Vikings name Carson Wentz starter vs. Bills

Yes, did want to just, you know, you know, after getting some updates on this, you know, Jack situation in Detroit, just want to say, you know, how relieved it's been to hear some of the encouraging news and continue to wish him well. Did want to give you guys just some updates, you know, after we, as we roll into practice today on those, you know, three injured guys, you know, Christian Daresaw will participate today. He'll be on the field. Getting him some work and see how he feels throughout the week. And then Theo Jackson won't practice today. And then after evaluating Kyler on Monday, getting some imaging and things, we did determine he does have a hamstring strain. Don't believe it to be much more than a week-to-week kind of thing right now. But for him, his movement skills and the way he plays the game, we do feel like we'd be putting him at risk of possibly turning this I'm going to turn this into a more... Significant injury than it is by trying to have him work through it here early on. So Carson will start the football game and Max will back him up. Obviously, there's a ton of confidence in Carson. He's already helped us, had a major, major role in two wins this year against two really good teams. He's got a lot of dreams. He's a steadying presence and a guy we know can go in and play good football. That's why we feel so great about having him here. It's going to be a significant challenge Monday night. What an opportunity for our team coming off of our first loss of the season to get a home game Monday night game at U.S. Bank Stadium. There's nothing better than that and the energy and the environment that we know we're going to have. So we've got to go to work and prepare to play against a really, really good football team. I just think we have so much confidence in, you know, his – He's going to throw a lot of completions. He's going to put the ball in play. You know, he's got such a high, high understanding of, you know, not only the offense, but, you know, what he's looking at on the other side. He's got 100 games of experience. He's the perfect guy in a moment where you can't have Kyler out there at full strength to go in there. And, you know, we feel very strongly about when Carson's in there, we're going to get really effective quarterback play. No, no, I believe it was, I think he said he felt it after he turned the corner on Aiden Hutchinson on one of his own read runs, I believe. I think hamstrings are always unique and, you know, you would have loved to, you know, this is my first time getting a chance to talk to you guys since Monday. But, you know, I think you always have to understand that whatever that picture or that imaging says, you know, sometimes it's an injury that you can really, you know, hone in on, you know, that's why I wanted to be certain before, you know, I went speculating on Monday just because I wanted to make sure that it wasn't something that would prohibit him from playing. Um, until it was, and, and, you know, as far as I'm not going to get into the details of the grade of the injury or the level medically speaking, but, uh, you know, just knowing, um, you know, that, uh, you know, Kyler needs his mobility. It's a big, huge part of what makes him an effective player. And if that puts him at risk of potentially, you know, adding to the grade of, of the injury, we, you know, we can't do that. It's a long season and we, uh, we hope to get him back and, and, uh, you know, get him going. I think we'll just take it a week at a time, you know, give him this week. He'll start the progression pretty early, you know, hopefully next week, and we'll see how he feels. No, I don't think you may be misunderstanding what I said. All I said was his style of play, and it's more, you know, the explosive movements, the quick twitch movements. Running is obviously a part of some of that, and he's had, you know, he had another plus-20-yard game the other day against Detroit, but it's more of just the overall, you know, his ability to impact the game, and ultimately, you know, we could try to say all we want of, like, You can play, but you just got to stay in the pocket, but then football starts, and it's an imperfect game where he's going to react, and we don't want to make this strain any worse than it is. Yeah, Theo, I'm glad you asked about that. He won't practice today with that quad. Obviously, we, you know, we feel good about our depth there. Jay Ward's always been a guy that could give us really significant snaps. He's got a bunch of experience, you know, in the system. And then between Jacob Thomas, Harrison Smith, and 4-4, and we'll take a look at it throughout the week if we, you know, want to possibly have another safety, you know, on the game day roster. But we're still working through that. It's not under consideration at all. Yeah, we just, you know, I think, you know, just at different times, you know, the rhythm of the game, just understanding that, you know, we miss some ops. We miss some ops on Sunday that, you know, whether it's, you know. directly impacts that sequence of the game, but it all fits together. It all fits in the cohesion of not only how our offense is playing, but then possessing the football, trying to limit the opportunities of the other offense, how they want to play against our defense, and then obviously getting timely plays in the kicking game when you need them for the field position battle. So the quarterback plays a huge role in that, and Kyler's played enough to know that, and I think as... He's gained more experience, and some of the conversations that we've had, even after the game this past weekend, we know he's not far off. We know that those plays can be made, and the expectation is that they need to be made, and they will. We obviously had a walkthrough yesterday, so don't have a great... You know, ability right now to project how how he'll feel. But I will say the early, you know, the early days of treatment here have been encouraging enough that we can get him out there and get him practicing a little bit today and then we'll see how he feels. Yeah, we're just, you know, we're just trying to focus on two things really getting them as getting get them as healthy as we can, you know, knowing we avoided a major injury was a was a big deal. But then also just the day to day the minute to minute just because he may not be playing, you know, this week, he's, you know, still going to be heavily involved in all the The installs, the quarterback meetings, the dialogue we have about the, you know, as we get closer to the game. And I think it always is a good opportunity, especially for a guy that's been in it, even though he's missed time a couple times now. He can really, you know, maximize this time, especially watching kind of right there, right alongside Carson of how the week goes, how his prep goes. And then ultimately, you know, hopefully Carson can take that to the game. That's really what, you know, it's all about because we've had good practices. We've seen our offense go out there and the ball not hit the ground for days on end. It's just we got to take it to the game. We got to take that level of execution to the game. And, you know, the passing game comes down to in many ways, you know, even though you'd love for it to be perfect, but it's, you know, it can come down to one or two or three plays in a game that totally change the dynamic of. You know, regardless of the stat sheet, but change the dynamic of your flow as an offense and the flow of the game. And we got to do all those things without turning the football over. I think, you know, there was a critical moment kind of stretch in that game where we have a lead. We get a turnover, good field position, and we went three and out. And then obviously the two minute interception just when we overthrew Justin was a was a critical kind of points altering. Kind of sequence in the game where I think we had control of the football game and we just, you know, there's a couple plays that kind of fall in line with if those two or three plays get made and we get points on either one of those drives or both, you know, that becomes a different kind of game for our opponent, especially as we got into the second half. Yeah, I'm just, every single week for me, it's just about what can we do as a staff, what can I do personally, not only prepare the team, but each and every guy on our team, and obviously the quarterback being such a huge part of our team's success. I'm just all about getting these guys ready to go, both Carson and Max, but I'm going to spend a lot of time with Carson and make sure that he's 100% confident and comfortable with the game plan, which is a lot because he obviously has a level of mastery in the system that I think we can really lean on, but also he's played a lot of football. He's played a lot of football and knows what he likes, knows what he doesn't like, and we apply that, and I think we'll get... Really good quarterback play. My expectation is Carson's going to play really well because we've called on him multiple, multiple times over the last two years and he stepped in and we've had production as an offense when that's happened. I just think it's a very similar answer to the previous question. It's all about this week for our team. And when you win six in a row and you get to a point in your season where you feel the way we did coming off of the game, and quite honestly, we've got to move forward. We've got to flush that, even if there's still a little bit more feelings to get rid of from last Sunday. We've got to put everything we have into this football game and understand what it is, which is an unbelievable opportunity. Uh, even though it's going to be a heck of a challenge with, you know, one of the best teams in football coming in, uh, but they're coming into our home stadium and we, we, we take a lot of pride in, in winning football games at US Bank Stadium. And we know the challenge it's going to be. Thanks guys.