Vikings need one more win from Carson Wentz
Kevin O'Connell hinted at a JJ McCarthy return in Week 9
By Matthew Coller
EAGAN — The best backup quarterbacks can give their team a handful of wins to keep the season alive. While it’s been a rocky four games that included a blowout over Cincinnati, a narrow victory over Cleveland and close losses to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, overall Carson Wentz has done about as well as you’d expect from a mercenary QB2.
If you think the last month with Wentz has been rough as he has completed 66.9% of his passes at 7.5 yards per attempt with five touchdowns, four INTs, then you should look at last year’s backups. The total record of veteran backups Gardner Minshew, Joe Flacco, Andy Dalton, Jacoby Brissett, Drew Lock, Jameis Winston and Mason Rudolph in 2024 was 6-28.
As tough as it is to keep perspective, the Minnesota Vikings are one win away on Thursday night against the Los Angeles Chargers with Wentz under center from surviving missing their QB1 and remaining alive in the crowded NFC race.
On Tuesday, head coach Kevin O’Connell announced that Wentz would be starting his fifth game in a row since JJ McCarthy suffered a high-ankle sprain.
The team put McCarthy through an on-field workout to evaluate his chances to play against the Chargers and decided that it was better to have the veteran journeyman take the reins on a short week.
“We’re all kind of encouraged about where he’s at and the progress he’s making, but he’s just not there,” O’Connell said.
The next natural question: When will he be ready?
It sounds like that day isn’t far away.
“If this was a Sunday game, maybe it would be a little bit of a different story, and we could push it throughout the week and see where he’s at towards the end of the week,” O’Connell said. “Encouraged about where he’s at, and very much looking forward to continuing his progression and hopefully having a chance to go next week.”
The Vikings will get a mini bye week after they face the Chargers, next getting on the field in Detroit on November 2. That gives McCarthy time to have an entire week of practice and get back to full health before he starts again.
“It’s not going to be something where he’s 130 percent or we’re in a situation where we’re waiting for this metric,” O’Connell said. “With this kind of injury, he’s got to work through some of that here late in the rehab stages, but it’s about his effectiveness and his ability to go out and do his job for 60 minutes without having any setbacks or making his job more difficult than it has to be.”
O’Connell went into detail about wanting McCarthy to be able to make “reactionary movements” to be able to protect himself in the pocket. He added that they made progress with the additional work that they have done with the young quarterback’s footwork.
“I feel really good about the work we’ve done on the foundation of his fundamentals, that’s been pretty evident through the work that he’s done,” O’Connell said. “It’s really just about, Hey, maybe a guy gets [an edge on the blocker], and I don’t really know the movement I’m going to have to make. That’s where he still feels it. And if he doesn’t have the ability to do that pain free, we obviously risk setting him back.”
Star receiver Justin Jefferson can empathize with the Vikings slow playing McCarthy’s recovery. He missed most of training camp as they tried to ensure that he was totally healthy before getting back on the field and handled a hamstring injury in 2023 similarly.
“It’s very tough, especially if you are a competitor and a person that loves this game and want to be with the team,” Jefferson said. “I feel like the training staff has a really good plan to work us back and make sure that we are fully recovered. That’s the main thing, it’s all about having that patience. As soon as you get back and you’re ready to go, hit that full gas.”
Wentz can empathize with the position that McCarthy has been in over his first six weeks of the year.
“It’s a crazy business, there a lot that goes into it,” Wentz said. “There’s a lot of things people don’t realize about just your personal life and how it’s affected by this career as well. And I know he just had a young, he’s got a new baby. There’s a lot of things going on. And so life comes at you fast in this business. And so you’re always learning. And you’re honestly that’s where my faith comes in…it’s been fun to talk to him throughout this process and become a good friend with him.”
With so many injuries, a Jordan Addison suspension, two international games and McCarthy absent for four-of-six games, it has felt like the Vikings season thus far has been a failure to launch. So many parts of the roster have not been anywhere near what was expected during training camp, whether that’s McCarthy making weekly gains as a first-time starter or the offensive line being massively improved or the defense being led by dynamic pieces like Andrew Van Ginkel and Harrison Smith, it simply hasn’t looked like the 2025 Vikings that everyone envisioned.
Jefferson did acknowledge on Tuesday that it has been challenging this season and throughout his career to have uncertainty at the quarterback position.
“It’s tough but you can’t really get mad at the situation, you just have to work with what you have and make the most of it,” Jefferson said. “I feel like I’ve done that and we just have to get over that hump of winning…I put it on myself and critique myself to get better and perfect my craft at the ultimate level.”
Beating the Chargers would feel like a hard reset to the Vikings 2025 season.
At 4-3, the Vikings would be able to make a case that they were still in the race with a long way to go. While it seems like an entire year has passed since training camp, there will still be 10 games remaining when (if?) McCarthy takes back over against the Lions. If Wentz can lead the Vikings over Los Angeles, that would give McCarthy a chance to play .500 football and still give them a shot at making the postseason in the final weeks of the year against Detroit and Green Bay at home.
That might not be the all-in type scenario that we were projecting when they spent more money than anyone else in the offseason but it certainly isn’t the worst-case scenario of a totally lost season.
The Chargers are vulnerable. They are missing key players and have struggled mightily on defense in recent weeks, giving up 401 yards and 38 points to the Indianapolis Colts last week.
If the Vikings are going to beat them, they can’t repeat last Sunday’s game, where they moved the ball effectively and finished with a higher success rate than their opponent but didn’t finish drives, going 1-for-6 in the red zone.
“There’s a couple times we shot ourselves in the foot with penalties or different things,” Wentz said about the red zone failures. “But at the end of the day, it just came down to some execution. I don’t think we handled it our best down there.”
Jefferson thinks that Sunday’s missteps in scoring position are fixable.
“Just a little bit of confidence,” he said. “We feel like we were making plays out there and driving the ball. Normally we are good in the red zone, especially this year, we just have to get back to that.”
Falling in L.A. on Thursday would leave a much different taste in everyone’s mouth.
If the Vikings leave California 3-4, then it might take something of a miracle to make the postseason. After last week’s results, nine teams in the NFC have either five or four wins and the Dallas Cowboys are 3-3-1. Keeping up with the rest of those good-not-great clubs gives the Vikings a chance to get back to the offense that they planned to have with McCarthy under center, surrounding by a full O-line and with Addison in the mix.
Of course, other things will have to come together too. The defense can’t allow good quarterbacks to dominate them like with Aaron Rodgers or Jalen Hurts. They have Justin Herbert, Jared Goff and Lamar Jackson on the way. They will need to finish sacks, get turnovers and stop committing so many bad penalties.
And McCarthy is going to have to be closer to the dream 2025 version than the wobbly one that we saw through his first eight quarters. He will need to make quick progress, develop on the fly, survive the roller coaster and — most of all — stay healthy.
But at least getting into the race will still be on the table if they win.
Surprisingly, Wentz has been more effective than Browning or Rush. He's not good, but that's why veteran QB2s are QB2s. QB1s and LTs make so much because there are more jobs than there are people on earth who can do them well.
The larger concern is the comment that JJMC needs to be pain-free. In the quiet words of Gust Avrakotos, excuse me, what the eff? Bluntly, playing in the NFL isn't good for humans--but it's a volunteer army. Being pain-free isn't supposed to be part of the equation for whether a guy plays. I don't imagine Jackson, delaying surgery, was pain-free in the Cincy game. Most QBs would use tape, toradol and get out there.
Things would look much different with an established center, what are your thoughts on trading with the winless Jets for Joe Tippman, maybe a 2nd round pick?