Critical preseason for Kessler, Sudfeld
PHILADELPHIA >> Three years ago Carson Wentz, Cody Kessler and Nate Sudfeld became acquainted at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis.
Now they bump into each other regularly on the field and in the Eagles’ quarterback room at the Nova-Care Complex in South Philly.
And yes, it’s kind of strange. The Eagles are the only team in the league with quarterbacks who came off the board on each day of the 2016 draft. Wentz was a first day selection, Kessler a second-day pick and Sudfeld a Day 3 choice. A creative Hollywood producer could do something with that script. Imagine the contrast
in flashback scenes from the draft.
“It was a long couple of days,” Sudfeld said. “I knew who Carson was. I knew who Cody was. It’s kind of a little fraternity, the quarterbacks. We were all at the combine. And I was at the Manning Passing Academy with Cody. It’s been cool going through that process with a lot of guys and seeing where everybody is now.”
Wentz is the guy for the Eagles, providing he stays whole. Do we need to remind anyone if he can’t get through a third straight season without a significant injury and that Super Bowl LII MVP Nick Foles is in Jacksonville?
That alone has livened up training camp, particularly the youngsters who think it’s useful to keep passing stats in spite of all the personnel variables at practices.
Truth be told, none of the quarterbacks has consistently killed it performance-wise at camp. And there’s nothing wrong with that considering the offseason additions of DeSean Jackson, rookies Miles Sanders and JJ Arcega-Whiteside, and even running back Jordan Howard. The atmosphere already is stale, the result of competing against the same players daily.
But it’s going to change significantly for the quarterbacks in a handful of days when the preseason begins Thursday against the Tennessee Titans at Lincoln Financial Field.
There’s no better way to evaluate players than in the heat of action, particularly with respect to quarterbacks, even if chunks of the game are with blocks of players who never will play in a real NFL game.
Assuming that Wentz makes only token appearances, and rookie fifthround pick Clayton Thorson
The preseason will determine whether Nate Sufeld, above, or Cody Kessler win the job as the backup quarterback to Carson Wentz.
gets the bulk of the duty in the preseason finale, the competition between Sudfeld and Kessler could get really interesting.
Kessler, a third-round pick of the Cleveland Browns out of USC, was the club’s only quarterback with a positive TD to interception ratio in his two years with the team. It proved too much for him to overcome as he was dealt to the Jacksonville Jaguars for a conditional seventh round pick prior to the 2018 season.
Last year Kessler quarterbacked a Jaguars squad that crashed and burned with only half the season in the books to a 2-2 record with two touchdowns and two interceptions. He has a dozen starts in his career compared to three games played by Sudfeld, who has one TD pass.
What the Eagles need to find out is how the Chase Daniel-sized Kessler (6-1, 215) functions in their offense in live action. The first week of camp, Kessler struggled. This past week he’s performed well. He’s putting the ball where it needs to be instead of right on the receivers. He has an escape route mapped out. Even the arm looks stronger than it did the previous week. It’s like the light has gone on.
“It’s really been clicking, I’m hitting some deeper balls, making some plays,” Kessler said. “It’s something I want to keep building off of but obviously coming up on the first preseason game you’ve got to make sure you’ve got everything down.”
Sudfeld, like Wentz, has had good days and not so good days. The 6-6, 227-pound product of Indiana has a stronger arm than Kessler and a familiarity with the offense that’s tough to gauge because of the wholesale practice changes from snap to snap. Sudfeld was pretty good in the preseason games last year, and teammates like Pro Bowl tight end Zach Ertz think he’s ready to take the next step.
Sudfeld echoed the object of camp, which is to experiment as well as work on the fundamentals.
“It’s only a bad decision if you don’t learn from it,” Sudfeld said. “Everybody wants to be perfect. I want to be 30 for 30 and 500 yards and 12 touchdowns every game. But that’s not the reality of it. You strive for that perfection and you try to be better than you were than the day before and make it process-based.”
Several teams carry just two quarterbacks. Wentz’s history suggests the Eagles again will roll with three. The rookie, Thorson, looked more comfortable in practice Friday but has been swamped by the transition from Northwestern to the NFC East.
The next three preseason games could decide whether the Birds try to stash Thorson on the practice squad and keep that 2016 quarterback draft class intact.