After Minnesota decided to go all-in on J.J. McCarthy, and Aaron Rodgers finally signed a one-year deal with Pittsburgh, it appeared Sunday’s game between the Vikings and Steelers was set for high drama — as in more than just who wins or loses the game.

Afterward, it seemed, there would be a referendum on whether Minnesota’s brain trust made the right choice in passing on Rodgers. While no quarterback matchup is truly a head-to-head contest, it would at least allow fans give it the old eye test.

Instead, Sunday morning’s game in Dublin will present Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell and general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah with the only head-to-head comparison that really matters right now: McCarthy vs. Carson Wentz.

Sidelined by a high-ankle sprain suffered in a 22-6 loss to Atlanta Week 2, McCarthy has been temporarily supplanted by Wentz, an 11-year pro who took over the offense and looked terrific in a 48-10 victory over Cincinnati last week at U.S. Bank Stadium.

O’Connell declined to answer a question Wednesday about whether McCarthy will automatically regain the starting job when he is healthy, because he’s not an idiot. Wentz didn’t look like Dan Fouts last Sunday, but he was just plain good, an accurate passer who looked absolutely at home in this offense despite not having a training camp to prepare.

After one game, O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah have to be wondering if Wentz, 32, can be this year’s Sam Darnold, who joined the team on a one-year deal last year and led the Vikings to a 14-2 record before the team was just outclassed by Detroit and, in the playoffs, the Los Angeles Rams.

The coach and GM have a decision to make, and Wentz can make it easier — if not definitive — by running the point in another victory Sunday. He doesn’t have to throw for 300 yards and three touchdowns, just use his experience to keep the chains moving. Mostly, he needs to show he won’t be rattled; that’s the biggest advantage Wentz has over McCarthy.

McCarthy, 22, had an admirable NFL debut, rallying the Vikings to beat the Bears in a Monday Night game in Chicago. There are a lot of reasons to believe he can be an excellent pro quarterback — from his size and arm strength to what we saw of his competitive spirit at Soldier Field. But there is no getting around the fact that he looked lost against the Falcons.

If the Vikings are serious about trying to win a Super Bowl — and with this defense and backfield, they should be — they need to be able to rely on their quarterback to make the right plays when required.

That’s an awful lot to ask of a quarterback playing his first NFL season, especially someone who hadn’t seen defenders in his face since he led Michigan past Washington in the 2024 NCAA championship game. McCarthy apparently has a beautiful mind, but when there are 11 guys suddenly stepping into gaps and running at you with malice in their eyes, well, it takes some getting used to.

Aaron Rodgers #8 of the Pittsburgh Steelers is sacked by Milton Williams #97 of the New England Patriots during the first half at Gillette Stadium on Sept. 21, 2025 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jaiden Tripi/Getty Images)

O’Connell knows this first-hand, as a player and a coach, which is why some of us were surprised when he told his friend Rodgers that the Vikings felt strongly that McCarthy was the answer. He was bound to run into challenges, though to be fair, with the regular-season opener on the doorstep, they traded backup Sam Howell to Philadelphia and signed idled free agent Wentz.

This game is no longer about Rodgers, it’s about Wentz.

O’Connell, a celebrated quarterback whisperer, righted Darnold’s floundering career. Can he help Wentz, the No. 2 pick in the 2016 draft, win the Super Bowl stolen from him by a late knee injury in 2019?

That’s what matters now. Rodgers has a rare chance to show a team, and a friend, on the other sideline that they made a mistake by not accepting his help. But if Wentz can do it again on Sunday, the storyline in Minnesota will be quarterback controversy.

That’s generally a problem for any football team, but for the Vikings, it would be a good problem to have.

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By JAKE OFFENHARTZ

NEW YORK (AP) — The former high school football player who killed four people inside a Manhattan office tower that houses the headquarters of the NFL, and who blamed the league for hiding the dangers of brain injuries, was suffering from the degenerative brain disease CTE, New York’s medical examiner said Friday.

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Shane Tamura, 27, had “unambiguous diagnostic evidence” of low-stage chronic traumatic encephalopathy, commonly known as CTE, according to the New York City medical examiner.

