Kevin O’Connell is not pretending the Vikings’ quarterback-center operation is where it needs to be yet, and with Week 1 closing in, he made sure everybody heard it.
Kyler Murray already has the starting job. O’Connell settled that on Aug. 11, when he chose Murray over J.J.
McCarthy and ended the two-week camp battle. But the coach used an Aug. 19 media session to zero in on something far less settled: the exchange between Murray and first-time Minnesota starting center Blake Brandel.
Brandel is taking over in his first camp as the Vikings’ center after the retirement of Ryan Kelly, and O’Connell said the pair has work to do before the regular season opens against the Green Bay Packers. According to Heavy.com, O’Connell said they “got to practice it, and that’s where we have time, but not that much time” and said they need to “acknowledge it” and clean it up over the next two weeks.
This is not just about a timing hiccup in one formation. O’Connell made the point that a bad snap can wreck a series before it ever gets going.
He brought up a play from last season against the Philadelphia Eagles, when a high snap sailed over Carson Wentz’s head on what should have been a productive second down. Per Heavy.com, O’Connell said that one snap turned what looked like a 15-yard gain into second- or third-and-long, shifting the possession from an aggressive situation to a possible field goal attempt.
“Those are critical plays, and they come up throughout the season,” O’Connell said. “The time is now to identify how that happens and ultimately give those guys enough reps to fix it.”
The issue matters because Murray works in multiple alignments, including under center, shotgun and pistol, and those exchanges live and die on rhythm. That kind of timing comes from repetition, not just talent. Judd Zulgad of Purple Daily was among the first to point out the problem after an Aug. 17 practice, saying Murray was “clearly a work in progress” and specifically noting shotgun and pistol snap trouble with Brandel, according to Heavy.com.
There’s also the broader Murray conversation, but the verified reporting stops short of connecting it to any specific in-game sightline moment or a private O’Connell-Murray exchange. Murray is 5-foot-10, one of the smaller quarterbacks in the league, and he has long been a topic because of how he sees over bigger linemen such as the 6-foot-6 Brandel. That said, only the snap issue itself is confirmed here.
What is confirmed is Murray’s résumé. He’s a former No. 1 overall pick, now in his eighth season, and has 87 career starts. That experience, along with his command of O’Connell’s offense, helped him win the job over McCarthy.
Minnesota still has two preseason games left to sharpen the operation before it counts. O’Connell’s message was plain: there is time, but not much of it, and the Vikings need the Murray-Brandel exchange cleaned up before the opener. As he put it, it “cannot continue to be an issue.”
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