The Minnesota Vikings are currently 5-0 on the season with an offense that has struggled to get going. That can be the case with a new quarterback who has never played in the offense before, and it was amplified due to Kyler Murray having never played in this type of offense before.

We are three full games into the Murray experiment and the results are mixed at best. The first game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was rough on multiple levels, but the biggest issues were far from being Murray’s fault. Those issues were to be expected as both sides try to adapt to each other.

Kyler Murray has adapted well to the system

One thing that was interesting when we went into the season was how much each side would adapt to the other? Offensive coordinator Wes Phillips talked about that coming out of the bye week and was open about how much Murray tried to acclimate.

“There wasn’t any like resistance or like, ‘Hey, I don’t want to do any of this stuff’; it was, it was more like, ‘Hey, I want to do what you guys, your offense is,’ and us trying to adjust some to make sure that he’s comfortable, but he was very open right from the start,” said Phillips.

You can see how that’s evolved over the last few weeks, especially with how much Murray was under center against the Buccaneers. They have significantly increased the shotgun percentage with the offense, and it’s done a lot for how successful they’ve been able to be. To Murray’s credit, it’s not as if he can’t play under center; he did that with the Cardinals the last three years under Drew Petzing. He has played under center. I mean, he’s done things under center,” said Phillips.

That is an intriguing aspect of this discussion. Both sides are truly still in their dating phase and figuring each other out. That started in the the depths of the offseason probram and training camp, and has continued this season.

“I think that’s why you go through off-season training camp, and you put a lot of install, or at least we do, on the guys,” continued Phillips.

“You come in sometimes [early on], and you’re not asking a lot of questions necessarily right away because you need to learn you need to learn enough about what you’re doing to ask the questions, and so I think that’s just part of a new player as well. They’re trying to figure out our system, and then they start opening up and saying, okay, have you ever done it this way? Or I’m not as comfortable doing this, you know, or I haven’t done this before. And the communication with him and the play caller, Kevin, has just grown and grown as we’ve gone, as you’d expect it to, you know, as we get through our first year with him.”

The good news for the VIkings is simple: they haven’t come close to maximizing what they can be. It’s especially the case with only having Murray, Justin Jefferson, and Jordan Addison healthy together for a total of 18 snaps.

It will be fascinating to see how they grow and develop over the next few weeks, because the relationship is still blossoming.