The Minnesota Vikings are winning, but the quarterback situation keeps hanging over everything.
At 6-1, Minnesota has leaned hard on one of the league’s best defenses to stay near the top. Still, the offense hasn’t looked settled, and that became even more obvious after Sunday’s 19-15 loss in Detroit. Kyler Murray finished 17 of 29 for 210 yards with two touchdowns and an interception, took three sacks, and left with a sore hamstring.
On Monday, Kevin O’Connell said Murray remains the starter as long as he’s healthy. That hasn’t slowed the noise around the Vikings with the Nov. 10 deadline just a week away. Kirk Cousins and Daniel Jones have already been mentioned as possible answers, while one report said Minnesota has no plans to add a quarterback and another said nothing has been ruled out.
Then Albert Breer took the conversation to a much bigger place.
In his Tuesday video mailbag, the Sports Illustrated insider was asked whether the Vikings should make a call on Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert. Breer’s answer was yes, even if the response from Los Angeles is a quick no.
“I don’t see a scenario where the Chargers make them available over the next week. You know, I wouldn’t mind the Vikings taking a swing on this. And, you know, I think the idea of trading for a player like this is similar to the idea of trading for Jeffery Simmons, where Jeffery Simmons wasn’t necessarily available.
I really think that Justin Herbert, there is a top five quarterback in there. And it’s not what I’m seeing.
It’s what the rest of the league is seeing. And it’s what people I talk to are seeing.
And it’s in a way that it reminds me of the way people talked about Matthew Stafford in Detroit. The way that people talk about Justin Herbert with the Chargers.
So I think that that’s in there. I think the Chargers know we got to find a way to give him that second life instead of creating that second life for him somewhere else.”
Breer said the Herbert idea should be treated the way teams approached Jeffery Simmons: keep asking until the door opens. He noted that more than half the league called the Tennessee Titans about Simmons and kept hearing he wasn’t available, until the Chicago Bears put together an offer the Titans couldn’t turn down - first-round picks in 2027 and 2028 plus a 2027 fourth.
That’s the model Breer wants the Vikings to follow with Herbert. He said Minnesota should at least call and offer three first-round picks, then wait to see what happens.
“And I do think the Vikings, at the very least, [if I’m Nolan Teasley,] I pick up the phone and say, could we offer you three first-round picks for him and just see what they say. You already know the first-round pick this year is probably gonna be a low one.
And there is some background, I’d say, in that offense that Justin Herbert has. It’s not perfect, but he is playing for Mike McDaniel now.”
Breer also said Herbert’s offense under coordinator Mike McDaniel has “some crossover” with what O’Connell runs, and added that Herbert throwing to Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison would be “something else.”
The case for Herbert isn’t hard to see from the outside. Breer pointed out that people around the league were convinced he was playing MVP-level football just one year ago, when he started 11-5, completed 340 of 512 passes for 3,727 yards, and threw 26 touchdowns against 13 interceptions despite a battered offensive line.
But the version of Herbert showing up this season has been rough. The Chargers are 0-7 after Sunday’s 24-9 loss to the Rams, and Herbert has thrown 10 interceptions, the most in the NFL, while taking 23 sacks through seven games.
His passer rating is 69.3 and his QBR is 32.9, both career lows. In 2025, those numbers were 94.1 and 60.6.
Even if Minnesota wanted to make a run, the money would be the biggest obstacle. Herbert is in the middle of a five-year, $262.5 million contract that runs through 2029, and his 2026 cap hit is more than $46.3 million.
The Vikings have about $5.84 million in cap space, which means any deal would require sending a lot of salary back to Los Angeles. Herbert also has a no-trade clause, giving him a say in where he would go.
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