Carson Wentz Fans Get The Hard Truth
So Carson Wentz got benched, Jalen Hurts got the start, and the Eagles beat the Saints. Not a great week for the Wentz Truthers!
I have been lapping the tears of the Wentz truthers for a while now, even getting in arguments on twitter arguing for Hurts to start against Eagles fans who won’t admit Wentz is ass right now. Maybe because it’s pretty obvious they are all in denial about their boy and I enjoy trolling delusional fans and also hate the Eagles. I should technically be demanding Wentz keep playing so the Eagles suck even more. Or maybe not, if they win another game or two with Hurts they might still make the playoffs and get a bad draft pick. The point is, Carson Wentz is ass right now, some people can’t admit it, and it’s fun to poke them with a stick.
HOWEVER, to be polite, gracious, and generous in my trolling, I will present my argument to them in a sympathetic way. I think I’ve had such a fun time watching the Wentz truthers spiral into denial because it’s fun to see what I went through from the outside for once. Yeah. I’ve been where Wentzers are right now, just a few years ago. When Eli was in his decline. So I honestly understand what they are going through.
Wentz is their boy, Eli was my boy. When the team started to decline, it was me out there defending my boy. Eli wasn’t the problem. The O-line was the problem. His receivers were the problem. The coaching was the problem. The GM was the problem. The defense was the problem. If Eli played bad, it was someone else’s fault. It was a cascade of problems that made him bad, he couldn’t be blamed. Eventually that graduated to Eli was a problem, but not the problem. You may have seen Wentzers use their own variation of that same line. It took me maybe an extra season or two to finally just admit it to myself: Eli wasn’t good anymore. He was making bad decisions, he was taking bad sacks, he wasn’t throwing as well, and not everything could be laid at the feet of the o-line or coaching. Eli was not good.
Wentzers haven’t hit that point yet. They are still blaming everything else. Why? Because the idea that Wentz is bad now, possibly forever, is depressing and scary to them. This was their boy. He was on track to be MVP in 2017 before his injury. He may not have personally delivered the Super Bowl, but he was a huge reason why they were even in position to deliver in the first place. They don’t get the #1 seed without his season. Wentz won them over. Now, a few years and more injuries later, the team is crumbling apart. The farther we get from the championship, the more that team feels like a fluke. The 2017 Eagles were just a great team that put it together all at once and won the chip. They weren’t going to last. Lotta folks are probably still in denial about that one too. They shouldn’t be. Unless you are a Patriots fan, lucky seasons where everything comes together is kinda the only way teams win it anymore.
Wentz truthers have thrown the blame everywhere but Wentz so far. The o-line is a mess. The run game is weak. The receivers are bad. The coaching is terrible. The defense is broken. The injuries are too much. “How can Wentz possibly be good in these circumstances?” they say. Before Sunday, they’d also add “If they put Hurts in, he won’t play any better!” (Then he did play better, uh oh).
Wentzers are a group of Eagles fans who are seeing Wentz get all the blame and getting frustrated about it, and then swinging too far in the opposite direction. Wentzers aren’t exactly wrong about any of these problems with the Eagles. All of those things are true. The team is playing like ass. They are hurt. The coaching is bad. But all of those things can be true in tandem with another truth: Wentz can also be bad. He looks fucking terrible this year. Everything is bad, and Wentz deserves his share of the blame. He is a problem. He is bad. When your backup QB that nobody really had much of an opinion of comes in and immediately the entire team looks better…that’s a huge fucking indictment of Carson Wentz.
