Wentz is scrambling in a QB generation gap
In one NFL showcase game Sunday night,
36-year-old Aaron Rodgers and 41-year-old Drew Brees threw for three touchdowns apiece.
In another NFL showcase game Monday night,
25-year-old Patrick Mahomes threw for four touchdowns, outplaying the reigning MVP, 23-year-old Lamar Jackson.
In between, Carson Wentz, 27, was flat, turnover-prone and unable to defeat the Cincinnati Bengals and 23-year-old quarterback Joe Burrow.
Any 48-hour pro-football screen-grab can be manipulated into fake news. Throw enough highlights together and it would be possible to propagandize Bobby Hoying as a Hall of Fame lock. But there is just something about the organic evolution of the superstar NFL quarterbacks and how that is being played out this year that should leave the Eagles and their fans feeling claustrophobic.
They are all being squeezed.
Five years into Wentz’s career, he has yet to catch and pass the great quarterbacks of the previous wave. And five years into Wentz’s career, he already is being caught and passed by the quarterbacks of the next one. At least that has been the reality of a strange 2020 season and the Eagles’ 0-2-1 start. Once assumed to be headed to the top of his profession, Wentz is, at best, stuck in the middle. That is, unless he is plummeting. And his 63.9 quarterback rating in three games, two at home, is pretty low. Technically, it’s very low. It’s last in the NFL, to tell the truth.
Three games make for an insufficient sample space. Wentz is playing behind an offensive line that never had a chance, then was made worse through injury and age. Two overcompensated receivers, Alshon Jeffery and DeSean Jackson, chronically are unavailable. Would-be go-to pass-catchers Jalen Reagor and Dallas Goedert are injured. And the quarterback didn’t lose the game last week. Indeed, his impressive late drive and touchdown did force the overtime before a 23-23 tie.
But the Carson Wentz story has never been about one game, or three, or one weekend, or even one year. The story is that the Eagles once traded two first-round picks, a second, a third and a fourth for his rights. That’s not a price. That’s a ransom. For that to be justified, Wentz would be required to reach the top of his profession and quickly. Yet not only has he failed to surpass Rodgers, Brees and Tom Brady, and not only is he being pinched by Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Burrow, but he has become just another pretty good member of his general quarterback generation. Two weeks ago, he was roundly outplayed by Jared Goff, 25, the No. 1 overall pick in the draft where Wentz went No. 2. And while any game-togame results could massage the popular preference, he is no better than his high-profile contemporaries, the Dak Prescotts, the Russell Wilsons, the Cam Newtons. Or dare anyone bring it up, the Nick Foleseseseses.
Ah. Maybe it will improve.
“My confidence level is extremely high, and it hasn’t changed,” Doug Pederson said. “I just know who Carson is. I know the type of worker he is. I know how he approaches the game,
prepares each week.
“He and I are in this thing together. I want to put the ball in his hands.
It’s a great opportunity for us when the ball is in Carson Wentz’s hands because anything and everything can happen.”
Pederson put the ball in Wentz’s hands in 2017 and an MVP candidacy ensued. If it didn’t, the Eagles would still be looking to win their first Super Bowl, even if Wentz was hurt and didn’t play that time when they did. So Pederson will not flinch because Matt Pryor did exactly that Sunday, costing Jake Elliott the opportunity to kick a gamewinning field goal.
“I can’t speak for the outside world,” Pederson said. “I guess I can sort of visualize, ‘OK, your quarterback doesn’t play well, so
let’s speculate that the confidence has got to be low.’ I mean, that’s fine. That’s a visual thing. But I just know who Carson is. I just know the guys around him. I know this team. They’re excited about this week to get back out on the practice field and prepare for San Francisco.”
Pederson has an alternative in Jalen Hurts, the second-round pick, a potential NFL star. It may get to that. But the Eagles didn’t give Wentz a $128,000,000 contract just so they could phone the bullpen as soon as he started leaving his breaking pitches up. As he should have, Pederson made that clear. For this week, and for plenty of weeks after, the 2020 Eagles will trust Wentz to help pull them back into contention. That, Wentz did last year, willing them to a divi
sion championship with his late-season excellence.
“We’ve faced adversity in some way, shape or form every year,” Wentz said Wednesday, before practice. “Whether it’s a slow start, whether it’s injuries, there are just different forms of adversity that you learn from. It makes you stronger. It makes you better. So it’s no different right now.”
It’s a little too familiar, actually. The Eagles stumble, sort of recover, make the playoffs, lose, and try it again. For that, there are 10,000 reasons. Wentz is only one. But he is closer to 30 than he is to age 25. And any click of the TV remote will reveal that the NFL is not waiting around for him to become the face of his position.