Carson Wentz may be the Vikings quarterback with the real leverage now, and J.J. McCarthy’s preseason only made that possible.
Minnesota’s quarterback picture has been messy all offseason, but the latest twist has McCarthy staring at a costlier setback than just losing a job battle. The No. 10 overall pick in the 2024 draft entered camp competing with Kyler Murray for the starting role, dropped to QB3 by the end of the preseason, and opened the year as the emergency quarterback. There’s now a very real chance he has already thrown his final pass for the Vikings.
The path that got him here wasn’t exactly subtle. The Vikings signed Murray and Wentz within the first week of free agency, and McCarthy’s rough 2025 had already made his position vulnerable.
Still, he had a chance to change the conversation with even modest progress in the preseason. Instead, he never seized it.
According to Pro Football Focus, McCarthy finished the preseason 9 of 17 for 115 yards with no touchdowns. He avoided turnovers, but the misses mattered.
Against the Baltimore Ravens in the second preseason game, he left touchdowns on the table by missing Tai Felton and Myles Price. Then an ankle injury in that game complicated everything further, and McCarthy chose not to push it in the final preseason game.
That made the backup decision easy for Kevin O’Connell, who handed the QB2 role to Wentz for the opener.
That choice looked important almost immediately. After Murray suffered a concussion against the Packers, Wentz entered and went 12-of-19 for 133 yards and three touchdowns. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport said Tuesday night that Wentz could force a bigger conversation if he gets another start and plays well against the Chicago Bears on Sunday.
“Where he finds himself right now is a really interesting situation,” Rapoport said on Tuesday night. “He played really well last Sunday [and] led them back [with] three touchdowns in the fourth quarter. If he plays well again, then we’re gonna have to have, at some point, a conversation about whether or not Carson Wentz has a shot at this job.
“Obviously, they would love if Kyler was the starter, that was the whole idea. But if Wentz continues to play well, in a system that he knows extremely well for an organization that brought him back for this reason, at the very least, the Vikings will have an excellent, excellent problem on their hands.”
That possibility underscores what McCarthy let slip. A cleaner preseason would have kept him in position as the backup, one snap away from stepping in if Murray went down.
If he had played well enough to earn the role, he might have gotten the next shot against the Bears himself. Instead, he’s on the outside looking in while Wentz holds the opening McCarthy failed to secure.
The issues weren’t only about what showed up on the field. McCarthy’s misfires and slow processing were part of the problem, but there were also concerns off the field. During minicamp, he called the quarterback room “two guys in a classroom,” and Tyler Dunne of The Go Long Substack reported that McCarthy also questioned O’Connell’s coaching last season.
For now, the Vikings’ QB2 decision has turned into something much bigger. Murray may still clear concussion protocol and reclaim the job, but if he doesn’t, Wentz has the kind of chance McCarthy was supposed to be fighting for.
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