The Minnesota Vikings have made their Week 1 quarterback decision behind QB1 Kyler Murray.
Head coach Kevin O’Connell announced Wednesday that Carson Wentz will serve as Murray’s backup Sunday against the Green Bay Packers. J.J. McCarthy will open the season as Minnesota’s third quarterback.
The choice is significant, even if it is not necessarily permanent.
O’Connell called the backup role a “week-to-week thing,” leaving the Vikings room to revisit it as McCarthy continues to develop. But he was direct about the immediate calculation: Wentz gives Minnesota its best chance to win if Murray must leave the Packers game.
“Carson will be the backup on Sunday,” O’Connell said. “He’s got almost 100 career starts. What he was able to do last year from a standpoint of very limited repetition, but being able to apply a career’s worth of experience, that’s kind of what you need to do as a backup quarterback.”
“This gives us the best chance to win this Sunday,” O’Connell added.
Why Wentz won the job
The Vikings are once again entering a new season with a new starting quarterback and an offense still finding its identity around Murray. That makes the backup decision about more than simply identifying the next player on the depth chart.
O’Connell said the early priority is getting Murray as comfortable as possible. Wentz’s experience offers the staff a familiar fallback option if the game requires one. The 33-year-old started five games for Minnesota last season after McCarthy suffered an ankle injury and has operated an NFL offense for nearly a decade.
He was also more efficient during the preseason. Wentz completed 21 of 29 passes for 188 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions across three appearances. His six drives produced a touchdown, two field goals and three punts.
That is a small sample, but it aligned with the practical value O’Connell described. If Murray must miss a play, a series or more, Wentz has enough experience to enter the huddle and work within the existing game plan without Minnesota needing to rebuild its offense on the fly.
The Vikings re-signed Wentz in March on a one-year deal after he started five games last season. He completed 65 percent of his passes for 1,216 yards, six touchdowns and five interceptions before a shoulder injury ended his year.
McCarthy’s place in the bigger picture
McCarthy’s move to No. 3 is the latest difficult development in a career that has already featured injuries, uneven play and a rapidly changing quarterback room.
The former first-round pick began training camp competing with Murray for the starting job. Murray won that competition, and McCarthy then had an opportunity to retain the backup role. But an ankle injury interrupted his preseason, and he failed to boost his stock in his two appearances, completing 9 of 17 passes for 115 yards and taking two sacks. Seven drives led by McCarthy ended in six punts and a turnover on downs.
Still, O’Connell pushed back on treating the Week 1 depth chart as a final judgment on the 23-year-old.
“It’s good to hear you talk about the big picture,” O’Connell said. “Because I think with a young quarterback, there’s always a big picture that’s probably a larger scale and a larger mentality than the Week 1 depth chart.”
McCarthy has made 10 NFL starts. That is enough to make his struggles matter, but not enough to settle his future. O’Connell said McCarthy has remained professional throughout the process and that the Vikings want to continue investing in his development.
The coach described McCarthy as a player with “a bunch of talent” and “so much football ahead of him.” He also said the quarterback will continue preparing despite sitting two snaps away from the field.
For Week 1, though, Minnesota has chosen experience. Wentz is the backup. McCarthy is third. And the Vikings will see where the depth chart goes from there. At this point, McCarthy’s Vikings career is on life support.
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