Nick Foles hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy
Part 2: Returning Too Quickly
After the Super Bowl was over there was one big question that was on everyone's mind, when was Carson Wentz going to be able to return from his injury? And when he did come back, how effective would he be? The obvious guess by the mainstream sports media was "of course this injury was bad, but Carson Wentz is so talented and he could do so much that it wouldn't matter." Of course you had nay sayers claiming that Nick Foles should be the Quarterback for the season until Wentz was completely healthy, but if he didn't come back during the season that was okay because the Eagles didn't have to win now, they had time to regroup.
I do not know what the true plan was, but what I do know is that Carson Wentz wouldn't have been able to start the season. After a tumultuous first two games where the Eagles barely beat the Falcons and then had a pretty big loss to the Buccaneers where Foles recorded 1 passing touchdown, 1 interception and 1 fumble, the fans pled for Doug Pederson to bench the Super Bowl MVP for who should have been the real MVP in Carson Wentz. I mean, we all saw him running around, throwing the ball and working on his footwork in practice, so surely he was ready. So because of pressure from the high ups in the organization or because of pressure from the fans, coach Doug Pederson decided to once again make Nick Foles the backup and have Carson Wentz play with a modicum amount of success where over his next 11 games would go 5-6 including a blowout win against the New York Giants and two fourth quarter choke jobs to the Tennessee Titans and the Carolina Panthers. A Panthers game where Carson Wentz was theorized to have aggravated a small fracture in his back that would affect him for the rest of the games that he played in.
Carson Wentz after a week 14 29-23 loss to the Cowboys
After a week 14's 29-23 overtime loss to the Dallas Cowboys, the Eagles would officially bench Carson Wentz with 3 more games left because of his back injury. The other reason of course was because the Eagles sat at 6-7 with the Vikings ahead of them vying for a wildcard spot and the Eagles playing the 2nd seeded L.A. Rams on Sunday Night Football and the at the time 2nd seed in the AFC Texans in week 16. All seemed to be lost until the Eagles pulled out the upset over the Rams in a 30-23 win where the Eagles defense confused Jared Goff and held Todd Gurley to under 50 total rushing yards and then pulled out a last second 32-30 victory over the Texans where Nick Foles threw for almost 450 yards and had 4 passing touchdowns. After shutting out the Redskins in week 17, the Eagles had done what everyone thought they never would do again, go to the playoffs and win a playoff game with a backup quarterback. The team played like a cohesive group and I believed that they were 1 dropped catch away from facing off with the Patriots again in Super Bowl 53. If that had happened, yup, Foles would be the starting Quarterback and Wentz would have gotten traded. However, that isn't what happened. The Eagles got eliminated and said goodbye to Nick Foles as he went to Jacksonville to be the starting quarterback there for a season.
Nick Foles during the Eagles 2018 playoff run
This was the second season where Carson Wentz got injured and Nick Foles had to essentially finish the job. At the end, he lamented the fact that he wasn't playing in the Super Bowl and had to watch from the sideline. He wanted all the glory and now he would have that chance with no heroic backup quarterbacks behind him to compete for his job and steal his thunder. Carson Wentz would sign a 4 year extension equalling to 128 million dollars or 32 million per year to be the Eagles franchise quarterback of the future. However, before this happened...
Part 3: Joseph Santoliquito, Josina Anderson and the Anonymous Sources
In late January of 2019 a bombshell dropped by a reporter named Joseph Santoliquito. The article detailed that Carson Wentz was egotistical, a bad teammate and most of all, a bully. It went into great detail about how Nick Foles was universally loved in the locker room, but Carson Wentz wasn't and he had the power to remove anyone from the equation that he didn't like or didn't bend to his will. Of course, this is all conjecture and a complete exaggeration. What made things worse was the fact that Eagles fans took this as an attack on their best friend. Carson Wentz had helped to bring the Eagles success and he seemed like a good person. Nobody in the fanbase could fathom that Carson Wentz could be a bad person. Unfortunately, Eagles fans didn't take too kindly to Joe bashing their dear quarterback, so they cyber bullied, harassed and disgraced his home and his mailbox. These were of course all wrong, however, one aspect of his article did reign true. What it said was that when former Offensive Coordinator Frank Reich was with the Eagles, he was able to challenge Carson Wentz, but after he left, Carson got kind of pig headed and thought that he could do anything he wanted and didn't have to take criticism by anyone. Carson Wentz would come out eventually and claim that he could have done better as a teammate but outright denied he had bullied anyone. This was the moment I feel Carson knew that the media will make up anything to attempt to destroy him.
