Minnesota Vikings: Shaun Hill or Taylor Heinicke for backup QB?

The Minnesota Vikings will have to decide whether to go with Shaun Hill as backup QB or give the job to someone else, perhaps the young Taylor Heinicke.

Who should be the Vikings’ #2 quarterback in 2016? It’s maybe not as vexing as some of the other dilemmas facing the team this offseason, but it is a discussion that’s worth briefly touching on. The Vikings have two in-house candidates for the job of Teddy Bridgewater‘s backup, and each man brings something different to the table.

The veteran option is Shaun Hill, Bridgewater’s backup in 2015. Hill is set to be paid $3.2 million for 2016, a number that will rank him among the highest-paid #2 quarterbacks in the league.

Bridgewater remained healthy for the most part last season, which limited Hill’s opportunities. The veteran made it into just three games last year and attempted only seven passes. Most of his action came in the St. Louis game after Bridgewater was hit on the head in cheap-shot fashion and had to come out.

Hill is very long-in-the-tooth at 36 and frankly he didn’t look to be in the best condition last year. He’s listed at 210 but to be honest he looked heavier than that.

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On the flip-side in terms of age, experience and physical condition, you have Taylor Heinicke. The Vikings signed Heinicke as a UDFA out of Old Dominion last year and liked him so much in preseason they kept him on the 53-man roster rather than expose him to waivers in an effort to stash him on the practice squad.

It was only preseason so take it with the requisite grain of salt, but Heinicke did look pretty good on the field last year. He isn’t the biggest guy but he moves around well, appears to be pretty confident and perhaps most importantly, displayed great toughness while taking some big hits.

Is Taylor Heinicke a future starter in the NFL? Probably not. But our brief glimpse of him suggested he can be developed into a solid backup and clearly the Vikings saw value in him or they would not have kept him on the roster.

There’s a pretty clear-cut decision to be made here: Go with the relatively high-priced veteran comfort-blanket Hill, or hand the backup job to the untested kid who can be kept around for dirt-cheap.

Hill certainly knows what he’s doing as a QB, and his presence in the meeting room and on the sideline is likely a big help to Teddy Bridgewater, but is his assistance as a clipboard holder and sounding board really worth $3.2 million for one year?

And if the Vikings do elect to keep Hill, will they be willing to once again hold onto Heinicke as a third QB, burning a roster spot they might wish to use on another position. The practice squad would again be a possibility for Heinicke but, again, the Vikings would have to expose him to waivers in order to stash him.

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This decision is certainly not a make-or-break one for Rick Spielman but it is an intriguing quandary with a lot of different factors playing a part. There’s a lot to like about Taylor Heinicke, but Shaun Hill brings some important things to the table as well.

Option #3 for the Vikings would be signing a younger free agent QB to replace the aging Hill and give Heinicke one more year to learn. But bringing in a new QB and grooming him in your system is always a little iffy, and it seems kind of pointless if you already have two decent in-house options.

Ultimately, this decision may hinge on just how much the Vikings like Heinicke. If they’re truly high on him, they might consider cutting Hill loose and letting the kid have the #2 job, saving themselves some money in the process.