Minnesota Vikings quarterback Carson Wentz spoke with the media on Wednesday, Oct. 29 about his season-ending shoulder injury for the first time since being shut down.
“After the Browns game, we knew surgery was in the future, which was obviously a bummer,” Wentz said. “It was one of those things, let’s see how long we can ride with this thing. It was never anyone forcing me, it was never anything like that.
“We knew what was coming, we just didn’t know when.”
Wentz revealed that he suffered the initial injury in Minnesota’s week five win over the Cleveland Browns. The injury came to his left shoulder, so it didn’t impact his ability to throw the ball.
With a bye week coming right after the Browns game, Wentz felt comfortable enough to get back out for the week seven matchup with his former team, the Philadelphia Eagles. Although he was able to make it through that game with manageable pain, the short week following the Eagles game made it more difficult to recover.
After the Vikings week eight loss to the Chargers, Wentz and the team agreed it was time to shut it down and get surgery to repair his injured shoulder.
Wentz Comfortable About Decision to Play Through Injury
Although he was playing through a significant amount of pain, Wentz was confident in his ability to remain on the field to help the team.
“The whole time I felt I could still help this team,” Wentz 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 knew there was a chance I’d be playing with some pain and discomfort [against the Chargers on Thursday, Oct. 23]. I thought it’d be a little less than what it was, but at the end of the day, it’s pain… but I felt like I could still help the team.”
Playing through the injury didn’t worsen the long term effect of it, according to Wentz himself.
“This thing’s going to get fixed, like I’m going to be okay,” Wentz said. “I’m not done, it’s just a bummer for this season. Playing with it, did it become more uncomfortable? Probably, that was pretty evident to me. But did it become worse that it can’t be fixed? No, by no means. I wouldn’t have been out there if that were the case.”
Vikings to Get McCarthy Back For Week Nine
Although Wentz couldn’t lead his team to wins in either the Philadelphia or Los Angeles games, he was able to fill the role of quarterback while J.J. McCarthy recovered from his ankle sprain. Minnesota stemmed the tide long enough that McCarthy is now healthy and ready to go for the Vikings week nine contest against the Detroit Lions.
McCarthy has played in just two games in his NFL career after missing his entire rookie season and then weeks 3-8 this year. In the first two weeks of the season, McCarthy led Minnesota to a 1-1 start, though his play left a lot to be desired. In those two games, McCarthy was 24/41 with 301 yards in the air, while passing for two touchdowns and three interceptions.
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