Tamura, a Las Vegas casino worker, shot himself in the chest after spraying bullets into the Manhattan office building on July 28, killing four people, including a police officer, a security guard and two people who worked at companies in the building.

He had traveled across the country intending to target the NFL office, officials said, but took the wrong elevator.

Among the dead were a police officer, a security guard and two people who worked at companies in the building. An NFL employee was badly wounded but survived.

In a three-page note found in his wallet, Tamura said he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy — diagnosable only after death — and implored those who found him: “Study my brain.”

FILE – This undated image provided by Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles shows Shane Tamura. (Nevada Dept. of Motor Vehicles via AP, File)

Among his grievances against the NFL was a claim that the league put its profits ahead of player safety by concealing the harm CTE, and football, can cause.

“There is no justification for the horrific and senseless acts that took place,” an NFL spokesperson said in response to the findings. “As the medical examiner notes ‘the science around this condition continues to evolve, and the physical and mental manifestations of CTE remain under study.’”

The disease affects regions of the brain involved with regulating behavior and emotions. It has been linked to concussions and other head trauma associated with contact sports, with evidence of the disease found in both professional and high school athletes.

After more than a decade of denial, the NFL conceded the link between football and CTE in 2016 testimony before Congress, and has so far paid more than $1.4 billion to retired players to settle concussion-related claims.

Tamura played high school football in California a decade ago but never played in the NFL.

Police have said Tamura had a history of mental illness. In September 2023, he was arrested on a misdemeanor trespassing charge after allegedly being told to leave a suburban Las Vegas casino and becoming agitated at being asked for his ID. Prosecutors later dismissed the case.

It was perhaps the most dramatic moment of the 2025 playoffs for Minnesota Wild fans.

With the best-of-seven series versus Vegas tied and two games each, and Game 5 tied 3-3 in the waning minutes of regulation, Ryan Hartman went hard to the Vegas net. With just 75 seconds left in the game, the puck went in. The red light went on, and with a smile his face, Hartman looked at the Wild bench and strutted to the corner of T-Mobile Arena, as the rink went mostly silent.

In that moment, the Wild were barely a minute away from heading back to St. Paul with a 3-2 lead in the series, needing a home win to reach the second round of the playoffs for the first time in a decade.

But just a minute or so later, the Golden Knights fans were roaring again. The play that led to Hartman’s goal was reviewed, and the video showed that Gustav Nyquist had entered the offensive zone with a skate roughly an inch over the blue line and ahead of the puck.

The goal came off the scoreboard. The game went to overtime. Vegas scored and took a 3-2 series lead back to Minnesota. The Knights would close out the series two days later.

Once again, Minnesotans were left wondering what might have been. And those Wild fans who spent the summer fixated on that one play were not alone.

“That goal stuck in my head along with a lot of other people. Obviously, hard,” Hartman said after a training camp practice at TRIA Rink. “But that’s hockey. There’s plays in every series where you wish you could have a goal back. Even if I score, we still have to win the hockey game. So, we move past that.”

For Hartman, who turned 31 in September, the last month of the 2024-25 season and the playoffs were about moving on, emphatically, from injuries and a suspension that had him shelved for eight games in February.

Just as he doesn’t dwell on the goal that was disallowed, Hartman has moved past the disciplinary action handed down by the NHL, and the play in Ottawa that led to it.

“It was a one play, you know? It’s not like I was going around cheap-shotting everyone. It was an unfortunate play that ended up in a suspension that I learned from and moved on,” said Hartman, who posted 11 goals and 15 assists in 69 regular-season games. “I’m still going to play the same way and play up to the line and not cross over. But for me to be my best, I’ve got to be engaged. physically and emotionally. That’s when I do my best.”

In the past, the Chicago native has spent much of the summer back in the Windy City. But after he and wife Lauren welcomed a daughter 13 months ago, they limited their Illinois time in 2025, coming back to Minnesota Aug. 1 to get settled in for training camp and his 12th NHL campaign.

“It’s a little different,” he said. “We used to be able to just kind of show up and get right into camp. Having a baby, it was nice to kind of get settled and get back on a routine before things started.”

