The Detroit Lions finally know who they'll face in the NFC North. The Minnesota Vikings' underwhelming quarterback competition has finally come to an end (for now), with a predictable outcome.
As expected, Kevin O'Connell's team will roll with Kyler Murray at quarterback, at least to start the season. He was always the front-runner for the job, and this should signal the end of the (brief) J.J. McCarthy era in the Twin Cities.
Even though Murray is clearly more of a threat than the Vikings' former first-round pick, this is still comedy gold for the Lions. Essentially, the Vikings gave up on their top-ten pick just 10 games into his career.
Lions will benefit from the Vikings' quarterback blunder
Murray might raise the Vikings' ceiling for now, but McCarthy was supposed to be their savior for years to come. Instead, they gave up valuable assets to move up for an injury-prone and raw player who couldn't even beat a perennial underperformer like Murray.
In his lone career game vs. the Lions, McCarthy passed for 143 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 1 interception, adding 12 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown. To be fair, he did get the last laugh with a 27-24 win.
As a former NFC West foe, Murray doesn't have that much experience vs. the Lions. He's got 986 passing yards, 7 touchdowns, and 6 interceptions in 3 career games against Detroit, as well as 115 rushing yards and one touchdown.
Ironically, the Lions might be better suited to contain a mobile guy like Murray than the wildly erratic McCarthy. The linebackers have drawn rave reviews in training camp, and while the pass-rush is still a work in progress, they can certainly put pressure at the line of scrimmage and force the smaller Murray to take wild guesses as he struggles to see over the linemen.
Moreover, Murray will now have to make a significant adjustment to O'Connell's offense. His size limitations have forced his teams to play shotgun and pistol-heavy formations, but the Vikings run a ton of under-center stuff. That will inevitably lead to some unforced errors, especially for such a tiny signal-caller.
The Lions are looking to bounce back after a disappointing season. The NFC North has four playoff-caliber and Super Bowl-hopeful teams, so there's no such thing as a minor edge in this division. As such, watching the Vikings shoot themselves in the foot like this can only count as the first big win of the season.
Add us as a preferred source on Google