The inevitable finally happened in Sunday’s 30-16 loss to the Green Bay Packers: Carson Wentz was officially benched. And not just for a play of Jalen Hurts subbing in to run a predictable RPO keeper up the middle for two yards. This was a full-fledged, classic talk radio special benching with Hurts playing a full series and then staying in to complete the game.
As many expected, Hurts injected life into an Eagles team that had no blood coursing through its dying veins. On just his third play (and first pass) of the game, Hurts unloaded a beautiful 34-yard deep ball to Jalen Reagor. Believe it or not, this was the longest completion the Eagles have had to a wide receiver since Week 8.
Hurts was better than Wentz in every facet of the game – seeing the field, finding the open receivers, evading pressure, running for first downs, and most importantly, putting points on the board. It was against a mainly prevent defense that had never seen Hurts in action before, but still, you can only play who you play.
As expected, Doug Pederson said after the game that he needs time to watch the film before anointing a starter for next week against New Orleans, but can he really go back to Wentz after the spark Hurts provided?
If this is it for Wentz, what’s next? He’s on the books for $34.7 million in 2021, which balloons to $59.2 million if he’s released (not happening) or drops slightly to $33.8 million if he’s traded. Even trading him would ensure the Eagles set the dubious NFL record of single-season cap hit in league history for a player not currently on their roster.
It’s really an unprecedented situation and not one the Eagles were clearly prepared to deal with. It’s logical that GM Howie Roseman had a long-term successor plan in mind when he drafted Jalen Hurts, and maybe he thought the draft pick would inspire Wentz to have the kind of year Aaron Rodgers is having in Green Bay with Jordan Love on the bench.
Whatever Roseman’s plan was, it clearly backfired. As a result, it’s possible that the Eagles are looking at any of a new head coach, general manager, and quarterback in 2021. And if he really is done, Wentz will certainly leave behind a complicated legacy.
He was a 16-game starter as a rookie, showing from Week 1 against Cleveland that he was a star in the making. By year two, he was arguably the most valuable player in the NFL, leading the Eagles to an 11-2 record before tearing his ACL against the Los Angeles Rams and then watching Nick Foles win the Super Bowl. If you thought Wentz was a future 15-year starter for the Eagles, you had every right to feel that way.
From the ACL injury, it’s been a roller coaster for Wentz. He’s dealt with untimely and flat out unlucky injuries, the loss of a pivotal offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, a slew of poor draft picks from upper management, and very erratic play. He was the only starting quarterback ever to miss his team’s postseason in two straight years, and then it essentially happened a third year when a cheap helmet-to-helmet hit concussed him in last year’s NFC Wild Card game.
Was it the culmination of the ACL, the broken back, and the concussion that led to Wentz’s poor play this year? Was it the frustration of watching his backup win a Super Bowl and then seeing the organization draft another highly-touted quarterback in the second year? Or was it stagnation from head coach Doug Pederson, whose vanilla offense in 2020 at times seems as if it wouldn’t lead to points with Patrick Mahomes under center?
Truthfully, we’ll never really know. Wentz could still get it turned around. Donovan McNabb responded to his own benching in 2008 by taking the Eagles all the way to the NFC Championship Game. Maybe Wentz regains his starting job next week, the Eagles sneak into the playoffs as a 6-9-1 division winner, and Wentz puts up his best performance yet in the playoffs. That would go a long way in winning back the city, the coaches, and his fellow teammates.
And maybe he never starts for the Eagles again. Indianapolis is the logical offseason destination for Wentz, given that Frank Reich (Wentz’s 2017 offensive coordinator) is their head coach and they’ll have a void at quarterback if they don’t re-sign 39-year-old Philip Rivers. If Reich and Colts’ GM Chris Ballard ship a second-round pick to the Eagles believing that they can salvage Wentz, the Eagles will then turn to Hurts going forward.
As Eagles fans, we’ll always have Wentz’s glorious 2017 season when he – and the whole Eagles team – rolled over nearly every opponent in sight. Wentz was a magician that year, throwing 33 touchdowns to just seven interceptions. He ducked out of sure sacks, turned Nelson Agholor into a legitimate playmaker, and made Top 10 highlight plays every week.
Wentz never reached the complete single-season heights of Randall Cunningham (a former league MVP), the postseason glories of Foles, or the long-term success of McNabb, a six-time Pro Bowler who started over a dozen playoff games with the team. It may get a Terrell Owens feel to it where the ceiling was Super Bowl-caliber, but for various reasons, it just didn’t work out.
Just five years as a starter isn’t what you expect from a No. 2 overall draft pick that reached such individual highs, but there’s plenty of blame to go around – from Roseman to Pederson to the offensive line to the supporting cast to even Wentz himself.
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