Kirk Herbstreit is typically an astute analyst. However, he probably would like to take back his comments about Carson Wentz from Thursday night.
“When you’re the captain of the ship, you’re the quarterback,” he said. “You gotta try to hold some of that emotion in.”
His play-by-play partner, Al Michaels, interjected, stating that Wentz was hurt. Herbstreit acknowledged Wentz’s injury, but continued. “He’s hurt,” said Herbstreit, “but it’s Week 7. There’s a long way to go.”
Nobody knew the extent of Wentz’s injuries at the time, but his season ended after Minnesota’s Week 7 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.
We’d seen him injure his shoulder trying to get a first down late in the second quarter against the Cleveland Browns in London. He had said he didn’t love playing Thursday night games after the Vikings lost to the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 7.
“I mean, I’ve felt better,” Wentz said after going 15 of 27 for 144, a touchdown, and an interception in Minnesota’s 37-10 loss to the Chargers.
“I felt like I could still help this team,” he added. “We knew that coming into the game, that [pain] was going to be part of it. That’s the tough part of Thursday night games, [you] just don’t quite get the chance to recover.”
Still, we didn’t know the extent of the injury until Monday. Wentz will undergo season-ending surgery to repair his dislocated left shoulder. He also had a torn labrum and a fractured socket.
“I wasn’t going to do anything that would be detrimental to my own health,” Wentz added on Wednesday. “I knew what I was getting into.”
J.J. McCarthy was recovering from a high ankle sprain and was Minnesota’s emergency third quarterback against Philadelphia and the Chargers. Max Brosmer backed up Wentz, and he likely would not have fared any better against Jim Harbaugh’s defense.
Brosmer is an undrafted rookie and is still early in his development. McCarthy, the 10th-overall pick two years ago, has been unproductive in Kevin O’Connell’s scheme outside of Minnesota’s fourth-quarter comeback in Chicago. Brosmer finished the game in garbage time, but it would be a lot to ask of him to produce in primetime against Harbaugh’s defense.
Therefore, people have speculated that the Vikings sacrificed the 32-year-old Carson Wentz to avoid messing with McCarthy and Brosmer’s development.
“I knew what I was signing up for,” Wentz said on Wednesday. “It wasn’t like anyone was forcing me to go.”
On Tuesday, O’Connell went on Paul Allen’s KFAN show to explain Minnesota’s decision to play Wentz against the Chargers.
“[Wentz] literally said to me when he first started playing, he was just so excited to play meaningful football again,” O’Connell said during an extended interview with Allen. “Once he sustained the initial injury to his left shoulder against the Browns, it was really a matter of getting the medical interpretations.”
O’Connell also shared a conversation he had with Wentz after he suffered the initial injury against Cleveland.
“His phrase to me was, ‘I want to take advantage of this opportunity,’” O’Connell told Allen. “‘I get to play, I get to play with this coaching staff and these players for the Minnesota Vikings. I want to exhaust this every possible way that I can. And I know J.J. will be back at some point here as he gets healthy, but this is a genuine opportunity where I can help this team win.'”
After Thursday’s loss in LA, O’Connell said he and head trainer Tyler Williams maintained dialogue with Wentz throughout the game.
“We kept checking in, maybe getting Max ready to go,” said O’Connell. “Tyler was coming to me a lot tonight, but every time he seemed to update me on that [he cleared Wentz to play]. Carson was sore going into it. He took quite a few hits, but I asked him multiple times where he was at, and he said it was good.”
Wentz knew what he was getting into, and the Vikings had a contingency plan in place if he couldn’t play. However, it’s likely the last time Wentz gets to play for his favorite team growing up. It also might be the last time he plays in a meaningful football game.
Wentz was expressing frustration when he slammed his helmet on the sideline, but he was mostly in pain. He stepped in for the injured McCarthy as a late-August signing and did what he could for his hometown team.
At 32 and after a devastating ACL tear, he was never going to become a franchise quarterback again. He won’t have a miracle backup quarterback run like 35-year-old Randall Cunningham’s in 1998 or Case Keenum in 2017. Our last image of him will be sitting on the sideline in pain, doing what he could to bridge the gap until McCarthy was ready to return.
