Pederson in denial about Wentz retreat

Doug Pederson was once the Eagles’ starting quarterback, then mangled the opportunity and was replaced by Donovan McNabb.

Chip Kelly was once the Eagles’ coach, then mangled the opportunity, and eventually was replaced by Doug Pederson.

It’s how football works, how sports work, how Pederson should be working with six games left in an Eagles’ season turned sour. Players are replaced or coaches are replaced, and often in that order. There are no tenured positions, union-contract cut-outs or assumptions of royal privilege. Perform, and be rewarded. Mangle the chance, and go over there.

Pederson knows that, has lived that, and at one point during a 22-17 loss Sunday in Cleveland seemed to grasp that, benching future Hall of Famer Jason Peters in favor of Jordan Mailata, even though he would later claim it was due to some mild injury. Yet even with that knowledge, so much of it deeply personal, Pederson will not, under any non-injury circumstance, remove Carson Wentz as his starting quar

terback.

“No questions about it,” Pederson said, as the Eagles dipped to 3-6-1. “He’s our starter.”

Wentz is the Eagles’ starter, and Pederson is in charge of making that choice. But in a season that continues to disintegrate, his apparent belief that “starting quarterback” is a lifetime appointment has gone from curious to confounding.

Already with 21 turnovers on his debit sheet heading into Week 11, Wentz threw two more interceptions Sunday. The first, Sione Takitaki would returned 50 yards for a touchdown. The second would puncture a fourthquarter drive when the Eagles still had a path to victory. In between, he had himself caught in the end zone for a safety, one of five sacks that ran his season total to 40.

Of Wentz’s 14 incomplete passes, at least three might have been intercepted had not the game been played in a rain shower. He did toss a couple of touchdown passes, including one to Dallas Goedert with 30 seconds left that drew the Eagles within a recovered on-side kick of what would have been a clumsy Cleveland collapse. But for most of the game, Wentz was timid, inaccurate, under pressure and leaking any sign of the confidence that made him an MVP candidate as recently as 2017.

So, go ahead: Try to win with a timid, inaccurate quarterback displaying a severe confidence drain. See how that works. As for Sunday, it worked only to shave the Eagles’ lead in the NFC East. With that, Wentz was dragged into what officially has become a quarterback controversy, even tossing out the ceremonial first high-and-tight pitch at the press.

“First of all, the media, you guys can ask any questions you want,” Wentz said. “I know that’s part of the deal. I know that it’s always a scrutinized position, playing quarterback, and that’s what I signed up for when I went out to play quarterback going back to high school. So I can take it. It is where it is.

“Are we playing as good as we can as a team? No. Am I playing my best football? No. You know there are some circumstances out there today. We left some plays out on the field. We’ll be critical. We’ll go back and watch the tape.

“At the end of the day, it is what it is. You guys can ask whatever questions you want and bring up whatever you want. And for me, I’m just going to put my head down and go to work.”

That would be helpful to the Eagles, but it would have been helpful six weeks ago, too, when Wentz first started promising to improve. Yet in a game when the Eagles were only slight underdogs and had a chance to win, the quarterback was pick-sixed and was nabbed for a safety. The iswhat-it-is defense is useful in some sports situations, but NFL quarterbacking is not one, not when a club commits five draft choices and $128,000,000 to the one that is in slippery, mid-career decline.

For one of the few times Sunday, Wentz was asked about the concussion that ended his season early in the Eagles’ only playoff game last season, and about his many career injuries, including a chronic situation with his achy back. If that’s why Wentz has not been himself this season, then the head coach has to adjust.

Int erest ingly, Wentz didn’t violently dismiss the discussion.

“Football is football,” the quarterback said. “Injuries happen. They’re out of your control. Getting hit in the back of the head was an unfortunate part of the game. That stuff happens. I’m not going to change. I am going to give it my all. And I am going to keep learning as I am going.”

He’s a fifth-year quarterback on a max contract, and every week he is the second best quarterback on the field, not including games started by Ben DiNucci. Jalen Hurts is a rookie, a second-round pick, and apparently not ready for what is still an NFC East pennant race.

It’s almost as if the man never saw a backup quarterback succeed around there. Yet as long as the quarterback will be permitted to “keep learning,” why not allow a rookie to gain that education? The results cannot be much worse, even if the next challenge is next Monday at home against Seattle, which will precede games against New Orleans and Arizona and division tests against Dallas and Washington to end the odd season.

“This will be a great test for our football team,” Pederson said, “and to see who’s in and who’s out.”

Not to mention who will not go anywhere, no matter what happens.