EAGAN, Minn. — Carson Wentz took a beating Thursday night at SoFi Stadium. Wearing a series of harnesses to hold together his left shoulder, Wentz frequently grimaced in pain. Sacked five times and hit on four other occasions, he repeatedly clutched his arm as if to prevent it from falling off. After his final pass in the Minnesota Vikings‘ 37-10 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, he hurled his helmet toward the bench, covered his face with a towel and then appeared to be holding back tears as he looked toward the sky.

The entire night was a throwback to previous eras of gladiator football, when players were glorified for pushing through injuries that would cripple mere mortals. As it turns out, Wentz was playing with a torn labrum and fractured socket caused by a dislocation he suffered on Oct. 5 against the Browns. He said Thursday night that he could still function well enough to help the team, and coach Kevin O’Connell said that Wentz told him repeatedly he could continue playing.

The scene was all in service of a larger goal that would have been sneered at in previous decades: protecting a pair of young quarterbacks who offer more long-term value to the Vikings than Wentz.

As long as Wentz stayed in the game, second-year quarterback J.J. McCarthy was ineligible to play. As the designated emergency third quarterback, and in his sixth week of recovery from a high right ankle sprain, McCarthy could play only if both Wentz and No. 2 quarterback Max Brosmer were ruled out by medical officials.

With tackles Christian Darrisaw and Brian O’Neill both sidelined by knee injuries, and the Vikings using a converted guard (Blake Brandel) at center, O’Connell said afterward he did not want to subject the undrafted rookie Brosmer — much less McCarthy — to the carnage.

“Carson’s a veteran player,” O’Connell said, “and he understands some of our circumstances [Thursday night]. I think it’s very difficult to ask [Brosmer] to go in there for his first performance and have to be weathering it a little bit for the group.”

Wentz sheltered McCarthy and Brosmer for as long as he could, but now it’s time to find out whether either of them can play. McCarthy is expected to resume his role as the starter Sunday against the Detroit Lions (1 p.m. ET, Fox). Brosmer, signed in May as an undrafted rookie, will be his backup. Together, they have thrown a total of 49 NFL passes and played 122 regular-season snaps. McCarthy, the No. 10 pick in the 2025 NFL draft, has sat out 23 of a possible 25 games in his NFL career (including the playoffs) because of the sprained ankle and a torn right meniscus that cost him all of last season.

The Vikings probably will sign a third quarterback to round out the depth chart, but for all intents and purposes, they have reached a critical point in their long-term team building process. The team pushed back McCarthy’s return for as long as possible, believing that he was not equipped to continue his development if he couldn’t fully plant on his right foot or escape the pocket effectively.

It now has 10 games, assuming McCarthy remains healthy, to determine how to proceed next offseason.

McCarthy’s first two starts of 2025 left him with the NFL’s second-worst QBR (20.3). In the season opener, he led a furious comeback in a 27-24 victory over the Chicago Bears, accounting for three touchdowns in the fourth quarter. But in the other seven quarters, he completed 55% of his passes for 214 yards while committing four turnovers and taking nine sacks.

McCarthy understandably needed time to adapt to the speed of the NFL game. He now has a condensed runway for that to happen by the end of his second season. It might sound dramatic for a quarterback who won’t turn 23 until January, but the Vikings will need to render at least some judgment on his future over the next 2½ months.

Will McCarthy demonstrate enough development to enter 2026 as the Vikings’ unquestioned starter? Or will they need to find a veteran to compete with him, as the Indianapolis Colts did this offseason in pairing Daniel Jones with 2023 first-round pick Anthony Richardson Sr.?

Jones’ MVP-like performance has been a dagger for those who have second-guessed the Vikings’ decision to turn over the keys to McCarthy last spring. Jones spent the final six weeks of the 2024 regular season on Minnesota’s practice squad and turned down an offer to return. Their 2024 starter, Sam Darnold, is also having an MVP-like season with the Seattle Seahawks after the Vikings declined to use the franchise tag to retain him during the offseason. It has also been impossible to ignore Aaron Rodgers‘ resurgent season with the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he signed after the Vikings passed on his services.

There is nothing the Vikings can do now about those judgments. They believed they had a strong enough team around McCarthy to support his development in real time. At 3-4, the Vikings might have overestimated the quality of their roster. But they are still poised to generate a much larger sample size on McCarthy’s aptitude as the season winds down. If he can’t stay healthy, Brosmer will merit the next look.

A person with knowledge of the Vikings’ thinking half-joked that O’Connell left Wentz in last Thursday’s game because Brosmer — who had a strong training camp and preseason — might prove a better short-term option than McCarthy. With Wentz done for the season, now is the time to find out who — if anyone — the Vikings can move forward with at quarterback.