Philly Beat Writer, Joseph Santoliquito
All during the season Eagles fans wondered who that anonymous source was that went to people like Santoliquito and ESPN's Josina Anderson, who became a villain in the city because people thought that she was sleeping with the leak. Some even blamed Alshon Jeffrey because of how the source complained about how Wentz threw to Ertz a lot. Some people later theorized that the leak was Nelson Agholor mostly as a red herring because of his awful 2019 season as he had a penchant to drop easy passes that went right into his hands. Whoever it was, the person was going around and saying that the offense was too complex and Carson Wentz should throw more check downs. The Eagles locker room was essentially leaking like it hit an iceberg and was sinking.
Eventually with a rag tag of backups and practice squad players, the Eagles were able to go from 5-7 to 9-7 and win the NFC East despite the fact that the organization was unable to stop their locker room and members of their organization from going to the media to complain about other teammates. Of course injury always loomed over Carson Wentz's head as he was going into his first playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks, a team he always struggled with. Well, during an early passing play, Carson Wentz would roll out, run up to the line of scrimmage, get tackled from behind and then got speared right in the head by dirty defensive end Jadeveon Clowney. Carson got a concussion and left for the rest of the game.
Carson Wentz getting concussed by Clowney in the playoffs.
Many people theorized that Carson Wentz wasn’t truly concussed, he just merely wished to not finish. Some even theorize that one of those people was General Manager Howie Roseman. In reality he didn’t even take himself out of the game. Rather, it was his backup Josh McCown who noticed that Wentz was nodding off on the bench. A source close to the training staff told me that Carson’s reaction to the concussion in the locker room was something they never experienced where he forgot what team the Eagles were playing as well as who his wife was. Sufficed to say that this concussion was real and happened through no fault of Carson’s, but it was the moment that the front office lost trust in him. The Eagles would lose this game 17-9 after the team had chances to score but failed 4th down conversions and lack of offensive fire power caused drives to derail. It truly was one of the most frustrating games I had ever watched and made Howie Roseman yearn for a Quarterback that could be competitive if Wentz got injured again.
Part 4 With the 53rd Overall Pick the Eagles Select...
Fast forward to the 2020 NFL draft. Sure the Eagles didn’t win a playoff game, but most people considered the 2019 season a success. Carson Wentz set a team record by being the first Eagles Quarterback to throw for 4,000 passing yards and was the only one to do it without a 500 yard wide receiver. Eagles fans hoped that the Eagles would go into the draft attempting to draft a premier group of players as the Eagles needed a cornerback, a few linebackers, a receiver and some depth on the offensive line.
After grabbing a receiver, Jalen Reagor from TCU, the Eagles could have selected Jeremy Chinn at the Safety position, but instead selected Jalen Hurts, the Heisman runner up Quarterback from Oklahoma. Speaking from experience, this pick made me boo and hit the bottle. Not that I didn’t think Jalen could be good, but in the second round? Second rounders are players you hope to start in the near future and already having a starting Quarterback that didn’t even receive his big money extension yet. I tried to talk myself into this pick, but no matter how I rationalized it, it continued to make zero sense.
Jalen Hurts, former Oklahoma Quarterback
“Could Carson be planning to retire after the concussion?” he just had a baby girl, so that might make sense. “Could Howie Roseman have lost faith in Carson?” Could be, but you paid him 128 million to play for you? How does a freak concussion in a playoff game change that? “Could the Eagles be attempting to run a two QB offense like the Saints do?” Yeah cause that totally worked with Michael Vick 10 years ago...
Then Howie Roseman said something that deserves to be in the Hall of Fame of dumb quotes. Something that should go right next to Vince Young’s “Dream Team.” Howie Roseman said that he wanted to make the Eagles a “quarterback factory”. This created a narrative that Howie Roseman might be drafting high round quarterbacks with the plan of flipping them for higher draft picks, which is freaking stupid.
