I’ve been relatively quiet since our Minnesota Vikings lost to the Los Angeles Chargers on Thursday night. Primarily because there was a lot of real-life stuff that I had to attend to, but the other part of it is that, quite frankly, I still honestly don’t know what on Earth that was we saw on Thursday night. Warren hit the low points in his piece, which you should read if you haven’t already, but man. . .if that wasn’t the single-worst performance the Vikings have put together in the Kevin O’Connell era, the list of worse performances is an awfully short one.
And now, today, we’ve gotten news that frankly boggles the mind. The Vikings are putting quarterback Carson Wentz, who has been the starter since Week 3, on injured reserve as he will require season-ending surgery on his non-throwing shoulder.
That’s not the mind-boggling part. This is.
Wentz suffered a dislocated shoulder that resulted in a torn labrum in the first half of the Vikings’ win over the Cleveland Browns in London.
In Week 5.
A game that took place 22 calendar days ago.
The Vikings knew about this injury three weeks ago, and took no steps to shore up the quarterback position during that time. The depth chart for the past two games has been the same: Wentz as the starter, rookie Max Brosmer as QB2, and J.J. McCarthy as the emergency quarterback. And they continued running Wentz out there for the past two games, allowing him to take a pair of sacks against the Philadelphia Eagles and then five more in whatever the hell that was in Los Angeles on Thursday night.
Everyone knew Wentz was hurt. He took hit after hit and was in pretty much constant pain for the entire game on Thursday night. And despite all of it, Kevin O’Connell just kept running Wentz out there on drive after drive until the two-minute warning, when Brosmer finally got into the ball game in garbage time.
(How bad must Brosmer look in practice at this point for the coaching staff to keep playing a quarterback with one functioning arm instead of turning to the backup? Doesn’t exactly leave you with a warm fuzzy.)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that O’Connell asked Wentz numerous times whether or not he was okay to keep going out there, and Wentz answered in the affirmative. But there comes a point where you, essentially, have to save the guy from himself. That’s part of the job, and the Vikings didn’t do that on Thursday night.
Look, I’m still a believer in Kevin O’Connell as a head coach. There are still very few head coaches in this league that I would trade Kevin O’Connell for straight-up. But through the first eight weeks of the season, the Vikings have mismanaged the quarterback position about as much as you possibly can. With Wentz going on injured reserve, the Vikings now only have McCarthy and Brosmer at the quarterback spot with no other fallback option. At this point of the season, your options at that spot are pretty much slim and none, and Slim’s about ready to call for his check.
The Vikings are in a bad, bad spot right now. They’re sitting at 3-4 and at the bottom of the NFC North with a trip to Detroit coming in Week 9 and a date with Derrick Henry and (likely) Lamar Jackson the week after that. Nobody knows what’s happening with J.J. McCarthy, the offensive line has been atrocious (and the projected starting 5 going into the season has played exactly zero snaps together in 2025), the offensive side of the ball isn’t making any meaningful adjustments, and Brian Flores’ defense appears to have developed an allergy to the middle of the football field.
The time for the Vikings’ coaching staff to get things figured out and turned around is getting pretty short, as we’re nearly halfway through this season. There’s still time to make changes and adjustments and whatnot, but if they don’t make them starting this Sunday they’re on the verge of completely losing this 2025 season. As a Vikings fan, I’m always hesitant to say that it can’t get any worse because. . .well, because we all know better.
Is this rock bottom? Man, I sure hope so. We’ll find out on Sunday if it’s not.
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