MN Vikings Name Week 8 Starting QB

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Kevin O'Connell, Minnesota Vikings
Credit: Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images

It’s a short week for the Minnesota Vikings and with the Los Angeles Chargers looming on Thursday Night Football, Kevin O’Connell needed to refocus his team quickly. An ugly loss against the Philadelphia Eagles dropped them to 3-3 on the season.

Now as the Vikings cling to their playoff hopes, they’ll have to make due with what they have for another week. Things are largely status quo as the quarterback position won’t change.

Carson Wentz to start against Chargers

Minnesota wants to see young quarterback J.J. McCarthy get in a full week of practice before putting him back on the field as their starter. He remained on the injury report Monday, and Kevin O’Connell announced that Carson Wentz will get the start Thursday night.

O’Connell told reporters that McCarthy did go through an on-field workout on Tuesday, but that he’s “just not there.” For whatever it’s worth, he did indicate that there may have been a possibility for him to play had the game been on Sunday.

Instead, it will be Wentz once again. This is the sixth week McCarthy has missed. In his absence, Wentz has gone 2-2 with a 66.9% completion rate. He has looked competent at times, and at others, he has thrown a pick six and punt pass in a matter of two possessions.

Max Brosmer will back up Wentz once again on Thursday. For whatever reason, despite propping him up publicly at every opportunity, Minnesota is unwilling to give their undrafted rookie a start.

O’Connell will need to coach a much better game Thursday than he did on Sunday. He’ll also need the quarterback to look more like he did against the Browns than he did against the Eagles.

Clarification provides on McCarthy’s progress

The Minnesota Vikings thought that J.J. McCarthy would be further along by this point. Asked what he means by “just not there,” Kevin O’Connell provided an update on his young quarterbacks situation.

“It’s some of the movements, the reactionary movements within the pocket. Being able to use his athleticism to protect himself in the pocket. As he’s able to work through progressions, I feel really good about the work we’ve done on the foundation of his fundamentals…It’s really just about, maybe a guy gets edged and I don’t really know the movement I’m going to have to make, that’s where he still feels it. If he doesn’t have the ability to do that pain free, we risk setting him back which would be very, very unfortunate with the time lost already.”

Kevin O’Connell

The bulk of O’Connell’s answer has seemingly nothing to do with the health of McCarthy’s ankle. A last throw in suggesting he may not be able to easily escape pressure because of lingering effects is the only indication of ankle pain.

For that to be the case, now six weeks in, it looks like malpractice that Minnesota didn’t just put McCarthy on injured reserve. It would have shielded him from the skepticism, and allowed for a full timeline to heal. If this is still where we’re at, even weeks down the road it shouldn’t be expected that McCarthy is at 100%.

O’Connell and the Vikings went through last season with a proof of concept that made them look like geniuses. This season they have done the exact opposite.

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