Howie Roseman, the candyman!
Part 5: Carson Wentz from MVP to Disappointment
The 2020 season was horrible for multiple reasons. Doug Pederson couldn’t call plays or game manage. The offensive line suffered copious injuries that caused them to use 14 different line combinations, and for most of the first 13 weeks, Carson Wentz looked like he had never stepped foot on a football field. He had the most turnovers, threw for less than 3,000 passing yards, didn’t know when to throw the ball away and when he did throw the ball away, it was caught by the other team. A few times he would have guys wide open, but instead either ate a sack or would fumble the ball.
I think the moment I knew that the old Carson wasn’t coming back was in a Sunday Night Football game against the Ben DiNucci led Cowboys. The plan for this game was to not make mistakes, punt if you need to, throw safe passes and again, don’t make mistakes. Now the defense did their jobs only allowing 3 field goals, but Doug Pederson consistently put Carson Wentz in a bad place and when he was put in a good place, he fumbled and threw interceptions like he didn’t even care. The Eagles won 23-9, but this game felt more like a loss than a win and was a microcosm for what was to come.
Carson Wentz getting sacked by Leighton Vander Esch
Carson Wentz’s season came to a head in a week 13 game against the Green Bay Packers where the Quarterback completed way less than 50% of his passes, had 0 touchdowns and only led 1 drive that ended in points. Coach Doug Pederson then replaced Wentz for Jalen Hurts and this was a long time coming. Jalen seemed to be the anti Wentz. While Carson appeared to overthink himself, Hurts seemed calm and collected under pressure and even added the teams first touchdown of the game on a deep pass to Greg Ward on a 4th and 17. The Eagles would lose, but the team had trust in their rookie Quarterback as Carson Wentz wouldn’t start another game for the rest of the season.
The one picture that everyone saw at the end of the game was Aaron Rodgers speaking to Carson Wentz about something, we don’t know what. I joked that he was telling Carson to “get the f*** out of dodge.” More or less I think Carson felt betrayed by the organization. I think he felt as though he did enough to solidify himself after helping the team win the division in 2019 and he didn’t want to have to look over his back at a rookie quarterback who had the tenacity and drive to compete for the spot. I don’t necessarily think that you could call Carson Wentz a quitter because I don’t think he had a choice to come back in, it was made for him. However, a lot has to be said about his reaction to stiff competition. You look at Aaron Rodgers who had a similar thing happen and he helped the Packers get to a number 1 seed.
"Get the hell out of dodge" - Aaron Rodgers
Number 6: Carson Wentz is Speculated to be Upset
The fact of the matter is that Carson Wentz wasn’t speaking to anyone, Jalen Hurts put up some pretty good numbers for a rookie in his last 4 starts only winning 1 out of 4 games. A lot of people speculated that Carson Wentz would demand a trade and he was upset about what was going on in Philadelphia. Many members of the media and the fans called Carson Wentz a crybaby, but none of these things were confirmed. People were just connecting the dots despite the fact that Wentz was being a good soldier.
Jalen Hurts during the week 14 win against the Saints
Many speculated that Carson Wentz had a problem with Doug Pederson after it was speculated by the creative writer named Jeff McLane that Doug and Carson never spoke despite both saying they had a great relationship. Because of these thoughts, the fans figured that if Pederson was fired, Carson would be happy and stay. It wasn’t until after Doug was fired and Carson was still missing in action that it was then theorized that Carson wasn’t upset with Doug (ha doyyyy) he was upset with Howie Roseman for mismanaging his career.
Carson Wentz and Doug Pederson
Now again, I don’t know if this is true because the media has been far more miss than hit here, but even after the Eagles hired former Colts offensive coordinator Nick Sirianni, when the media asked questions about Carson, they were met with deflections. So the narrative continues with “the Eagles hired Sirianni to be their Frank Reich and had also hired Sirianni to help out Wentz and only Wentz.” This was in hindsight a silly theory because just 3 weeks later, Carson Wentz was traded to the Colts and Jalen Hurts, who had been propped up by workout videos and news of him working out with the receivers in Texas would be the only quarterback on the team.
Part 7: And Here We Are...
