‘Ahead of where I thought’: Kevin O’Connell has telling comments on Kyler Murray amidst competition with J.J. McCarthy

The Minnesota Vikings have perhaps the most high-profile quarterback battle this offseason as young J.J. McCarthy competes with veteran Kyler Murray for the team’s starting quarterback position. While head coach Kevin O’Connell has not been willing to share much about where the battle stands, he did have a few telling comments about Murray.

Given that Murray just joined the team over the offseason by way of a trade with the Arizona Cardinals, it’s been widely assumed that J.J. McCarthy’s biggest leg up on him in the competition would be his comfort level with the offense, as this is McCarthy’s third season with the team and he started 10 games in the offense last season.

However, that might not be the case after all.

On Sunday, O’Connell said that Murray is actually further along than expected at this point when it comes to his mental processing and his general comfort level in the offense, even after just a few practices.

“I think mentally he’s definitely probably ahead of where I thought,” O’Connell said, via Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com.

That would seem telling about who will ultimately win the starting job, as Murray has already looked better than McCarthy in practice, with one reporter going as far as to say that the gap between the two quarterbacks was “not close” based on his observations.

That said, O’Connell was not willing to name a front-runner just yet.

“Nothing has really changed from a standpoint of the timeline and things like that,” O’Connell said. “So we’ll see how the reps continue to go and when we feel like we’re at that place, we’re going to make sure we communicate that both in house and internally and obviously to you guys as soon as possible.”

The Vikings play their first game of the preseason when they take on the New York Giants on Saturday. We’ll have to see how each of the two quarterbacks fares in that showdown.

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