The Five QB Shuffles That Will Define 2026, And Why Minnesota's Kyler Gamble Is The Biggest Fraud In The Lot

The NFL offseason is here and the quarterback carousel has spun wildly out of control. Five franchises have decided their futures rest on new signal callers, and I am here to tell you that most of these teams are making catastrophic mistakes. This is not about finding the next great quarterback. This is about franchises panicking, throwing money at problems that cannot be fixed with a new arm, and in some cases, completely misreading what their rosters actually need. Let me be blunt: the Vikings are not getting back to the playoffs with Kyler Murray, the Raiders are not winning with Kirk Cousins, and Miami has already surrendered by going with Malik Willis. These are not bold predictions. These are observations based on fundamental football principles that seem to have escaped the war rooms of these organizations.

Start with Minnesota and Kyler Murray because this is the story that has the NFL talking itself into a lie. The Vikings fired Kevin O'Connell and brought in Kyler Murray as the supposed reset button for a franchise that won ten games just last season. Let me repeat that: they won ten games. They made the playoffs. And now they are acting like they need a complete overhaul at the most important position on the field. This is peak panic. Kyler Murray is a talented player. I will not sit here and diminish his abilities. He can run, he can create off schedule, and he has shown flashes of genuine brilliance. But he is not a solved problem. He has never won a playoff game as a starter. His teams have underperformed expectations more often than they have exceeded them. His decision making in crucial moments remains inconsistent. And most damning, he has never been the guy who elevates his teammates the way a true franchise quarterback does.

The Vikings believe that Murray is the missing piece. They are wrong. The missing piece was better coaching, and they had to fire O'Connell to realize that he was actually doing a decent job with limited resources. Now they are pinning their hopes on a player who has spent his career in Arizona trying to carry a franchise that was fundamentally broken. Murray did not fail in Phoenix because he did not have enough help. He failed in Phoenix because he is not yet a complete enough quarterback to overcome roster limitations. Minnesota's roster is better than what Murray left behind in Arizona, but that does not mean Murray will magically become an elite quarterback. That is not how this works. The Vikings are paying a premium price for diminishing returns, and in two years, they will be wondering why they fired O'Connell for a coaching carousel while banking their future on a guy who has never truly proven he can win at the highest level. This is a Grade F move for Minnesota, and I will say it plainly: the Vikings are headed backward, not forward.

Now let's talk about Las Vegas and Kirk Cousins. This might be the only move on this list that makes some marginal sense, but only because the Raiders were so bad last year that literally anything counts as an upgrade. Kirk Cousins is reliable. He shows up. He does not throw interceptions in ridiculous moments. These are qualities that the Raiders desperately need because the chaos under former leadership was completely unsustainable. But let's not pretend that Kirk Cousins is going to transform Las Vegas into a playoff team. He is a band aid on a franchise that needs reconstructive surgery. The Raiders need draft capital. They need to build through the trenches. They need accountability and a front office that understands football. Cousins is good. He is not the answer to everything. He is a veteran presence that will make them respectable. That is all. The Raiders will probably win six or seven games with Cousins under center. Maybe they get to eight. But they are not threatening the AFC West or making anyone nervous in January. This is a lateral move disguised as progress. It is the kind of decision that gets a franchise stuck in quarterback purgatory for years, trying different guys at the position while ignoring the actual problems plaguing the organization. Las Vegas needs to bottom out and rebuild. Instead, they are papering over the cracks with a competent placeholder.

Miami's decision to go with Malik Willis is where we venture into pure delusion territory. The Dolphins had opportunities to address the quarterback position in meaningful ways during the offseason, and instead they have decided that Malik Willis is the answer. Malik Willis is not the answer to anything. He is a project. He is a player with athleticism and upside who has never demonstrated at any level that he can consistently execute an NFL offense. Willis threw more interceptions than touchdowns in his limited action. His decision making is poor. His footwork is inconsistent. His ability to diagnose defenses pre and post snap remains underdeveloped. The Dolphins are essentially saying, "We are going to bet our season on a young player learning on the job while we pretend we are competitive." That is not strategy. That is surrender. Miami has talent on offense. They have receivers who can make plays. They have running backs. But they are going to waste all of that potential with Willis under center because the organization either could not make a deal for an established quarterback or did not want to spend the money to get one. This is inexplicable. The Dolphins are a franchise that should be in win now mode. Instead, they are punting on 2026 entirely.

The other moves on this carousel are less significant but worth examining because they reveal a broader problem across the league. Teams are treating the quarterback position like it is a simple variable to adjust when everything else goes wrong. In reality, finding a great quarterback is extraordinarily difficult. It takes years. It takes failure and learning. It takes the right coaching and the right system. You cannot simply plug in Kyler Murray to Minnesota, Kirk Cousins to Las Vegas, or Malik Willis to Miami and expect transformation. You cannot expect that swapping out the quarterback will fix coaching problems, front office dysfunction, or roster imbalances. Yet that is exactly what these franchises are doing.

The fundamental mistake that these organizations are making is assuming that their failure last season was rooted in the quarterback position when the real problems run much deeper. The Vikings had coaching concerns that go beyond personnel. The Raiders have systematic organizational issues. Miami punted on addressing the position seriously. These are not quarterback problems. These are organizational problems that a new quarterback cannot solve.

Here is what frustrates me most about this offseason. We live in an era where information is plentiful. Every team has access to the same tape. Every team understands the salary cap. Every team knows what builds championship rosters. Yet despite all of this knowledge, franchises continue to make emotional decisions based on the hope that a new face will change everything. It will not. Kyler Murray is not going to carry Minnesota to four Super Bowls. Kirk Cousins is not going to rebuild Las Vegas into a powerhouse. These are not realistic expectations, and yet that is exactly what these organizations are implicitly betting on with these moves.

The grade for this entire offseason of quarterback movement is a D. One franchise is getting marginally better. The rest are getting worse or staying stagnant while pretending they are moving forward. That is the reality of this quarterback carousel, and the sooner these organizations accept that fundamental change requires more than just a new quarterback, the sooner they can actually build winning teams.