Painful is the word that likely came to mind for many Minnesota Vikings fans who suffered through all 60 minutes of the team's pitiful performance on Thursday in their Week 8 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. But that pain wasn't anything close to what Vikings quarterback Carson Wentz was dealing with throughout the matchup.
Wentz entered Thursday's game with a banged-up shoulder, and after getting pummeled over and over again by the Chargers' defense, the veteran quarterback was shown several times on the television broadcast screaming in agony.
Minnesota taking Wentz out of the game and replacing him with undrafted rookie signal-caller Max Brosmer seemed like an easy decision to make, but Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell explained after the matchup why he didn't make a quarterback change until very late in the contest.
"Carson's a veteran player, he [understood] some of our circumstances tonight. I think it's very difficult to ask a rookie to go in there for his first performance and have to be, kind of, weathering it a little bit for the group.
I did think about [putting Brosmer in] at different times in the game, but at the same time, the confidence we have in Max, and the upside we see in Max is real.
You also don't want to send him out there and force a level of figure-it-out-ness that's probably beyond a guy playing for the first time, and that was kind of where the decision was to continue to go with Carson as long as Carson felt like he was healthy enough to keep playing, and the medical team did as well."
Kevin O'Connell's excuse for leaving Minnesota Vikings QB in Carson Wentz in the game isn't good enough
O'Connell mentioned how it's basically not fair to ask a rookie to take on the role of essentially trying to weather the storm in his first meaningful minutes of NFL action.
That can be true, but how fair is it to keep Wentz on the field as a crash-test dummy for the Chargers? It's hard to imagine that was any fairer than putting Brosmer into a game where the Vikings were trailing by more than two scores.
Also, if O'Connell isn't going to play Brosmer when Minnesota's starting quarterback is screaming like his arm is literally falling off, then why is he on the team?
If the Vikings didn't feel comfortable enough with Brosmer playing on Thursday, then they should have signed another quarterback to be the team's No. 2 behind Wentz.
O'Connell is supposed to be the guy who sets the tone of the locker room, and by leaving Wentz out on the field longer than necessary on Thursday, the Minnesota head coach displayed a complete lack of care for his entire roster.