Hurts was playing with the same “dreadful” O-line. He took no sacks. He ran for over 100 yards. He didn’t throw much, but he also never threw a pick. He did this against arguably the best team in the NFC, a team winning primarily due to incredible defense. Hurts had an extremely difficult task ahead of him for his first start and he did well enough to win. Carson Wentz looked like a pickle against far worse defenses. The gameplan was generally safe, but…it worked. It showed Pederson can come up with a gameplan, and that the team can call plays and execute. Why wasn’t this happening as much under Wentz? Maybe…Wentz is a problem? Maybe a lot of those sacks he takes…are because he doesn’t throw the ball away in time, has poor vision, and tries to play hero ball and extend plays? Maybe he threw so many picks this year not just because his targets are complete ass…but because he was also making poor decisions, forcing throws, and not seeing the field well? Maybe the playcalls seemed awful because Wentz broke the plays sometimes? MAYBE THERE IS A REASON THE EAGLES DECIDED TO SPEND A 2ND ROUND PICK ON A QB EVEN AFTER THEY GAVE THEIR GUY A HUGE DEAL.
And with that we’ve come to arguably the biggest problem. The Eagles are stuck with Wentz. That contract is crushing. If there wasn’t so much investment in Wentz being the franchise guy, I think he’d have been benched several weeks ago. Wentz might not play another down this year but he’s still likely the day #1 starter next season simply due to how much money is wrapped up in the guy. He can’t be cut or traded without a huge dead money hit. I also don’t think he should be traded or cut. Wentz has been terrible this year but he was alright in 2019 and yeah, the team around him has also been ass. It’s quite possible this benching could be exactly what Wentz needs because a lot of his errors seem mental. If he takes this time to reset himself, work on his mechanics a bit, he could be just fine. It’s also not like Hurts looked like Mahomes out there, and it’s only been one game. Hurts could still go out and stink it up.
There is plenty of football left to see, so my gloating may mean nothing in a matter of days. But dammit, next time you see a Wentzer in denial just remind them that everything they’ve said, every excuse they’ve used, are all the same things that all of us have said as we watched our favorite players decline. Sometimes it’s better to admit your guy isn’t perfect.
How to keep this under 15 paragraphs… I assume anything a rookie qb does is a fluke. Too many come out gangbusters and then get their tendencies exposed. Anybody can throw a punch if the other person has no idea of speed, angle, timing, etc. Once they’ve got footage on him, it might be a whole new world of… hurt(s).
So while I 100% agree Wentz has been ass and that the Truthers are delusional, the Saints didn’t have footage of what to expect, and Hurts did a lot of damage on the ground. For me, he needs to repeat with better passing #s before I would troll anyone over it. There’s a reason DJ has had a much harder time this year. Defenses key in on his tendencies, so now he needs to figure out a countermeasure, or die.
As for Eli, my own issue wasn’t being unable to admit he’d lost a step. It was that the outside world wanted him to put him 100% to blame. It wasn’t, “Eli’s not what he was, but this team they gave him is pretty bad.” It was “He has an AMAZING TEAM; he just SUCKS.” Whereas Tom Brady is coddled. “Oh my goodness, how can you POSSIBLY expect Thomas Edward Patrick Messiah Brady to perform with such a bad team around him??” That is what gets my… goat. WOCKA WOCKA!
Eli was let down by the organization, and his unwillingness to throw people under the bus (looking at you, Discount Double Choke) made him an easy target. As he aged and needed more help, he got less and less of it, which turned a gentle downward slope into a spiked cliff of DOOOOM. As of a week ago, before DJ got injured, he was the most pressured QB in the league. He hides poor protection better than Eli did because he has – err, had – wheels. And as many in the Cult of Brady have pointed out, changing head coaches is SO HARD on a qb. Eli had 4 coaches in 4 years, you can’t just say “LOSER!” and close the book; it’s more complicated than that. (Yea, yea, it’s padding the argument a little, but Spags counts)
So the Wentzers are right in that the team *IS* garbage. It’s just mind boggling that Wentz, and them, are oblivious to him being even 1% responsible for it. Which is ridiculous. He is clearly a not-small part of the problem. But for me, I won’t troll them about it until next year so we can properly see what Hurts becomes, if they put him back on the field. If it’s Peyton-esque, you troll them hard. If he becomes the next Ryan Leaf… they’ll be laughing at you.
The Saints also have a history of not doing well against teams with running QBs. One game doesn’t make Hurts the new franchise savior. If it did, why would they ever let Foles walk when the one game he really shined in actually did what Carson hasn’t been able to do and win them a ring.
