Carson Wentz is coming off his worst game of the season, having thrown two interceptions and misfired on numerous passes while playing with a harness on his left shoulder. Max Brosmer has thrown just four passes in an NFL game.
Their precarious assignment Thursday is a familiar one: fly two time zones west on a short week for the second time in two years and the third time in eight. No team in the NFL has taken on that task as much in the past decade; the Vikings, for the second year in a row, will play in Los Angeles 18 days after they won in London.
Vikings quarterback Carson Wentz (11) talks with coach Kevin O’Connell during the fourth quarter Sunday. (Elizabeth Flores/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
J.J. McCarthy will again be inactive as the Vikings’ emergency third quarterback after a workout Tuesday that left the Vikings feeling their 2024 first-round pick is “not there yet” in his recovery from a high ankle sprain. If the Vikings were playing a Sunday game, coach Kevin O’Connell said, McCarthy might have been able to try to push through to play. A Thursday game, with time for neither a normal week of practice nor additional treatment on his ankle, led the Vikings to save the question of McCarthy’s return until the Nov. 2 game against the Detroit Lions.
“It’s been in some of the movements, the reactionary movements within the pocket, being able to use his athleticism to protect himself in the pocket, and then as he’s able to work through progressions,” O’Connell said. “I feel really good about the work we’ve done on his foundation of his fundamentals. That’s been pretty evident through the work that he’s done. And he’s really made a commitment to doing that. It’s really just about, ‘Hey, there’s maybe a guy that gets edged, and I don’t really know the movement I’m going to have to make.’ That’s where he still feels it. He doesn’t have the ability to do that pain-free.”
Since the Vikings started looking for a first-round QB last year, O’Connell has frequently said teams fail young quarterbacks as much as young quarterbacks fail teams. His experience in Washington six years ago, when O’Connell was the offensive coordinator for a team that rushed rookie Dwayne Haskins into action, certainly influenced the careful approach he had constructed for McCarthy after the Vikings took him 10th overall last year.
The Vikings planned to start Sam Darnold and give McCarthy the job only when he had proven ready to take it. McCarthy‘s torn right meniscus meant he missed his entire rookie season. His right high ankle sprain this year has so far cost him five games in his first year as a starter. But the Vikings again have kept the 22-year-old’s recovery on a deliberate pace, maintaining he would not play until he was completely healthy and had completed a full week of practice.