JJ McCarthy’s Injury Presents Unique Opportunity for Vikings With Carson Wentz

On Monday, Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell shared an unfortunate update on starting quarterback J.J. McCarthy, who is set to miss the team’s Week 3 game with a high-ankle sprain. But just how much changes in O’Connell’s offense with veteran quarterback Carson Wentz under center in Week 3?

NBC color analyst Cris Collinsworth said it best when it came to how well McCarthy has done in Minnesota thus far when discussing his 2025 season in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s Week 2 game against the Atlanta Falcons.

In particular, Collinsworth declared that it had been seven quarters of poor play from the offense, and one terrific quarter of play coming in the fourth quarter of their Week 1 game against the Chicago Bears, where they erased an 11-point fourth-quarter deficit to come away with a 27-24 victory.

More news: Jaguars’ Coach Reveals Brian Thomas Jr’s Worrying Injury

Considering this is McCarthy’s first true season in the NFL after missing the 2024 season, it’s fair to expect him to endure some struggles. But after winning 14 games in the regular season a year ago, Kevin O’Connell surely expected McCarthy to be leading the Vikings’ offense a bit more competently than he has to this point.

Moving forward, someone like Wentz could arguably go a long way in providing some stability to the Vikings’ starting quarterback position over the next few weeks with McCarthy on the sidelines. And there is at least an argument that McCarthy’s injury could be a positive for Wentz, the Vikings organization, and McCarthy individually.

For Wentz, the positives to being able to start for a quarterback guru like Kevin O’Connell are fairly obvious. We saw just Sam Darnold, who was written off by many, revive his career in Minnesota just last season.

And even though we haven’t seen Wentz play in many meaningful games in over two years, it also isn’t all that long ago that he helped lead the Indianapolis Colts to a winning season in 2021.

More news: Former NFL VP of Officiating Speaks Out Against Eagles’ Tush Push

As for McCarthy, his injury could give him some more time to further see how an experienced NFL quarterback operates, which could very well help him avoid making big mistakes, which has been a problem throughout his first two weeks in 2025.

Chances are, Wentz will return to the bench as soon as McCarthy is healthy again. But at the very least, Wentz brings a level of experience that could benefit the Vikings on a short-term timeline, even if he is not a long-term solution at quarterback in Minnesota.

For more on the Minnesota Vikings and all things NFL, head over to Newsweek Sports.