafted around the end of Round 9. Most drafters at that point will already have a QB, a TE, and seven RBs and WRs. This is the prime real estate for drafting a backup QB.

I would be fine taking him at least a round earlier. By August, I expect his ADP to catapult toward the early 80s, closer to the middle of Round 6 in 12-teamers.

The paper trail out of Arizona says everything

Point blank, I can't accept that Murray takes football seriously, given what happened with his video game clause a few years back. Multiple reports out of Arizona indicated the Cardinals had grown "frustrated" with Murray, citing questions about his work ethic that had "dogged him in Arizona for years" and his quiet personality, which had raised persistent concerns about his leadership.

When Murray signed his five-year, $230.5 million extension in 2022, the Cardinals included an addendum requiring him to complete at least four hours of "independent study" per game week, language that specifically prohibited him from playing video games or browsing the internet while film ran in the background.

Kyler Murray (Call of Duty Release) is questionable to return to the football field this season.

pic.twitter.com/CZzgpT7ffK

— Polymarket Football (@PolymarketBlitz) November 6, 2025

Sure, it says a lot about the Cardinals as a franchise that they'd dog him like this by including it in his contract. However, no franchise writes that into a contract without cause. Murray called the public fallout "disrespectful and almost a joke."

The clause was removed under public scrutiny. The front-office concerns it reflected were not, and they resurfaced this past offseason loudly when sources described Murray to ESPN as self-centered, immature and someone who points fingers.

A fresh start can change the scenery, but it rarely rewires the person.

Even with all that hemming and hawing, Murray's ADP is so suppressed that it essentially means nothing. Carry on my wayward sons, draft Murray with nary a second thought, as long as it makes sense based on ADP. His statistical upside is impossible to ignore.

McCarthy stumbled at OTAs and it still does not change the math

J.J. McCarthy did himself no favors in front of the media last week. When asked about his relationship with Murray, McCarthy described the dynamic as "just like two guys in a classroom. He sits on one side, I sit on the other side, and it's the coaches' responsibility to teach us and coach us."

Perhaps this is literally the truth, but the media treats anything human and not banal as a critical misstep. ESPN's Dan Orlovsky, a long-time McCarthy supporter, said on The Pat McAfee Show that "it was an uphill battle for J.J. McCarthy on the field in this competition" and that McCarthy's answers suggested, "there's an uphill battle off the field as well."

Contrast that with how Murray handled the same question.

"It's been great. Obviously, he's a younger guy, so any way I can help him. I feel like I played seven years, going on eight. I'm considered a veteran even though I don't see myself as that. Giving him any knowledge he needs," Murray told The Athletic. Murray came across as measured and generous. McCarthy came across as guarded and immature. On optics alone, Murray won the week.

But here is the thing: McCarthy's OTA stumble does not validate Murray as a fantasy asset. It just confirms what was already apparent, that Murray is going to start in Week 1. For our fantasy purposes, that was already priced in.

Scary: Kyler Murray throws a PERFECT deep ball to Jordan Addison at Vikings OTA’s today.

The Vikings have their QB1 🚀pic.twitter.com/nla7rS9OTe

— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) May 27, 2026

But when I hear Murray say he doesn't consider himself a veteran... Can I have a minute, Kyler? Hey, Kyler, if you are reading, buddy ol' pal. You are a veteran. You are an NFL quarterback. You matter. Take yourself seriously. Millions of people care about the outcome of your decisions. I know the gravity of that is pretty wild, but this is your life. It's cool to care. It's cool to express yourself. It's cool to have a point of view. So do those things more openly. Let people see you by being you. These are all traits most everyone tries to live by, and it would go a long way to shore up all the negative chatter that's followed your career. Good talk, big dog.

What McCarthy's stumble does not erase is the statistical reality of what he was before the 2025 season broke sideways. In 10 starts last year, McCarthy completed 57.6 percent of his passes for 1,632 yards, 11 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, finishing 35th or worse in nearly every meaningful efficiency category among 36 qualified quarterbacks. So there simply can't be any suggestion that you draft McCarthy with the expectation that he wins this competition.

The waiver wire argument for McCarthy is the extra play

The smarter question is not who wins the job in September. It is parsing out what happens in a worst-case scenario for Murray.

Arizona grew concerned, per multiple reports, that Murray would never return to the player he was before his 2022 ACL tear.

Murray may open the year hot, a freshly-motivated flamethrower with a chip on his shoulder and weapons he has never had. That stretch could last four weeks or eight. But if history is the guide, regression and missed time could follow.

Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy (9) throws a pass against the Green Bay Packers. | Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images

When that happens, McCarthy will be available on your waiver wire and should absolutely be stashed at that point, should it come. He is 23 years old, a former top-10 pick, and operating behind a quarterback on a one-year contract with no long-term claim to the job. Even if McCarthy has his own maturation issues, this stiff competition from Murray could provide an added motivation for him as well.

O'Connell has continued to describe McCarthy as a franchise-caliber signal-caller even amid the competition. Minnesota did not bring Murray in to permanently displace their 2024 first-round investment. They brought him in to stabilize a position that fell apart in 2025.

TL;DR: Draft Murray, as early as late Round 6 and into 7, but only as your QB2. Yes, the world's biggest Murray hater is calling for a reach based on his ADP. And should it all fall apart, I'm fine with contenders spending big FAAB on McCarthy. Trust me, should anything change from then to now, I'll be the first to tell you because I will rag on Murray's kiddie haircut any chance I can get.