Kyler Murray joining Kevin O'Connell with the Vikings, plus more interesting offensive moves
By Jared Dubin Mar 23, 2026 at 10:06 am ET • 8 min read 
Getty Images The first wave of free agency is passed, with most of the top players already off the market. Even the middle and lower rungs of free agency are largely picked over, and a couple weeks back we walked you through some of the best bargain signings that teams have made.
In the space below, we wanted to take a look at some of the more high-profile moves -- signings and trades -- that have the potential to be game-changers because of the ways they change the face of their teams. We started last week with the defense, and here we'll work through some of those moves on the offensive side of the ball.
Kyler Murray, Vikings
The Vikings are pretty clearly done with the J.J. McCarthy experiment, no matter what they say now about holding a competition between McCarthy and Murray this offseason. You don't go get a guy like this if you're expecting McCarthy to be a factor under center. And it's hard to blame Minnesota after what happened with McCarthy during his first go-round as the starter last year.
Murray is not necessarily a perfect fit for Kevin O'Connell's offense in a stylistic sense, but he has all of the skills necessary to operate within it at a high level and we've seen O'Connell get good results out of basically every non-McCarthy quarterback with whom he has worked in Minnesota. Murray can also allow the Vikings to access areas of the field that some of the other quarterbacks McConnell has worked with didn't due to his combination of arm strength, mobility and creativity.
Murray has the arm talent to attack the intermediate and deep areas of the field with a consistency that the Vikings couldn't find with McCarthy under center. With Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison at his disposal, Murray will also be working with high level weapons. He hasn't had a perimeter threat like Jefferson since the DeAndre Hopkins days in Arizona, and Jefferson can arguably beat defenses in even more ways than Hopkins could. And Addison is a better No. 2 wideout than Murray ever had with the Cards. T.J. Hockenson is no longer near his peak like Trey McBride, but he's a strong tertiary threat over the middle and up the seam.
However it happens, O'Connell and Murray are likely going to meet somewhere in the middle rather than having one of them make an extreme shift to the other's end of the spectrum. And the balance they strike, and how they strike it together, will determine the strength of a Minnesota offense that has an incredibly high ceiling due to the plethora of skill-position talent on hand combined with Murray's own skill set.
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Jaylen Waddle, Broncos
We covered this addition last week:
Given the draft capital outlay the Broncos surrendered to acquire Waddle, it's reasonable to expect him to become a co-No. 1 option for Bo Nix alongside Courtland Sutton, if not the No. 1 target outright. That'll be a change for the Broncos, who have tended to rotate their Nos. 2 through 4 wide receivers pretty heavily under Payton over the last few years. Waddle is a good fit for the offense, though, especially considering his skill set in the context of the other receivers the Broncos have on hand.
Waddle brings a speed element to the proceedings that the Broncos didn't necessarily have with their top three wide receivers in Sutton, Troy Franklin and Pat Bryant. Franklin has speed but wasn't utilized in a way that allowed him to flaunt it. Sutton and Bryant, though, are on the bigger and more physical end of the spectrum.
Sean Payton's offense tends to be built around screen passes and the deep ball, and Waddle is a strong option in both of those phases of the game. Waddle's 54 receptions on screen passes rank 13th among wide receivers since he entered the league, per TruMedia. His 53 receptions on throws beyond 15 air yards rank 29th. Those numbers come despite the fact that he spent four of those five years playing alongside Tyreek Hill, who ranked fifth in screen receptions and second in deep receptions during that time, with Waddle working as a clear secondary option in the passing game.
If Waddle can work as a short-area threat and burn defenses with the deep ball, it will afford the other pass catchers more space to do their work in the intermediate areas of the field. That type of synergy is necessary for offenses to reach their greatest heights.
DJ Moore, Bills
The Bills have been searching for the last couple years for a true No. 1 receiver. They had Stefon Diggs as Josh Allen's No. 1 target for years, then transitioned to a new era where the targets were distributed in a more egalitarian fashion. Now, they're likely going to go back to something resembling a regular pecking order, with Moore at the top, Khalil Shakir and Dalton Kincaid next in line and everyone else falling in behind them.
