On Sunday afternoon, the Minnesota Vikings will take the field at home for a matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals. Both teams will be playing with their backup quarterbacks in this game, as Carson Wentz takes the place of the injured JJ McCarthy, and Jake Browning takes over for Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, who recently suffered a turf toe injury.
Wentz has had quite an interesting NFL career, at one point looking like an MVP candidate during the 2017 season with the Philadelphia Eagles and spending the majority of his years since then as a backup around the league.
Recently, Dianna Russini of The Athletic reported on how head coach Kevin O'Connell is handling the transition from McCarthy to Wentz as his starting QB.
Russini noted that O'Connell ” leaned on conversations with Sean McVay and Andy Reid before signing Wentz less than 30 days ago.”
She also pointed out that “Vikings QB coach Josh McCown was teammates with Wentz in Philadelphia in his final season as a player. All three told O’Connell nearly the same thing about working with the veteran backup: Trust the process and let him handle the game.”
The Vikings will certainly hope that Wentz is able to do just that on Sunday against the Bengals.
A big opportunity for the Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings have gotten off to a rocky start to the 2025 NFL season, currently sitting at 1-1 following last week's 22-6 home loss to the Atlanta Falcons. It has been a particularly rough opening act for JJ McCarthy, who has played poorly in seven of the eight quarters of his young NFL career so far (although the one good quarter was pretty spectacular).
Now, the Vikings will hand over the reins to the veteran Wentz, who is not the same player he once was with the Eagles but still figures to know how to competently run an offense.
It will certainly help matters for the Vikings that the Bengals are also trying to get their own backup quarterback situated in the wake of Burrow's injury.
The Bengals and Vikings are slated to kick off at 1:00 PM ET on Sunday.
