Carson Wentz’s 2025 season has come to an end after being picked up by the Minnesota Vikings on Thur, Aug 28 following final cuts on the active roster. After starting the last five games at QB for the Vikings due to J.J McCarthy’s ankle injury and coach Kevin O’Connell holding the redshirt rookie out, Wentz is set to undergo surgery on his left shoulder that he has worn a shoulder brace on for the past few games. That surgery will end his season as he might have played his last snap as a starting QB for his favorite childhood NFL team. This shoulder injury only adds to Wentz’s undecorated injury history, which includes a season-ending ACL/MCL tear in 2017 that robbed him of a potential MVP award while playing for the Philadelphia Eagles. Wentz has been mostly resigned to being a backup QB in the last few seasons and has not started a season as a team’s starting QB since 2022 with the Washington Commanders, where he started the first six games of their season before being benched for Taylor Heinicke. Wentz’s veteran experience helped lead the Vikings to two wins in McCarthy’s absence, but he suffered a shoulder injury in a Week 4 game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Dublin, Ireland that forced him to wear a shoulder brace starting in Week 5 against the Cleveland Browns.

Following Minnesota’s Week 6 bye week, Wentz still wore the brace over the top part of his left arm and continued to fill in for McCarthy at starting QB in the next two games for the Vikings, who lost 28-22 in their Week 7 home matchup against the Eagles where they only scored one touchdown in six trips into the red zone and were defeated 37-10 in a Thursday night road matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers. Wentz was in visible pain when getting sacked and knocked down to the field at SoFi Stadium, but O’Connell kept him in until the final drive of the game and brought in backup QB Max Brosmer to finish the game. Over the past five games, Wentz has thrown for 1,216 yards with six TD passes and 5 interceptions along with a 65% completion rate. A couple of 300-yard performances were paired with lesser performances under 200 yards, including in his first game that he started this season and the game against the Chargers that will serve as his final start now. Going 2-3 in his five starts, Wentz led a Vikings offense that averaged 21.6 points per game and that total does not account for the two defensive touchdowns scored by cornerback Isaiah Rodgers in Week 3. Wentz’s signature moment was leading a game-winning drive against the Browns in London, with a game-winning TD pass to Jordan Addison being the end result. Wentz was unable to throw a touchdown pass to the best offensive player on the Vikings in Justin Jefferson, who has caught 34 receptions for 477 total yards and has averaged 95.4 yards per game without J.J McCarthy in at QB. Spreading the wealth among the offensive skill players while working behind a patchworked offensive line, Wentz did the best he could while a couple of catches that led to TDs were overturned by replay reviews.

This news means that J.J McCarthy’s return is more than guaranteed to happen in the Vikings’ Week 9 matchup at the Detroit Lions, who are coming off their bye week at a record of 5-2, which is good for second place in the NFC North. The Vikings are currently in last place in one of the toughest divisions in football and have very little room for error in a pretty good NFC conference overall. With McCarthy’s return, Max Brosmer is currently slated to be the backup QB, but potentially acquiring a veteran QB with experience to serve as a backup behind McCarthy could be a move that the Minnesota front office makes at the trade deadline, which happens on Tue, Nov 4 at 4 p.m ET. Kirk Cousins could be an option for the Vikings to bring in(and bring back to Minnesota following a six-year stint as the team’s starter), but he performed poorly in a start on Sun Oct 26 for the Atlanta Falcons against the Miami Dolphins and the Falcons front office has shown no interest in trading Cousins either mid-season or during the offseason. Other options potentially include Jameis Winston on the New York Giants(who have him as their emergency third-QB), Cooper Rush on the Baltimore Ravens(a couple of starts under his belt in place of Lamar Jackson but both of them were losses), Case Keenum on the Chicago Bears(another third-QB and former Viking who authored the Minneapolis Miracle) and others. For now, the Vikings need to find someone who can give emergency depth for them at the quarterback position while preparing McCarthy for an inevitable return onto the field, where he has only generated one good quarter of offense so far in this 2025 NFL season.

Wentz’s injury only adds to the misadventures at QB for Minnesota, which could have decided to bring back Sam Darnold or Daniel Jones to be a backup behind McCarthy but both of those players wanted chances to start immediately at QB and they have both thrived so far in their respective positions on their respective new teams. The phrase “You’re only as good as your backup QB” reigns true in this case and in spite of showing how good he could be as a “break glass in case of emergency” player Carson Wentz’s season has come to an end and he will not be available as a backup QB option for the Vikings the rest of the way in this up-and-down season.