The open question is whether Moore still has the ability to lead the target tree after a season in which he collected just 85 targets as the Bears added multiple weapons for Caleb Williams around him. Moore did go six consecutive seasons with at least 118 targets before that, though, and had two of his best seasons in Carolina, when new Bills head coach Joe Brady worked as the offensive coordinator. It's been a while since those seasons, though, and Moore is now in his late-20s.
Whether he can Brady can recapture what they once had, and whether Allen can bring the best out of Moore's game, is going to play a significant role in determining both the floor and ceiling of this Bills passing game.
Tyler Linderbaum, Raiders
The Raiders did what many teams in their position often do: acquired the best center possible to help smooth the transition for their incoming top draft pick under center. Linderbaum is one of the best centers in the NFL and will be able to help presumptive No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza with protections and line calls, making things easier for him as he gets thrown into the deep end during his debut NFL season. That alone makes him enormously valuable, and enormously interesting for this coming season.
Linderbaum is also a good fit for new head coach Klint Kubiak's offense due to his high-level mobility. The zone-based run scheme Kubiak favors puts a lot of responsibility on the center, who can make everything work at its best by getting out into space and executing his blocks. Linderbaum has been doing that for his entire career, and should continue doing it in Vegas. He's not an elite pass protector like he is a run blocker, but he's strong enough in that area to anchor the line, and it's a pleasure to watch him work.
Kenneth Walker III, Chiefs
The Chiefs' offense over the last few years has had a major problem: it's been unable to create explosive plays. After ranking in the top six in explosive play rate in four of Patrick Mahomes' first five seasons under center, the Chiefs have ranked 16th, 32nd and 26th over the last three years, according to TruMedia.
SeasonExpl %Rank201815.7%2201912.9%6202013.3%1202110.3%20202213.6%2202310.4%1620248.4%3220259.3%26Things have arguably been even worse when you isolate the run game and the running back position in particular. Mahomes himself has provided some explosive runs via scramble over the last couple of years, but in 2024 and 2025, the Chiefs' running backs combined for just 20 explosive runs -- 13 fewer than any other team in the NFL. Their 2.9% explosive-run rate was just over half as high as that of the next-worst team in the league.
Enter Walker, who is an explosive run waiting to happen. Walker has 73 explosive runs since he entered the NFL, according to TruMedia, the eighth-most in the league during that span. Among the 62 running backs with 250 or more carries during that time, his 8.9% explosive run rate ranks 11th, right behind guys like Derrick Henry and James Cook, who are each at 9.0%.
Walker has at times struggling from a success rate perspective during his career because he chases those big plays, but the Chiefs have historically been a high success rate team because defenses dare them to run the ball into light boxes out of fear of giving up big plays to Mahomes. The marriage between Walker's ability to find the home run and the Chiefs' ability to grind out short and medium gains should be a fascinating one to watch.
Mike Evans, 49ers
The Kyle (or Mike) Shanahan offense has always been at its best when it's had a big-bodied X receiver to make things sing. Evans is that type of player. He's not quite the all-around threat that guys like Julio Jones and Andre Johnson were in that role, but the 49ers also don't need him to be. They just need him to do what he does best: win on the outside, especially in contested catch and jump ball situations.
The offense is still largely going to flow through Christian McCaffrey, and it's still going to work in George Kittle (when he returns from his torn Achilles) and guys like Ricky Pearsall and whomever else the Niners bring in to replace the departed Kendrick Bourne and Jauan Jennings, assuming he also leaves. But Evans' ability to draw defenders to the perimeter, and beat the ones who do join them out there, will be of great importance as Shanahan pieces the puzzle together.
Keaton Mitchell, Chargers
This is just a fun one for me. Mike McDaniel is better than almost anyone in the NFL at getting the ball to fast players in open spaces. Mitchell is one of the fastest players in the NFL, and during his career he has excelled at creating big plays with the ball in his hands. He's averaged over 6 yards per carry on 121 career totes, and his 14.9% explosive-run rate ranks first with a bullet among the 87 backs with 100 or more carries over the three years he's been in the league. (The next-closest player is only at a 12.7% rate.)
The Chargers have a quality power back in Omarion Hampton and another viable option in Kimani Vidal, but if his career history is any indication, McDaniel is going to value what Mitchell brings to the table, and that's going to be of great benefit for the Los Angeles offense, which has generally lacked for explosive playmakers during the Justin Herbert era.
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