A short but meaningful game-winning drive for Wentz
PHILADELPHIA » As Carson Wentz trotted onto the field with 13 seconds left Sunday against the New York Giants, he did so with at least one calming thought.
At least, he understood, it wasn’t 2016.
“A year ago, we were always coming up just one play short,” Wentz said. “One play here. Or one play there.”
While he had a fine rookie season, Wentz was something less than the master of the fourth-quarter, game-winning drive. Three games into his second season, he showed in a 2724 victory Sunday that it could be different this time.
With just enough time to run two plays and arrange a field goal attempt from an unlikely distance, Wentz did what the classic quarterbacks do. He produced. Though his first pass attempt was incomplete in the direction of Wendell Smallwood, he next was necessarily precise. In exactly the form the Birds had practiced it as recently as Saturday, Wentz caught Alshon Jeffery in stride inches from the sideline. That allowed Jeffery to step out of bounds with 0:01 taunting on the Linc scoreboard.
One play later, Jake Elliott would kick a 61-yard field goal, the Eagles would win, and Wentz would have a fresh entry in the fourth-quarter-comeback ledger, the kind they regularly audit in Canton, Ohio.
“Coach (Doug Pederson) made a great play call that we’ve worked on a lot,” Wentz said. “Honestly, they had pretty decent coverage, but sometimes with a guy like Alshon, you just have to give him a chance in that type of situation. He made a great play and we knew Jake had great range, but you never really think 61-yarders are doable. He drained it. Hats off to the kid.”
Elliott was carried off the field aboard the shoulder pads of Mychal Kendricks and Kamu Grugier-Hill. But considering unwritten NFL rules, Wentz was the bigger winner. Quarterbacks must lead gamewinning drives. So, he did.
“To fight until the end, have that comeback, put that drive together and kick that gamewinning field goal, that was huge for us,” Wentz said. “It shows growth and something we can definitely build on.”
Unlike the other professional teams on the block, the Eagles are not in building mode. But they made enough of a commitment to Wentz that they owed it to themselves to allow him a few years to breathe. And modest as the three-play, 19yard game-winning drive was Sunday, it was a vital plank in the quarterback’s professional foundation.
“I saw they fell off Torrey (Smith),” Jeffery said. “Torrey did a great job of running a route. And (Wentz) made a heck of a throw.”
Wentz produced a mild stat line of 176 passing yards on 21of-31 efficiency, with one touchdown pass and no completion longer than 19 yards. He was sacked three times. But he led a game-winning drive. Given a chance earlier in the quarter, Eli Manning, he of the 366 yards and three touchdown passes, failed.
“Last year, we didn’t have a lot of wins in adverse situations like we faced today,” Zach Ertz said. “When you have a guy like (Jeffery) who is able to make a tough catch like that, it definitely helps. We weren’t perfect today. But I think it showed a lot about our resilience and overcoming adverse situations.”