Time for Minnesota Vikings to ‘pull the plug’ on Carson Wentz | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC

This is one of the few days that I actually contemplated not showing up. Is it something I said? No. No. You’re one of the reasons I did. I I had a flashback. There was a night in September 2002. I had been operating profootalk.com for some 10 months. And the whole thing that made me a very zealous and passionate fan of the National Football League was the fact that I grew up a fan of the Minnesota Vikings. That that was the hook. It wasn’t the Rob Low officiating hat with the NFL logo on it and I’m just interested in all teams. True fan back in the day and I would still submit to you a true fan now. And that concept has been bastardized and undermined by fantasy football and betting. And that’ll be a topic today. If you tuned in to hear us talk about that, we will. But back in the 70s, like you got one team that you were passionate about and the rest could go themselves. Hated them all. Hated them all. Love one, hate the rest. So that’s what drew me into it. That’s what kept me spending a hell of a lot of time looking for any information or analysis about the NFL that I could and yada yada yada. And really, when I think about it, there weren’t there just as many years prior to the year 2000 as there are after the year 2000 that I’ve been following football so closely. But long story bearable, September 2002, the Vikings went to Seattle on a Sunday night and got the beat out of them. Sean Alexander, I think, scored 17 touchdowns that game. Somehow it was omitted from the official record book as the single game high water mark. And the next day, I quit PFT. I quit. I’m done. It’s over. This thing’s never going to be anything. I’m never going to make any money off of this. I got better things to do than waste my time covering this sport. I quit. I’m done. And I did. I quit. I quit PFT in 2002 on a Monday morning after that week four, I think it was, Sunday night splattering in Seattle. And it it took for like 24 hours, I don’t know, because the next day got home from my law practice and I was like, what’s going on in the NFL? And I started reading some stuff and it’s like, well, hell, I may as well write that. And anyway, I feel that way now. It’s back. The Vikings have done this. I don’t remember how many times it’s happened since that morning in 2002 when I decided to quit PFT, but it was spurred by an awful loss. And last night was awful. And I c I once it started once they screwed us on the Isaiah Rogers interception and I’m sorry, but the replay system’s broken. Clear and obvious has gone out the window. They’re officiating these plays from scratch. They’re not using the clear and obvious standard. And I’ve been meaning to write that at PFT. And if I would have had more time with Troy Vincent yesterday, I would have talked to him about it. This is the play where the air came out of the balloon. Terry McCauley said it himself. There’s not enough to overturn it. Clear and obvious. They aren’t using the standard. And that was always the thing that Dean Blandino would harp on. Clear and obvious. It’s the reason why they took the replay function to New York because you had 17 different officials and they all had a different interpretation. The referees had a different interpretation of what they should do with the ruling on the field. Sometimes they do clear and obvious and sometimes they wouldn’t. Anyway, that’s when I knew it was done when they and and I’m thinking, man, you know, they screwed they screwed TJ Hawinson last week. Can they at least can we balance this out? Is there some sort of karma in the universe as it relates to officiating? Once that happened, it’s like it’s done. I just like it’s done. It’s done. And 3710 was the final score. And good morning. I actually I actually feel better. This is like a therapy session. You should send me a bill. You have to get No, no, no. No. This one’s This one’s for free. I’m going to let you just This is good to get this out. Uh it’s it’s helpful to you. It’s helpful to me. It’s helpful to the audience. Everybody enjoys this processing that you’re going through because I’m See, you wanted to quit in 2002. I would imagine now you had PFT. Yeah. See, in PFT, I did in 2002. I I I merely want to this morning. See, I would say see Oh, it it’s it’s a different and I I’ll bet if you talk to Vikings fans, if you talk to Paul Allen, who talks to a lot of Vikings fans, too, everybody has their different moment like, “Oh, that was the moment I wanted to do it.” I would guess in PFT, this is before it was born. I would guess it was the NFC Championship game against Shawn Payeyton. He was an assistant coach on that team with the Giants when uh they went to New York. uh Randy Moss, Chris Carter, and just were destroyed. Destroyed in the conference championship game. It was what was it? 41 nothing or something. Yes. So bad. Now, Michael, that was two years after the NFC Championship loss to the Falcons when the Vikings were 15-1 in Randy Moss’s rookie year. And actually, that one hurt less. 41 nothing hurt less because it was over. It wasn’t