The message from general manager Bill Guerin and Wild coaches when Hartman returned to the lineup in early March was that the second chances were gone. Hartman was fine playing up to the edge, but he and the team could no longer afford to go over it. For the regular season’s last two dozen games or so, that’s the player they got.

After returning from the suspension, Hartman played some effective hockey down the stretch, and after resisting the Knights’ attempts to goad him into penalties early in their series, averaged a point per game in the playoffs. Wild coaches expect more of the same from him this season, which begins with the season opener against Columbus on Oct. 11.

“It’s no mystery that if he plays with the intensity level and the discipline and the details he played with in the playoffs, he’s going to be a major impact for our team,” Wild coach John Hynes said.

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After getting as much sleep as possible on an overnight transatlantic flight, the Vikings landed in Dublin and headed straight to practice.

The goal was to minimize jet lag as much as possible.

This is how the Vikings have typically handled international games under head coach Kevin O’Connell. They believe the best way to maximize performance in the short term is to avoid acclimating to the time change.

That won’t be an option on this 10-day trip across the pond.

After playing the Pittsburgh Steelers at Croke Park in Dublin this weekend, the Vikings play the Cleveland Browns at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London next weekend. It’s the first time in NFL history that a team will play consecutive international games in different countries.

“If this was me booking travel and bringing the orange slices after the game, I would not be this confident in our ability to go handle these trips,” O’Connell said with a laugh this week. “We’ve got unbelievable people at every layer that go into the planning.”

The anecdotal evidence already exists, as the Vikings have never lost an International game.

The resources put into this trip, in particular, from the top down are what gives the Vikings confidence they were the right team to take on this unprecedented feat. The attention to detail was on display last month, when different members of the organizations met with reporters to talk about the trip.

“I know each and every decision that’s being made is made out of the best interest of our players,” O’Connell said. “My confidence level that we’re going to come out of this saying, not only can it be done, it can be done the right way, is due to these folks next to me.”

Here is a deep dive into everything that went into getting ready to travel to Dublin and London:

Travel

Nobody thinks about passports more than director of team operations Paul Martin. As the person in charge of essentially everything related to travel, he’s been tracking them down ever since he got wind that this trip might be a possibility.

“The people in this building are probably a little sick of it because we do hound them constantly,” Martin said. “We are looking for these basically from the time the draft is over.”

Though every team handles passports differently when it comes to the international game, Martin has found that collecting them and storing them in a case under lock and key is the best way to go about it.

“We have done it since our first trip,” Martin said. “It’s really nice peace of mind to know that we’ve got them in hand and the dog didn’t eat it the night before.”

When he hasn’t been thinking about passports, Martin has been thinking about, well, everything else that goes into this trip from a logistical standpoint.

This is the first time the NFL has played an international game in Dublin. After the schedule was released in May, a large group of staff members from the Vikings went over in June to get a lay of the land.

“It wasn’t early enough,” Martin said. “Honestly, for me, I would’ve liked to go the day after this was announced.”

Some of the stops included the Dublin Airport (where the team would land), Irish Rugby Football Union High Performance Centre (where the team would practice), The Shelbourne (where the team would stay), Croke Park (where the team would play), and a couple of pubs to get immersed in the culture.

Luckily for the Vikings, they are quite familiar with London, having played there a number of times in the past. That familiarity should ease some of the stress once they get to that portion of the trip.

That the Vikings were selected as the guinea pigs for a trip like this hasn’t gone unnoticed across the NFL. It’s sparked some friendly ribbing from other teams. The common refrain was everybody saying they got screwed.

That’s not how the Vikings view it.

“You will not hear anything negative coming from us,” Martin said. “This is a positive.”

Equipment

The stress of an international game isn’t anything new for director of equipment services Mike Parson. He’s done it twice in London and once in Mexico City, using everything he’s learned on those trips as a compass for this trip.

“It’s a huge logistical undertaking,” Parson said. “We’re taking the whole operation and moving it overseas and trying to make it so the players and coaches don’t really feel it.”

It’s much more involved than helmets and shoulder pads.

