Kevin O’Connell Talks Emergency QB Add
Kevin O’Connell understands better than most how QB injury (or, at times, injuries) can undermine a season. So, there’s been a lot of effort to ensure 2026 doesn’t unravel due to players getting hurt at the most important position.
At rookie minicamp on Friday, Coach O’Connell chatted with the media. The conversation shifted to Cooper Rush, the veteran depth quarterback who got brought to town to spin the pigskin. Opting for a veteran helps with the practices while allowing the coaching staff to become familiar with the overqualified rookie minicamp quarterback.
Per O’Connell, that’s part of the point. “As I told Cooper,” the head coach said, “it’s almost like a free agent visit.” The skipper went on: “He gets to know us, we get to know him. He’s played a lot of football over the years in the National Football League.”
Best of all, per O’Connell, is that Rush gets a chance to be the emergency quarterback if that need arises in the future: “I think it can open up that world to him of if there’s an opportunity in the future, he can make that a really positive situation for himself and become our first phone call.”
Kevin O’Connell, Cooper Rush, & Passer Peril
Assume Rush doesn’t sign in Minnesota. If that remains the case, then the Vikings will boast the current QB hierarchy:
- QB1 Kyler Murray
- QB2 J.J. McCarthy
- QB3 Carson Wentz
- QB4 Max Brosmer
Of those four options, three missed time in 2025 due to injury: Murray, McCarthy, and Wentz. In fairness, there was no shortage of speculation about Arizona opting for a tank commander at quarterback — a lesser option to drive down the record to land a higher pick — but that’s beyond my capacity to discern. Maybe Murray was seriously hurt, so injured that he could only get into the five games he played.
Bringing things closer to home means mentioning the McCarthy and Wentz injury troubles.
For McCarthy, the accumulation of three more injuries has created ample concern about being rugged enough to last in the NFL as a starter.
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Gone was his rookie season due to a knee injury, the most serious health problem so far (and hopefully the worst he’ll ever have in his football career). As a sophomore, McCarthy missed even more time due to an ankle sprain, a concussion, and wrist problem. Even saying that McCarthy played in ten games last year is a touch deceptive since he didn’t play the entirety of those games due to health.
And then there was Carson Wentz, the QB who demonstrated an unusual degree of grit and resilience from within a sport where those things tend to get taken for granted. The veteran was playing even though he shouldn’t have been, working through the pain in an effort to give the team a shot while allowing Max Brosmer — an undrafted rookie — to not get fed to the wolves.
Boasting Wentz as the QB3 is a fantastic luxury for the team. The word “tough” doesn’t adequately describe what the veteran did last year in those games.
In short, Kevin O’Connell has already seen quite a lot via quarterback injury (especially if we remember Kirk Cousins, Nick Mullens, and Jaren Hall all getting hurt in 2023). Not only has the response been to beef up the in-house quarterback options but to establish a good line of communication with an external depth option should a need arise.
In a comical moment, Kevin O’Connell did note that bringing in such an accomplished veteran to rookie minicamp was odd, leading to the comment about hoping that Rush didn’t feel insulted: “You’re hoping you don’t get the phone hung up on ya.” Rush, to his credit, decided to jump into the mix at TCO Performance Center.
In football — and life more broadly, for that matter — there’s wisdom in hoping for the best but planning for the worst. The lessons learned in a couple of recent seasons has prompted Kevin O’Connell to keep a veteran passer on speed dial in case the infirmary haunts the franchise yet again.