three and a half hours of agony. That’s what the 98 NFC Championship was for me. It was agony. It was 20 to7. Chuck Smith comes around the edge, strip sacks Randle Cunningham, and the Falcons get a cheap and quick touchdown. They earned it. I’m not saying that they didn’t. 20 to 14 at the half. And I remember the entire halftime, my stomach was just like I you I have Crohn’s disease. Maybe that was the moment that it set in. My entire in insides were just like twisting around and it’s like can we just get this game over with. So that was agony. So it was bad. I I was I took a nap by halftime. I said screw this. I turned it off and I took a nap. I don’t blame you. I mean that was a tough one. Now last night last night I would say hang around Mike Florio and Vikings fans. Hang around because the Calvary is coming. I I could even say last night, this this may be extreme, but last night was a scheduled loss for the Vikings. Thursday Night Football, you’re going to uh the Chargers who are struggling, who are desperate for a win, and I know it’s not much of a homefield advantage for either Los Angeles team, but it’s a short week. You’ve got Carson Wentz at quarterback. He’s already hurt. He’s banged up. And I I just didn’t like the matchup. I thought they would lose the game anyway. I didn’t know they’d get beat down like they did last night, but I didn’t think they had really much of a chance of winning that game. And next week, if it means anything, I don’t know if you how you view Carson Wentz versus JJ McCarthy, but it seems like JJ McCarthy is on his way back. And Carson Wentz uh mercifully uh not just because of the injury, but because of the way he’s been playing will probably go back to the bench. Well, in his first start, the Vikings won 48-10 over the Bengals. In what will be his last start, the Vikings lost 37-10. And I think it should be his last start. I think that if it doesn’t work with JJ McCarthy, they just need to see what Max Bromer can do. No more Carson Wentz. Not after last night. And I don’t know how to process all the different images of Carson Wentz wincing and grimacing in pain because he kept playing. He would process the pain quickly. Like when you stub your toe, it hurts like hell for a little bit and then you’re okay. He was constantly grabbing at the left arm. He was constantly expressing that that just extreme distress and then he’d be right back in the game. At some point, the coaching staff, I think, needed to take him out, but at some point it’s it’s a little like the old Ben Rothosberger or dramatics. Like, is it real? Like, at some point, you just got to stop playing. If it’s that bad, you just got to stop playing because it’s once he’s on the sideline, it’s done. The pain was going away like that. Yeah, it was it was really tough to watch. And I would think uh obviously they they’re not too high on Max Brosmer because uh if if they had a little bit of confidence in him, just a little bit, he would have been in that game. That was just a bad job by by Carson Wentz. And I guess he he probably earned some credit in the locker room and with the coaching staff for playing through an injury, which I’m not going to minimize, but just watching it, Mike, watching it, it was it was difficult to just look at that and say, “Oh, that’s decent.” Or they they’ll be able to uh, you know, piece something together and get a nice drive going. It just wasn’t going to happen uh against against the Chargers or any other competent NFL defense. just really had no chance. And that that pass we just showed, the uh the overthrow to Justin Jefferson, the balloon ball that wound up being intercepted. I mean, that’s just really a bailout throw. He was just trying to do whatever he could uh to escape trouble. So, I would think last night, I know Kevin McConnell can uh Kevin O’Connell, I don’t know who Kevin McConnell is, but Kevin O’Connell uh can can prop up. Exactly. His cousin, his third cousin. We’re we’re the Okonnells over here and those are the McConnell and we had we had a we had a big dispute about 50 years ago and we probably another version of the Hatfields and McCoys in Kentucky. That’s right. But he can he can get anybody to play uh any quarterback to play a good game for a game or two and eventually it falls apart. Why not Max Bromer last night? I I’m serious that I think it would have been better than what we saw from Carson Wentz. Yeah, at some point you just have to pull the plug and at last night’s game there was multiple moments. It just needed to end. It needed to end. By the way, Gary informs me that the quote that was used by Jim Harbaugh is attributed to George S. Patton. So, it shows you what I know about American military history. A good plan by executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. I still don’t like it. I don’t care if it’s attributed, you know, pick a name of somebody that I should be in awe of. I’m still not going to say that’s a great line. I don’t think it’s a great line. But anyway, that’s just me. That’s just me. Hi, it’s Mike Florio. Thanks for watching PFT on YouTube. Hit subscribe for the latest news and analysis from Pro Football