So here we are back to the present and after outlining this I was to discuss the three groups of people who aren’t to blame here. The first is Nick Foles. This guy did everything that was expected from him from this franchise and more by winning the Super Bowl, winning the MVP of the game and by winning while Carson Wentz was injured. Sure he’s been terrible since then, but it’s not his fault he won when Carson was injured.
The next person is Jalen Hurts who again might have been a victim of circumstance when he was drafted by the Eagles with the 53rd overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. It isn't his fault that he has drive, it isn't his fault that he is tenacious and it isn't his fault that Carson Wentz played like cow crap for three quarters of a season and got benched. It isn't his fault that players rallied behind him and they played better for him.
The final group that shouldn't be blamed are the fans. Sure, the fans can be down on players and boo them when they are playing poorly. They can also be extremely fair-weather, supporting you when you are good and saying you're the worst ever when you are bad. Sure, constantly being crapped on can do a number on your mental health, but again, that isn't their fault if you are playing badly even if you are in a rut. Sure, they could be more understanding and not as aggressive, but they are what they are and you can't change them.
And now to the people who do deserve blame and why they deserve the blame. The first group I would go with is the Philly sports media and the mainstream sports media. The reason being is because these people are supposed to do real investigative journalism and to speak truth to power, but now in the digital age, they are just merely around for clicks and whatever will get them the spotlight. Sure the media is the extension of the fans, or wait, are the fans the extension of the media? Regardless, the media often times screws situations and people up if you hang out too much on social media.
As far as the hot take talking heads on ESPN and NFL Network, they might have the easiest job in America. The problem is the fact that most of them aren't qualified to or aren't paid to critically analyze the game so they spend most of the time sitting up there and railing on people they don't like in a biased way. And I'm not saying they hold a ton of responsibility here because they have a job to do where they get a lot of money, but along with the Philly Media, they build narratives off of clickbait headlines and do not read into stories enough to get the full essence of it, but just enough to get twitter chatting about it and just enough for people to speak about it all day. Again, the fans fall for this clickbait with false titles, but they don't get paid to do this and they aren't influencers so they shouldn't be as responsible about what they post so it really falls on a responsibility issue. I put them lower on this list because again, this is their job and they want to be controversial and build up their brand. Knowing that Carson Wentz doesn't pay attention to this stuff is why they aren't as responsible for why things happened the way they did.
The next is the locker room leak or leaks plural. Again, from a specific source I know who one of the leaks is, but I am not at liberty of releasing this information. After the 2018 NFL season the Eagles starting to leak from all parts of the locker room and organization and the coaches and organization did absolutely nothing to quell it. The leaks were always coming out claiming that Carson Wentz was a bad teammate and he was this bad person who ate babies and was an axe murderer. Those last two are purely hyperbolic, but you catch my drift.
Let's play devils advocate and say that Carson Wentz was all of those things, wouldn't it make the leak(s) a bad teammate as well for not trying to keep it in house? Like I understand Carson Wentz's early success could have made him big headed and thinking that he doesn't need to be criticized, but you'd think that this leak would try to be a good teammate as well instead of crapping on your teammate to the media. And hey, maybe the media sensationalized some stories, which could happen from time to time, but that doesn't change the fact that a teammate went behind another teammate's back.
Doug Pederson and the rest of the offensive coaches are not innocent here either. You could say "well Doug Pederson did he could with the talent provided and just wasn't able to succeed," but the problem with this is the fact that the 2020 Philadelphia Eagles were the most vanilla, least creative team in the NFL. Most of the plays had Carson Wentz playing from the pocket, rarely rolling out or playactioning and most times giving up on the running game quite easily. Doug Pederson called the most vertical routes for the receivers and barely any screen plays, which the Eagles got a lot of production out of in 2019. It was the lack of game management and the lack of challenging his quarterback that really had a decent hand in making Carson Wentz a horrible quarterback in 2020 and the unwillingness by the assistants to try to change Carson's bad habits were also clear issues.
