Kevin O’Connell kept Carson Wentz on the football field with a serious shoulder injury because Wentz allegedly wanted to take advantage of an opportunity to play meaningful football while also giving 22-year-old J.J. McCarthy ample time to recover from a high ankle sprain.
“He literally said to me when he first started playing, he was just so excited to play meaningful football again,” O’Connell said during a lengthy interview with KFAN’s Paul Allen on Tuesday. “Throughout the journey with him, I was really proud of the way he battled.”
Wentz will miss the rest of the season with a dislocated left shoulder that includes a torn labrum and a fractured socket. He suffered the injury in Week 4 and wound up battling through three more games before deciding he couldn’t handle the pain any longer.
That’s what O’Connell explained Tuesday, anyway.
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“Once he sustained the initial injury to his left shoulder against the Browns, it was really a matter of getting the medical interpretations where once Carson was told ‘you’re going to have to get this fixed but you really can’t make it worse,’ I believe his phrase to me was, ‘I want to take advantage of this opportunity. I get to play, I get to play with this coaching staff and these players for the Minnesota Vikings. I want to exhaust this every possible way that I can. And I know J.J. will back at some point here as he gets healthy, but this is a genuine opportunity where I can help this team win,'” O’Connell said.
“And the way he consistently demonstrated such physical toughness to go along with mental toughness, knowing that ultimately [he’s] going to have to get this fixed. A lot of guys play with torn labrums throughout the season, a lot of ,guys wear that harness, but not everybody’s a quarterback. Although it was not his throwing shoulder, you’re still going to take hits and have to weather the storm.
“The dialogue between Carson and myself was great every single week. As long as he was able to have full strength and knowing that the shoulder was stable, he felt like he wanted to continue to give it a go and play as long as he possibly could, knowing he was helping the team in some tough circumstances, but also the opportunity to play and feel that again, like Carson Wentz deserves to feel,” O’Connell said. “So much credit and I hope Vikings understand his commitment level to helping this team try to win some football games and what it was like on the minute-to-minute, daily basis. We’ve had a lot of tough guys play the quarterback position here, but Carson is definitely somebody that deserves to be wildly applauded for his commitment, his dialogue with myself and our medical team throughout that team, and ultimately.”
O’Connell said Wentz finally gave into the pain the morning after the Vikings lost to the Chargers. Just minutes after the game, Wentz said it was “quite possibly” the most pain he’s experienced in his 10-year NFL career.
“We had a conversation pretty early in the morning when we arrived back from L.A., and Carson, for the first time, was like, ‘It’s time. I need to get this thing fixed.’ We were in full support, as we were the whole time,” O’Connell said. But at the same time, there is a mentality to the quarterback position where when a guy is so committed and so all-in and does not want to be taken off the field, you have to honor that.”
So O’Connell and the Vikings did honor the warrior mindset.
“You want to give the warrior a chance to kind of exhaust those opportunities, and once again, knowing that he couldn’t make it worse and knowing inevitably he would have to get it fixed. And while J.J. was working his way back, he wanted to make sure we gave him every opportunity to do that. I’m really proud of Carson, and we’ll forever have a bond because of this time together,” O’Connell said.
The reigning NFL Coach of the Year also applauded the team’s medical staff and said all health decisions go through trainers before he has a say in anything.
“I think it’s very, very important that the dialogue with myself and the player always takes place after the dialogue with the player and the medical staff, and then the medical staff making sure that,100%, Carson is capable of continuing,” he said. The circumstances really had not changed from the time he sustained the injury late in the first half against the Cleveland Browns. It was really just the ability to tolerate when certain types of hits or falls on that shoulder happened. The pain tolerance. That’s where Carson had made the determination that he wanted to fight and really play as long as he possibly could.”
Against the Chargers, O’Connell said he received confirmation from the medical staff and Wentz that he was okay to continue playing.
“Ultimately, you want to do what’s best for the player and ultimately give him an opportunity, as long as medically you’re in the clear, you want to make sure you give that player the runway, especially with the kind of toughness and determination that Carson had to finish the job,” O’Connell said.
He added: “There was never a point in time where medically we were going against the grain of what was in Carson’s best interest, and ultimately what Carson ultimately wanted to see through before he ultimately made the decision that he wanted to get it fixed.”
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