For Mike Florio, the Vikings’ uncompetitive loss to the Chargers Thursday recalled some of his more frustrating moments as a Vikings fan. #NBCSports #NFL #ProFootballTalk
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Time for Minnesota Vikings to ‘pull the plug’ on Carson Wentz | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC
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42 comments

  5. Vikings won't play Brosmer over JJ because of the possible Purdy effect. Brosmer might be better than JJ and make the Vikings look like idiots. Too late, they already do.

  6. vikings need to pull the plug on the franchise, after 55 yrs of rooting for them, for what? pain and heartache, they look like a high school football team. no toughness, getting beat at every stage of the game. this is week 7, im done. my 2nd favorite team will now be my #1 team. this franchise just can't get it right or they are cursed!

  11. Carson Wentz deserves to be pulled. Pull Tua, Pull Kyler, Pull Trevor Lawrence, Pull Justin Fields. Wentz is a has been. JJ is unknown. Minnesota sucks till next year. Too bad. I'm a Steeler fan hoping for another 6-10 record like 2003 when we got 8th pick and Ben, Cleveland passed him up!!! Instead we got Justin Stinks, Russell and Rodgers two qbs sacked more than Ben. Wasted seasons= going on 3 now.

  13. I think Wentz knows he is a deer in the headlights when pressure is on and more often than not, he ends up dead on the side of the road at the end of the game. He is just an OK backup used to beat bottom half teams with weak defenses.

  15. I also had the misfortune of growing up a Vikings fan during the 70’s. There are Chiefs fans growing up now who when MaHomes retires will be pissed off all the time and wonder why. Hire a proven offensive head coach. Find a general manager who knows how to draft. They could have had Harbaugh, but he made them uncomfortable for gods sake. I don’t even care about the officials we have to many other disasters.

  16. I believe what you are saying you are a real Vikings fan throwing bottles at Met field you aren’t like these new Vikings fans who say it’s not to bad look at our shiny stadium. Building the dome is the single worst decision in franchise history we have been weak ever since

  19. Bruh it wasn’t a catch. That ball wiggled way too much when it hit the ground. The color commentating official was wrong, one hand came off the ball and it moved a lot while on the ground.

  20. As a 48 year long Vikings fan, I told my son that after the INT/TD was nullified that the Chargers would go down the field and score. It is a common occurrence in Viking lore. Dropped/botched TO's always seem to lead to the opponents scoring.

  21. The Vikings have an all-time overall record of 537–438–11, the highest regular season and combined winning percentage among NFL franchises who have not won a Super Bowl, in addition the most playoff runs, division titles, and (tied with the Buffalo Bills) Super Bowl appearances. They also have the most conference championship appearances of non-winning Super Bowl teams, with them being one of four (along with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Rams) to appear in a conference championship every decade since the 1970s.

  24. Mike I warned you before the season started, "Since 2009 the Vikings have not had back-to-back playoff appearances, and only once in 2019 had a winning record when they went 8-7-1 following a playoff appearance." You should have prepared yourself for what seems to historically inevitable.

  26. the most super bowl appearances? the pats and steelers each won more super bowls than the vikings have even been in. im not going to bother fact-checking the rest of your blather.

  29. KOC needs to be fired. He is NOT the coach QB whisperer everyone says he it. That was media generated off a few lucky situational things. He, KOC, is wasting the Vikings Nation time. The GM is even worse.

  33. Mike, speak for yourself. Normal people “back in the 70s” didnt have just one team and that was that. Yeah you had your team, and you hated the other teams in your division, but you would inevitably have a team in the other conference you would enjoy watching and following. As a giants fan living in CT i liked the jets. I like the Steve Grogan pats. Ken Stabler and his Raiders were spectacular. It’s a you thing.

  35. I totally get the 70's and 80's loyalty thing. I was the same, but for me it wasn't fantasy football that ruined it…. It was they TEAMS losing THEIR loyalties. Stars began moving around so much that it was hard to stick with a team. When Joe Montana was pushed out of S.F. it was like a guy punch. Nowadays I like some teams for their classiness and some player no matter where they end up… But I don't have an year in, year out "My team". And I miss that.

  41. He played pretty well overall, better than I expected at least. Not many could play well behind their line and the Min D has taken a step back as well. So JJ is going to have a rough go as well and didn't look good when he did play. I wonder if Flacco could just throw it to Jefferson and Addison same as he has done in Cin with Chase and Higgins? Whoever is the 1st read, throw it to them in 2.5 seconds no matter what… it seems to work so maybe that is teh answer in MIN? Whoever is QB, just toss it to whoever is teh 1st read 😁

  42. IMO, the INT TD should not have been overturned or they should have shown the angle/shot that determined why it was. I think MIN still loses but the refs really helped to do them in.

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