Oh, nice. I wasn’t aware of that, but it furthers the point that it’s too early to make proclamations either way. I do wonder if there were some inner disagreements about whether they should have kept Foles and kicked Wentz to the curb. But anytime a starter is benched there is always a jolt to the team. If the QB can be benched, everyone is on notice, so they play better… for a game or two. I want to see at least 4 or 5 solid games from Hurts. Because my risk aversion to looking stupid later is like… 99%. XD
In addition much of the thing with Eli may have stem from people not getting over 2004 draft day since it does leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths outside of the tristate area.
I have to wonder just how much is due to the Clowney hit on top of the bad offseason, it’s like he got off to a bad start with the weird circumstances and was just never able to really bounce back from it falling further into a funk, on top of technical issues like footwork that they just aren’t fixing too. Really weird so I still think this will be an outlier year but I have to think the injuries finally are taking some toll since he was fine even just last year, so it’s just more surreal to think than anything. Hurts pick at the time was weird because Wentz didnt show any sign of being near this bad whatsoever, looks smart now but what did the Eagles know at the time of the draft? I’ll be curious til the end of time on how the Wentz talent timeline really went
This is similar, in my case anyway, for Cam. Cam was declining, especially after that one season in 2017-2018 where his shoulder was broken. When he came back, he was never the same. He was missing open throws and started not risking his body in runs, which had made him an MVP in 2015. The main point is that he never looked the same, and I bent over backwards to defend him. No weapons, then we draft CMC. Well Olsen is old and unreliable now, no receivers, then we draft DJ Moore. I ran out of excuses and realized that Cam was just flat out bad. Now I have learned to hate Steady Teddy. He will get the job done, for now.
I wish I felt this same way when the Patriots signed Cam, because watching him this season has been outright depressing. I’ve always liked him and it was like a dream come true to see him suit up for the Patriots, but seeing like this just hurts me. I’d have rather gone to my grave blindly defending Brady playing poor than watching Cam like this, knowing that he’s completely done.
If they trade him before March, the Eagles can actually save money on his contract next year. The Eagles would save about $1M on their cap by trading him before his $10M roster bonus comes due and the team picking him up would get what they would see as a veteran starter with top-5 talent for 4 years at less than $25M per year. Not a lot of teams would be interested in that, but I could definitely see the Colts doing it, since they won’t be in position to draft a quarterback high and will likely be without Rivers next year.
I could totally see the Colts or Patriots making a move for Wentz this offseason. Both will need a QB very, very soon and neither are in position to draft a guaranteed stud.
The Colts would make the most sense, because Carson did his best when under Frank Reich. One of the (many, many) issues right now is that Wentz doesn’t trust the coaching cabal that is making the gameplan.
i do not see BB taking wentz. minshew HELL YEA BRUTHA
I couldn’t really foresee him taking Cam Newton either, to be fair. I wouldn’t be super high on it (better off just taking a shot on Kyle Trask at that point rather than taking the cap hit for Wentz), but it’s a possibility.
The thing with Cam is that Bill signed him for peanuts. Wentz is going to come with a hefty salary. I would let Rex Ryan have a photograph of my feet if Belichick even took a SNIFF on Wentz. Not when he’s got possibilities like Jimmy G, Matts both Ryan and Stafford, Darrrnold, Minshew, Foles, or maybe he’d like to try Fitzmagic for himself.
Given those options, outside of Minshew, New England is probably better off extending Cam for a year and drafting a guy to build around long term. I like Ryan and Stafford but they’re both hitting their mid-30s and likely don’t have many elite seasons left in the tank (I would even go as far as saying Matt Ryan is done at this point). New England can’t really afford to keep sticking band-aids over the shotgun wound that was Tom Brady leaving. They have to get a guy long term. Cam ain’t it as much as that pains me to say, and I don’t even want to talk about Jarrett Stidham (Have one convo with a Stidham Truther and you’ll understand).