In his role, Parson had to figure out everything each department needed for the trip, then he had to find a way to transport it to Dublin and London without a hitch. As a part of the process, he had to put together an international travel document for customs that listed everything the Vikings were taking with them.

There were also a bunch of supplies sent via a cargo ship on June 30 as a way to lessen the load on the actual departure date. Some of it arrived in Dublin last week, while the rest continued on to London. There will be a ferry from Dublin to London this week, too, that takes items the Vikings need in both locations.

Other stuff Parson has to account for is equipment needed for practices and games, medical devices used for recovery, food and beverage, as well as luggage for all 195 people in the traveling party.

“It consumes our life until the trip is over,” Parson said. “There are plenty of mornings or nights when I wake up and I think of Dublin.”

Not that he ever thought about backing down.

“It was a challenge that we all wanted to take on,” Parson said. “Especially to be the first team to be able to do it.”

Health

In a perfect world for vice president of player health and performance Tyler Williams, he would be able to control the circadian rhythm of everybody on the team. He knows that’s impossible, so he enlisted the help of melatonin to help people fall asleep and caffeine to help people stay awake.

That will be key as the Vikings adjust to the time change in Dublin and London. If everything goes according to plan over the next 10 days, the Vikings will be at their peak against the Steelers and the Browns.

“We want these players to be the best versions of themselves when they hit the field,” Williams said. “We really just stuck to our fundamental principles and said, ‘What allows us to peak on game day when we travel?”

As much as he’s invested in the sleep schedules of everybody on the team, Williams is most concerned with preparing for the worst. If a player needs care in Dublin or London at any point, Williams has to be able to responded without hesitation.

That was on display a few years ago, when former safety Lewis Cine suffered a gruesome leg injury in London. As he reflected on that experience, Williams noted Cine was transported to a local hospital and having surgery within 45 minutes.

“You always worry about that,” Williams said. “That’s why we go through those emergency action plans.”

The hope for the Vikings is they won’t have to deal with anything close to that over the next 10 days. The amount of preparation that everybody involved has been put in, however, speaks to how seriously they’re taking every part of this trip.

“I feel like what makes this advantageous to take this on as the Vikings are the people,” Williams said. “I wouldn’t want any other organization to take this on other than us.”

Nutrition

Perhaps the most important part for head performance dietician Ben Hawkins as he was planning meals for this trip was making sure the players had the proper condiments. That meant sending pallets of ranch dressing and barbecue sauce well in advance.

“Ultimately, our goal is to give the players the best home away from home,” Hawkins said. “We’re thinking about everything that can’t be sourced over there that they’re accustomed to having here.”

As soon the Vikings landed in Dublin, Hawkins had a barista-style espresso station waiting upon arrival, as well as an individualized hydration plan for each player. He also has some food trucks set up in London, courtesy of the Vikings, offering everything from wings to fish and chips.

In total, Hawkins estimated that the Vikings will serve more than 7,000 meals across Dublin and London, sticking to some of the staples that players are used to while also leaning into some of the local cuisine.

“It’s about comfort,” Hawkins said. “If the players can walk into the meal room in Dublin or in London and it feels more like home, then they can focus entirely on football.”

Marketing

As amped as the Vikings are for the games, director of international market Keisha Wyatt might be even more excited about the opportunity off the field. The trip to Dublin and London is a chance for the Vikings to continue to grow their brand.

There are various fan activations already planned by the Vikings, including J.R. Mahon’s Public House & Brewery serving as the official team pub in Dublin, and Redwood serving as the official team pub in London.

There are a number of player appearances planned, including legendary defensive tackle John Randle and fan favorite tight end Kyle Rudolph in Dublin, as well as legendary receiver Cris Carter in London.

The reach of the Vikings will also extend beyond the city limits in London, as they have purchased billboards across the country in in Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, New Castle and even Edinburgh.

As for the actual games, Wyatt said the Vikings are hoping that their fans can make up 40 percent of Croke Park, and they’re hoping that number can jump and their fans can make up 60 percent of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

“We have fans coming from across the world to see our team,” Wyatt said. “That is a massive win for the organization.”

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