Inside QB Carson Wentz’s wild journey to starting for the Vikings, his childhood team

EAGAN, Minn. — In late August, Zach Wentz received the news. His younger brother, Carson, had worked out with the Minnesota Vikings, and the team was going to sign him as a backup to quarterback J.J. McCarthy.

Zach’s first order of business? Sending Carson a GIF of a purple-clad crowd doing the Vikings’ “Skol” chant.

They had dreamed of this. The family. Many of Carson’s friends. The town of Bismarck, N.D., a hotbed of Vikings fandom. Carson playing for the team he grew up watching never quite seemed realistic, and even his signing came with no guarantees.

“As a family,” Zach said Wednesday over the phone, “we didn’t know if he’d play zero minutes or the whole season. You just don’t really know.”

A backup quarterback’s situation can change in an instant. A couple of weeks ago, McCarthy referred to Carson as “coach Wentz.” Now, in the aftermath of the high ankle sprain McCarthy sustained Sunday, it will be incumbent upon Carson to help dislodge the Vikings offense from its poor start.

The 32-year-old has a lot going for him. By all accounts, since he entered the building, weaving his way past the names and photographs of players he viewed as heroes, he has shown an aptitude to absorb Kevin O’Connell’s complex system in short order. The last couple of seasons in Los Angeles and Kansas City educated him on the ingredients necessary to step in at a moment’s notice. He has familiarity with quarterbacks coach Josh McCown. The team’s skill players, especially superstar receiver Justin Jefferson, should make his life easier.

For weeks, Zach and his family were planning to drive the 595 miles from Indianapolis, where they now live, to Minneapolis for the Week 3 matchup between the Vikings and Cincinnati Bengals. In light of the circumstances, Carson’s ticket request skyrocketed.

It’s one thing for Carson to have another chance at proving what he has long believed he can accomplish. It’s something else entirely for him to have a chance to do it here.

Talk to anyone close to Carson Wentz, and they’ll describe his career arc as a roller-coaster ride. It’s an apt way to categorize most quarterback journeys in the NFL, but Wentz’s might be the Six Flags Magic Mountain X2 version of the comparison.

In the last decade, he has been billed as a savior, injured star, trusted starter, cast-aside bust, recovered franchise quarterback, unsuccessful leader and backup. When Wentz starts Sunday against the Bengals, he will become the first quarterback in league history to start at least one game for six different teams in six consecutive seasons.

“It sounds crazy when you say that,” Wentz said. “It’s definitely given me a different perspective. Going from being a starter, traded, cut, being a backup behind some future Hall of Fame quarterbacks and seeing things done (recently) at a really high level. That’s given me some perspective. And also just the perspective of not taking this for granted.”

Lay out all of the puzzle pieces, and it’s almost disorienting to try to assess the key points of the Wentz timeline. He produced three seasons of more than 3,500 passing yards, at least 27 touchdowns and seven interceptions or fewer: in 2017, 2019 and 2021. Yet in 2020 with the Philadelphia Eagles, his 21.7 percent poor-throw percentage — a Pro Football Reference metric accounting for throws that weren’t catchable with normal effort — was one of the worst since 2018, when the statistic was first tabulated.

“In my opinion,” the esteemed Peter King said bluntly two years ago, “this is one of the great ruined careers in recent NFL history.”

Neither Wentz’s brother, Zach, nor any of the other close friends and former teachers with whom we spoke ahead of Sunday’s game would go that far. Instead, they focused on the path.

Wentz was once a sharp child of Bismarck, N.D., zipping around school from one AP class to another, spending his weekends playing and watching sports. He adopted the Vikings almost without choice, and attended games with his father, Doug, at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.

Wentz’s high school football coach, Ron Wingenbach, marveled at his quarterback’s smarts and competitiveness. Never, though, did he think that when he was stepping over a dozing Wentz in the basement of his house following sleepovers with Wingenbach’s son, that he would be charged with leading the team that had long tormented Wingenbach, a Vikings superfan. For it to happen after all of the quarterback’s ups and downs, Wingenbach said, almost makes it sweeter.

“This is going to be interesting,” Wingenbach said, “to kind of see where he’s at.”

Take a quick trip into the past. In 2016, the Eagles traded two first-round picks, a second-round pick, a third-round pick and a fourth-round pick to draft Wentz second overall. The following year, he led Philadelphia to an 11-2 start before tearing his ACL. Two years later, in 2019, he caught fire in the final four games, but a concussion on the first play of a wild-card playoff game ended his season.

In 2021, the Indianapolis Colts acquired him for what became a first-round pick. He produced a 17-to-3 touchdown-to-interception ratio in the first nine games, and the Colts were in line for a playoff berth until the wheels fell off with two losses to end the season.

His next stop? Washington. In 2023? The Rams. Last year? The Chiefs. The latter two experiences shaped a perspective that eventually brought him to Minnesota: If he was going to keep playing, he was going to do it with an infrastructure of coaches and teammates that gave him a fighting chance.

“This was always one (job) he had his eye on,” Zach said. “So, when that opportunity came knocking, it was a pretty easy decision to get up there and work out and meet the staff … and solidify what the conversation on the phone had been like.”

Wentz wasn’t exactly emotional in a news conference on Wednesday, but he was revealing.

First, he mentioned McCarthy’s ankle injury.

“It’s a bummer,” Wentz said. “And I’ve been there, more times than I care to admit.”

Then he segued.

“It’s exciting for me,” he added. “I’m not going to lie. It’s been a couple of years since I played in a game like this with real consequences.”

With the way things ended in Washington, did Wentz ever think he’d get an opportunity to play in a meaningful game again?

“I’m a human being,” Wentz said. “It’s hard to not have those thoughts.”

It probably isn’t a stretch to say that this might be one of Wentz’s final opportunities to prove his worth as an NFL starter. Will that manifest as motivational fuel? It’s possible. The stakes of the situation are undeniable. This is a reeling Vikings offense, working its way through some serious adversity early in a season that began with such high hopes and expectations.

Offensive coordinator Wes Phillips would not go as far Tuesday as to say that he expects Wentz to follow a similar road to former Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold. Phillips did, though, classify Wentz as a gunslinger, a quarterback capable of reaching every blade of grass with his arm. The play style in itself introduces a level of unpredictability regarding what’s looming. Accuracy and decision-making are of the utmost importance.

Wentz has plenty of experience to pull on. He referenced some of the pre- and post-snap details he gleaned in the last two years from Matthew Stafford, Sean McVay, Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid. O’Connell also raved about Wentz’s practice from Thursday of last week, when he filled in for McCarthy, who was at a local hospital for the birth of his child.

“He’s remained steadfast in his belief that he can still play,” Zach said.

Once the surreal emotions subside on Sunday, and once Carson trots out onto that field, the only thing that would make this story more perfect would be proof that he can.

(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

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