{"id":753534,"date":"2026-07-09T23:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T23:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/753534\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T23:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T23:41:08","slug":"kevin-oconnell-competition-is-best-way-to-reach-qb-standard-we-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/753534\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin O’Connell: Competition is best way to reach QB standard we need"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Vikings start training camp later this month, all eyes are going to be on the quarterbacks. <\/p>\n

Nothing was settled in the competition between Kyler Murray and J.J. McCarthy for the starting job during the offseason program, so it remained a chief topic of conversation for head coach Kevin O\u2019Connell during an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show on Thursday. O\u2019Connell said that he\u2019s never heard of a \u201cclosed competition\u201d when asked if things were truly open and said that the best way to reach their goal is having \u201ca daily attempt to have guys push each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKyler has come in and done a great job<\/a>,\u201d O\u2019Connell said. \u201cJ.J., I think, has benefited from it; he\u2019s had a really good spring. Carson Wentz is this veteran quarterback in the room. As a guy who\u2019s played seven or eight quarterbacks in four years, the two years we had our starter play the whole season, we won 13 and 14 games. We want to try to get back to the standard of having the quarterback position be a driving force behind us winning by doing their job, by hopefully activating the great players they get to play with.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connell said in June that there\u2019s a plan in place<\/a> to name a Week 1 starter early enough for them to fully prepare for the regular season, but didn\u2019t share how much time that will take. Until that becomes clearer, the Murray-McCarthy duel will be front and center in Minnesota. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Vikings start training camp later this month, all eyes are going to be on the quarterbacks.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-753534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}