For those who watched the Minnesota Vikings suffer a disappointing 37-10 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers last Thursday, many wondered the same thing: Why was Carson Wentz left in the game for so long?
In the days following the loss, details have been shared about the severity of the shoulder injury that Wentz was dealing with, and it's raised plenty of questions about why Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell left the veteran quarterback on the field to continue to get pulverized in the middle of a contest that was well out of reach by the third quarter.
During an interview with KFXN-FM radio's Paul Allen on Tuesday, O'Connell attempted to explain why Wentz was essentially left out to dry in Minnesota's loss to the Chargers.
"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.
I don't know if it's the former quarterback in me or not, or Josh McCown as his quarterback coach, having been in the arena the way Josh was as a quarterback in the NFL for a long time, you want to give the warrior a chance to kind of exhaust those opportunities.
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, you wanted to make sure we gave him every opportunity to do that.”
Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell failed to protect Carson Wentz from himself
Guys in the NFL play hurt and play through injuries all the time. It's just the nature of the sport.
But there is a difference between letting a player tough it out through an injury and leaving them out there in the middle of a blowout to continue to be punished with hits from an opposing defense.
The intention behind O'Connell wanting to honor Wentz's request to stay in last week's game was great, but the Vikings head coach also has a duty to protect his players from themselves, and he didn't do that.
Wentz had already played in Minnesota's previous two games with his shoulder injury (dislocation, torn labrum, fractured socket), so it wasn't a surprise that he was allowed to start the team's Week 8 matchup in Los Angeles last Thursday.
The surprise came when O'Connell chose to leave Wentz in the game after the Chargers pulled ahead 31-10 early in the fourth quarter.
The game was clearly out of reach, and everyone watching at home had already seen way too many slow-motion replays of Wentz agonizing in pain after multiple hits to his injured shoulder throughout the contest.
The Vikings had a perfectly healthy Max Brosmer just sitting there on the bench ready to relieve Wentz of his service, but O'Connell opted to wait until the final minutes of the matchup to make a quarterback switch.
There was no reason for Wentz to still be out there after Minnesota's deficit grew to 21 points in the fourth quarter, and O'Connell should have pulled the plug on the quarterback's night earlier than he did.
Instead, a nationally televised audience, a stadium full of people, and the Vikings' entire locker room got to watch as Minnesota's head coach left Wentz out to dry without any remorse.
The Vikings have been uncharacteristically careless with player injuries this season, and last Thursday's handling of Wentz was just another example of it. Yes, he couldn't injure himself any further than he already had, but he was clearly in severe pain, and O'Connell did nothing about it.
Decisions like this are how coaches lose the locker room. How can a player trust that O'Connell won't do the same thing to them that he did to Wentz last week?
O'Connell has been praised a ton for the positive culture that he has built during his tenure with the Vikings. But what he did last Thursday looked much closer to how the guy who previously held his job used to operate.