The Minnesota Vikings quarterback competition between Kyler Murray and J.J. McCarthy has been going on for a week and is about to enter its seventh practice on Wednesday. Through the first six practices, the reports have been different when discussing each player, with some having Murray playing better and others leaning toward McCarthy.

One of the main metrics that people use to quantify the competition is raw passing stats. On Tuesday, Murray was 8-15, and McCarthy was 8-13, but they don’t tell the whole story.

Why I don’t use stats in training camp

One thing I don’t use when breaking down the competition at quarterback is your standard counting stats. There may be some value in counting those on a practice-by-practice basis, but they lack so much context. We have that in the regular season with detailed snap charting, all-22 film, and analytical data to help contextualize those numbers.

During training camp, we don’t have that same access.

This isn’t the fault of any specific player, PR department, or beat writer. The majority of teams don’t have quarterback battles, which is one main reason why tracking for these competitions isn’t given extra statistical context.

Not only are there context issues looking at raw stats, but there are multiple other pieces of information that don’t help understand what’s going on. Within each rep, the Vikings are rotating who is playing with the first or second team, along with who they are facing. Those are not kept track of with enough consistency or detail, and that isn’t to fault anyone.

There is also the element of situational drills. What is the context of how the coaches are asking the players to handle the play? A completion on a third-down drill that is five yards before the sticks looks good on paper, but it lacks the context of the drill itself.

The final aspect of why stats don’t tell you much is how the quarterbacks go through the process of each throw. This is where having the all-22 would be so good to truly quantify the stats that we get. The biggest thing for me with the competition isn’t that each pass is completed or not, but rather how they got there. Going through the right process with each rep is what matters the most, because that is what you can expect to be repeatable in the regular season.

Right now, McCarthy’s slow processing during all drills is making the competitive stats more moot. It’s especially so with the issue of him being consistently late with his reads. That’s why I’ve been firm in my belief that Murray will end up being the starter, and the practices prove just that.

Stats are nice and can be useful in certain aspects, but they just lack the proper context to properly contextualize the quarterback battle. If they could address those pieces of data, I’d start using them, but alas.