Amid Chargers game controversy, Carson Wentz tells his side of the story

During the week since his extreme pain was broadcast to the nation in an ugly primetime loss to the Chargers, Vikings QB Carson Wentz and his injured left shoulder have been a hot topic of discussion.

Many people, including this writer, have argued that head coach Kevin O'Connell should've made the decision to take Wentz out of the game much earlier than he did, in order to protect the veteran quarterback from himself. That idea came into greater focus on Monday, when it was announced that Wentz is having season-ending surgery to fix his shoulder, which he injured two games earlier.

O'Connell has made his stance clear, from his postgame press conference in Los Angeles to a Tuesday interview with Paul Allen and again in his weekly presser on Wednesday.

He says that Wentz, after suffering the shoulder injury in London before the Vikings' bye, was cleared to play by all medical personnel, who said that he wasn't at risk of making the issue structurally worse. O'Connell says that Wentz wanted to play and that he felt he had to honor that desire to stay in the fight. He didn't want to give up on the game until the very end, and he didn't believe rookie backup Max Brosmer was prepared to be thrown into the Vikings' specific situation last Thursday night.

Just before O'Connell spoke at TCO Performance Center on Wednesday, Wentz himself was made available to talk to the media. Players on injured reserve have no obligation to hold press conferences, but it seems that Wentz wanted to clear the air and have people hear his side of what went down in LA.

"It's been an interesting couple weeks, but feeling good with the ultimate decision that we made, collectively," he said. "It's weird being done this early in the season. Been on IR a couple different times but never this early. It's a bummer, all those things, but life's a lot bigger than this. Any minute or day, I'm about to have my fourth little girl. Surgery's on deck. All the things that are so much bigger than this are really occupying my mind and time."

Many of the questions he received were about the Chargers game and the process that led to him staying in until the final two-minute warning despite being in visible pain on several occasions. Wentz made it clear that it was his decision to keep playing.

"The whole time, I felt I can still help this team," he said. "At the end of the day, I knew what I was signing up for. It wasn't like anyone was forcing me to go. I mean, this is my tenth year in the league. There's a lot bigger things in my life to worry about, so I wasn't gonna do anything that would be detrimental to my own health. So I knew what I was getting into. Knew there was a chance I would be playing with some pain, discomfort the other night. I thought it would be a little less than what it was, but at the end of the day, it's pain and I felt like OK, the hit happened and then I could go on and I could still help the team.

"As a competitor, you never want to take yourself out. Like, no matter what you're going through, it's hard to remove yourself from the game. I'm maybe too optimistic, thinking we can still mount a comeback here, all the things. The NFL's crazy. Teams can score fast. We have some dudes on this offense, so scoring in a hurry is a real expectation and an opportunity. I never once was like 'Yeah, I need to be done.' It's like yeah, that hurt, but I'm optimistic I'm gonna get up and not get hit the next play and we're gonna go score."

Carson Wentz talking about his injury, the end of his season, and last Thursday’s game.

“I’m not an idiot. I knew what I was signing up for.” pic.twitter.com/cjO8EASnlq
— Will Ragatz (@WillRagatz) October 29, 2025

Wentz said he knew, after suffering the injury — a shoulder dislocation, torn labrum, and fractured socket — in London, that surgery was in his future. But he was told that he could continue to play without exacerbating the issue. And with J.J. McCarthy still on the mend with a high ankle sprain, Wentz wanted to keep playing. "Let's see how long we can ride with this thing," he said.

Coming out of the bye week, he felt some "bearable" discomfort in a one-score loss to the Eagles where he racked up 341 total yards but threw two interceptions. But the short week after that game, in the lead-up to playing the Chargers, didn't give him time to recover. That, combined with the beating he took over the course of the game, tipped the scales for him.

"I think that game just obviously was kind of the icing on the cake for me to know — I think the frustration that you might've saw on the sideline was me knowing I'm probably not playing again this year," Wentz said. "So there was a lot of emotions there, mixed with the pain and all the things. We knew what was coming, we just didn't know when."

Although it was a painful night in more ways than one, Wentz spoke like a guy who would do it all over again if given the chance. This was his first opportunity to start meaningful NFL games since the 2022 season — and he got to do it for the team he grew up cheering for. He wanted that experience to go on for as long as possible.

"I was a backup for the last couple of years," he said. "So just being back in the role of starting meaningful football games, it's fun. I'm not gonna lie, it's fun. It's what I grew up dreaming of doing and all the things and when you lose it for a little bit, it's hard to want to give it up. So even with pain and all the things that I knew were going to come with it, it was, 'I want to play. I want to be out there helping this team however I can.'"

Asked point-blank if he thinks he should've been taken out of the game, Wentz said "truthfully, no."

"I appreciate that everybody was checking on me and all the stuff," he said. "At the end of the day, coaches, trainers, nobody really knows the level of pain or difficulty that I'm feeling. I know TV copies can show stuff that people on the sideline don't see. But I never once felt unsafe. I've said it a bunch, it's just pain. It's pain. It's discomfort. I knew surgery was coming. I knew it needed to be fixed. It was like, 'I don't want to come out of this game, as uncomfortable as this is.'"

Carson Wentz — Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

He doesn't believe he was taking any sort of risk by continuing to play. Over the course of the nine-minute media session, Wentz made it abundantly clear that, despite the pain, he wanted to keep going.

"At the end of the day, there's the trainers here, there's people I've consulted with with my agent outside, everybody I've talked to, like, this thing is going to get fixed," Wentz said. "I'm going to be OK. I'm not done. It's all those things. It's just a bummer for this season. So playing with it, did it become more uncomfortable? Probably. That was pretty evident to me. Did it become worse that it can't be fixed? No, by no means. I wouldn't have been out there if that was the case."

"This isn’t my first rodeo," he said. "I’m not an idiot. I know what I was signing up for, going out there. Nobody was forcing me, pressuring me, any of those things, anybody in this building. Everybody has handled this tremendously. The communication has been phenomenal from coaches, trainers, all the things, and so we knew what we were doing all along."

Wentz has clearly seen or at least been informed about some of the public discussion around the situation and whether or not he should've been allowed to continue to playing. That seems to be part of the reason why he wanted to have this press conference.

"Like I said this whole time, the communication from coach (O'Connell), the training staff, team docs and outside sources with my agent has been terrific," he said. "The public backlash and things I’m being told are out there, I think is personally kind of crazy. Nobody’s in this building. Nobody’s in those conversations. Nobody knows what’s truly going on and transpiring behind these walls. I can just honestly say this place has been super supportive, super helpful this whole time, and I’m grateful for that."

Even after everything that the two of them have said, questions can still be asked about whether or not O'Connell letting Wentz take that level of physical punishment was the right call in the moment. Another fair question is whether or not Brosmer could've theoretically held his own and given the Vikings a spark on a night where Wentz took five sacks, averaged under 3.7 net yards per attempt, and threw an egregious interception in the fourth quarter. But what's now fully apparent is that Wentz chose to keep playing on his own accord and doesn't believe he was risking further injury by doing so.

The Vikings will now move forward with McCarthy as their starter, Brosmer as their backup, and new addition John Wolford as QB3. As for Wentz, he's taking things day by day. His fourth daughter will be arriving any day now. Shoulder surgery is in his near future. And once he gets healthy, he sounded like a guy who wants to play more football somewhere in 2026.

"I believe it’s maybe a four-month, give or take, recovery," he said. "I’m hoping we can be faster, but at the end of the day, come OTAs, I’ll be healthy, ready to roll. Again, it’s my non-throwing shoulder. It’s long-term not that concerning. It’s just a bummer right now."

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