Eagles Quarterback Coach in 2019 and 2020, Press Taylor
Carson Wentz himself also isn't barred from criticism. After being one of the bottom 3 quarterbacks overall in the league in 2020, he left a lot to be desired. After having one of the worst fumbling problems in 2019, he followed that up by having just as bad of a fumbling problem in 2020. And while we were willing to give him a pass on his fumbles because he didn't throw many interceptions, let us just say that he found a way to be the most turnover prone player in 2020 even though he only played in 12 games. Carson Wentz was so bad that he earned the Jameis Winston award and found himself on the bench. Carson Wentz appeared to be a "busy idiot" and just did far too much and it showed. When the team was in field goal range, inside the 20, he would force passes that were intercepted, when he had a chance to throw the ball away or had someone open on a check down, he would hold onto the ball too long, and get sack fumbled.
The game in which the Eagles won by the most points that they had all season, Carson Wentz made rookie Quarterback from James Madison, Ben DiNucci look like the veteran quarterback. Carson Wentz made a quote where he said something along the lines of while I have learned a lot from my mistakes, I will not change my quarterbacking style when uh bro, your quarterback style is why you suck this year. I also understand that while he handled himself well on the sidelines after being benched for Jalen Hurts, the way he left the team without trying to work himself up to be the starter again when the season ended. The act of trying to run away from your problems is one of the negative aspects of NFL players today. These guys are championship chasers, not loyal to their teams or the contracts that they signed. You could say the teams aren't loyal either, but if Carson Wentz leaving was his decision, then I think fans have every right to be mad. It was clear that Carson Wentz wasn't as good of a leader than people though and he didn't have the tenacity to get better even with a young rookie standing behind him to motivate him.
And finally Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb being the Owner and General Manager of the Philadelphia Eagles. Two men who have never once played football yet one is an owner that meddles in everything since one of his coaches got too much power so he decided to be the next Jerry Jones minus the charisma and then the other is the General Manager who has one of the worst track record when it comes to drafting players you might as well call him useless. I don't know who is controlling this ship, but if you have a Quarterback that you just gave 128 million to over a 4 year span, it probably isn't a good idea to alienate that guy, which is exactly what these two jabronis did. You can blame Carson Wentz all you want for how he did or didn't react to the drafting of Jalen Hurts, but the fact of the matter is that it never needed to happen. I get that Jeffrey Lurie is the owner of the Eagles and I get he has a lot of money tied up into the team, but YOU... ARE... NOT... A... FOOTBALL... MIND! YOU... DO... NOT... KNOW... BEST! A great owner delegates the duties to a general manager or a coach and it is clear that Lurie will have to hit rock bottom before giving up the reigns to someone who knows more about what they are doing. And as for Howie Roseman, if it is true that Carson Wentz wouldn't take your phone calls, I don't blame him my dude. I would take the first ticket out of town if I was playing on a team that you are managing. Sure, I don't think that Howie is as bad as the horrific coaching, but you trying to play 10 Dimensional Chess and your "Quarterback Factory" that should be burned in a fire should be placed on the wall of shame for dumb things people do and say.
Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman
Part 8: Oh and ONE More Thing
Screw Josh McDaniels! Like I know I had to talk myself into him possibly being the Eagles next Head Coach, but dude, you're just a bad person. What do I mean? Well, after Super Bowl 52, the Indianapolis Colts were expected to be the next launching point for controversial Patriots Offensive Coordinator Josh McDaniels. There was one problem though, the Colts were an absolute joke from top to bottom. They screwed up one of the best quarterbacks in my generation in Andrew Luck, their owner Jim Irsay was involved in a drug scandal and they couldn't do anything right. So, like the scumbag that he was Josh McDaniels basically said "PSYCH!" and withdrew his name for the Colts Head Coaching position. So who did the Colts come running to? Well none other than the Eagles Offensive Coordinator, Frank Reich. At the time we didn't know how much of an impact he had on Carson Wentz so we were happy for him overall, but we weren't too worried. Fast forward 3 years and the guy is one of the major reasons why the Colts are having success in going to the playoffs twice and defeating DeShaun Watson in a playoff game. I know that because of parity in the league that Reich would have eventually left the team for one reason or another for a promotion elsewhere, but this totally damaged the development of Carson Wentz. No other offensive coach was able to keep Carson Wentz accountable so I want to thank Josh McDaniels for being the catalyst for why the Eagles got absolutely ruined so thank you very much for that!
Patriots Offensive Coordinator, Josh McDaniels
