{"id":380822,"date":"2025-09-19T17:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T17:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/380822\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T17:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T17:48:10","slug":"will-carson-wentzs-starting-stint-reshape-how-kevin-oconnell-handles-j-j-mccarthy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/380822\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Carson Wentz\u2019s Starting Stint Reshape How Kevin O\u2019Connell Handles J.J. McCarthy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Minnesota Vikings entered the season expecting their offensive infrastructure<\/a> \u2013 great skill-position weapons, an improved offensive line, and one of the league\u2019s most respected coaching staffs \u2013 to make J.J. McCarthy<\/a>\u2019s transition into a first-time starting quarterback as seamless<\/a> as possible.<\/p>\n

For three seasons, Kevin O\u2019Connell<\/a> had crafted some of the league\u2019s top offensive attacks, never ranking lower than 12th in total yardage despite<\/a> starting quarterbacks like Josh Dobbs<\/a>, Nick Mullens<\/a>, and Sam Darnold<\/a> after Kirk Cousins<\/a> took his final snap with the team in the middle of the 2023 season.<\/p>\n

Inserting the 10th-overall pick of the 2024 draft into an offense that resurrected<\/a> Darnold\u2019s career? That sounded more than manageable. The last time we saw Darnold, he melted down<\/a> in two of the biggest games of his career. The last time we saw McCarthy play a meaningful game, he was hoisting the National Championship trophy three months before the Vikings drafted him.<\/p>\n

But the transition hasn\u2019t been as seamless as fans expected. The Vikings\u2019 offense has scored 33 points in two games, with 21 of those coming in the fourth quarter of a furious rally<\/a> against the Chicago Bears. That\u2019s 27th in the league. Their yardage output is even worse, ranking next-to-last with 226 yards per game.<\/p>\n

Much of the blame has been placed on McCarthy, who has made ample \u201crookie\u201d mistakes. He has completed 24 of 41 passes for 301 yards, two touchdowns, and three interceptions, including a pick-six in Week 1. Even worse is that he\u2019s taken nine sacks, which equates to an 18% sack rate. For context, no one took more sacks than Caleb Williams<\/a> in 2024, and his sack rate was 10.99% \u2014 only better than Will Levis<\/a> (11.99%) and Deshaun Watson<\/a> (13.25%).<\/p>\n

And yet, it\u2019s hard to decipher just how bad it\u2019s been because the Vikings haven\u2019t run many plays. The offense has run a league-low 95 plays, which makes it feel like the team hasn\u2019t emphasized the run game enough. But O\u2019Connell and offensive coordinator Wes Phillips highlighted that Minnesota is trying to get the run game going. The Vikings, who have been pass-happy under O\u2019Connell, have run the ball 45 times and passed it 41 this year.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, if the Vikings are going to fix what ails their offense in Week 3, they won\u2019t be doing so with McCarthy. The young quarterback suffered a high ankle sprain on a scramble<\/a> in Week 2 against the Atlanta Falcons.<\/p>\n

Carson Wentz<\/a> signed with the Vikings on August 24, and he will start<\/a> in McCarthy\u2019s place. Wentz, the No. 2-overall pick in the 2016 draft, has plenty of physical talent. However, he has bounced around the league since the end of the 2020 season. When he starts on Sunday, he will become the first quarterback to start at least one game for six different teams in six consecutive seasons.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connell insists that Wentz, who was a backup with the Los Angeles Rams in 2023, knows some of Minnesota\u2019s system after playing under Sean McVay. Still, he missed all of training camp, meaning he wasn\u2019t around for offensive installs and didn\u2019t develop chemistry with Minnesota\u2019s receivers. So, how do the Vikings get Wentz comfortable while also trying to get the offense back on track?<\/p>\n

According to Alec Lewis of The Athletic, the Vikings have only run three \u201cquick game\u201d concepts through the first three weeks of the 2025 season. He says that Pro Football Focus classifies \u201cquick game\u201d as \u201cconcepts with pass route breaks coming under seven yards across the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

No team has run fewer of these concepts this season, or since the 2023 season. Therefore, it looks like the Vikings thrust McCarthy neck-deep into the soul of their offense to begin the season.<\/p>\n

Can O\u2019Connell expect Wentz to be up to speed with the full offensive playbook? Cousins admitted<\/a> in 2022 that it took him until halfway through the season to feel fully comfortable in O\u2019Connell\u2019s offense. Perhaps McCarthy, despite digesting<\/a> the offense as a rookie in 2024 when he was injured, feels the same way right now.<\/p>\n

If he does, there\u2019s almost no way Wentz can reach the requisite comfort level to operate a full offense. That could force O\u2019Connell and the Vikings to add quick game, which could include a more basic route tree that stresses getting the ball out of Wentz\u2019s hands and into the hands of his playmakers.<\/p>\n

Doing so could also force the Vikings to attack short-yardage situations with a more conventional approach. On Minnesota\u2019s second drive, the Vikings faced third-and-two at their own 22-yard line. McCarthy dropped back to pass but was sacked quickly by two Falcons defenders, leading to a three-and-out.<\/p>\n

The following drive was much more promising. The Vikings got all the way down to Atlanta\u2019s two-yard line, but things unraveled once again. On first-and-goal, McCarthy mishandled the ball on a play-action fake, fumbling and scrambling to his right before misfiring to Justin Jefferson<\/a>. Before the next snap, the Vikings took a delay of game penalty, pushing the ball back to the seven-yard line. McCarthy took sacks on the next two plays, forcing them to kick a field goal to cut the game to 6-3 instead of taking a lead.<\/p>\n

Running the ball doesn\u2019t guarantee success, but Jordan Mason<\/a> has been very good in his limited touches this season. He has a 54.2% success rate, which is well above the 2024 league-average rate of 49.6%. Even though the Falcons stopped his third-and-one shotgun run with 4:50 left in the third quarter, he didn\u2019t lose yardage. And because it was a shotgun run, Atlanta\u2019s defensive personnel wasn\u2019t \u201cheavy\u201d enough to prevent McCarthy\u2019s ensuing fourth-and-short quarterback sneak, which was successful.<\/p>\n

If Wentz can find success with more traditional offensive concepts like this, perhaps that will force O\u2019Connell to reconsider his approach with McCarthy. That doesn\u2019t mean eliminating the deep drops that the offense is built upon. But it could mean giving McCarthy and the offense some chances to move the ball and develop some sort of rhythm.<\/p>\n

Plus, with all the team\u2019s injuries, simplifying things isn\u2019t only about getting Wentz comfortable. It\u2019s about helping center Michael Jurgens<\/a> and potentially left tackles Walter Rouse<\/a> and Justin Skule<\/a>, if Christian Darrisaw<\/a> is still unable to play on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Kevin O\u2019Connell has built up one of the best offensive systems in football since taking over as the head coach of the Vikings in 2022. But if he wants to pull the offense out of a rut and help Carson Wentz in Week 3 against the Cincinnati Bengals, he will need to simplify the offense.<\/p>\n

Likewise, to help his 22-year-old quarterback when he returns, O\u2019Connell may need to lean on that simplified playbook longer than he\u2019d prefer to get the results he wants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Minnesota Vikings entered the season expecting their offensive infrastructure \u2013 great skill-position weapons, an improved offensive line,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2073],"tags":[1763,7,1519,6192,233,259,2529,6,234],"class_list":{"0":"post-380822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-vikings","8":"tag-carson-wentz","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-j-j-mccarthy","11":"tag-kevin-oconnell","12":"tag-minnesota","13":"tag-minnesota-vikings","14":"tag-minnesotavikings","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-vikings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115232224344382268","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}