I don’t disagree, unless they’re willing to play for a veteran minimum. I know he joined late and had the covid, but Cam looks absolutely shot. If one of those other guys are willing to work for pennies, it would give him some options.
Hell, if Daniel Jones can’t figure out how to secure the #@$#&@ing football, I’d be fine with the Giants picking up one of those guys in that kind of scenario. A toasted Matt Ryan just might be better than an injury prone pez dispenser at qb, lol.
Honestly I find myself wondering where the Giants would be right now with literally anyone other than Daniel Jones. Hell, even Eli Manning out of retirement would probably have them seen as a legitimate contender rather than a goofy NFC East team stumbling into the postseason. Similar to Washington, they aren’t the most talented, but they play hard every week and clearly fear no one.
Going back to the Patriots, yeah, maybe signing those guys at a vet minimum similar to Cam might be enticing, but I still don’t think it’s enough. It’s beyond replacing Tom Brady at this point. They need to embrace a full rebuild and find a new young buck to build around. The thing about signing veteran QBs is that they have to learn a brand new system, and they’re expected to do so in an extremely short amount of time. So, year one and even somewhat beyond that point is a lot like dealing with a rookie in many ways, but with less breathing room and higher expectations. Better off developing a young guy in your system.
Lmao is that arif Hasan delivering that.
I don’t think they drafted Hurts because they thought Wentz was crap, they drafted him because they were never going to be able to keep Foles for reasonable money. They needed a serviceable backup for duty cheap and for injury protection. I’m sure they would rather never play him at all (see Garappolo) but Wentz went over a cliff.
This is it to me too. Wentz had never finished a season healthy before this season and part of the reason he’s finishing it healthy this year is that he got benched. Eagles needed a backup badly and McCown proved he couldn’t cut it
Hurts truthers are nearly as annoying as Wentz truthers though.
He did not play well, the stats look okayish because of some big YAC plays, but the man Tebow’d his way through the game, with the Saints defense playing like trash. The big reason he was more competent became known after the game, that Hurts was taking initiative himself, running the ball and not listening to Pederson.
To put it another way, if Wentz had that game last Sunday, all us WFT fans would be laughing about how bad he is.
But he wouldn’t have had that game. He ran for over 100 yards. Wentz wasn’t ever going to do that.
His passing numbers were weak and I don’t trust Hurts to be the guy either, but the same team that looked awful with Wentz under center looked acceptable with Hurts there, and they beat a really tough opponent.
I think you summed it up pretty well. Wentz Truthers are totally correct in their gripes with the team. The OL is bad. The WRs are bad. The play calling is bad. Everything surrounding Carson Wentz is downright terrible so of course Carson Wentz isn’t going to perform well, right?… Well yeah, except that he did perform fairly well under these exact circumstances last season. How much different are these Eagles from the 2019 Eagles? Wentz threw for 4000 yards with those Eagles. Wentz threw 27 TDs with those Eagles. And most importantly, Wentz only threw 7 picks with those Eagles (although he had 6 lost fumbles as well which obviously isn’t good, but I digress). He was all around better at protecting the football and keeping the Eagles out of really bad situations, and he played far more efficiently.
The issue this season is that Wentz himself did not learn from that season. He didn’t improve at all, nor did he attempt to change his style of play. I get not changing his really wonky mechanics, because at this point in his playing career, trying to change how he throws the football would probably only do him more harm than good, but at the bare minimum you can fix the mental errors. You can fix those dangerous tendencies that lead to really bad mistakes and turnovers. Wentz did not fix those tendencies at all, and what we’ve seen so far this season is a severe regression the likes of which we haven’t seen since what, Baker Mayfield last year?
I mean, some of the mistakes that he’s made the season are just plain jarring. They aren’t just bad throws or bad sacks, they’re boneheaded mistakes that a 4th year starter should NOT be making under any circumstances. He’s actively screwing Philadelphia over, and it became very clear that his extremely poor play was an issue, hence why he ended up riding the bench for Jalen Hurts. And what happened? Hurts won.
The thing about watching Hurts in that game is that while he wasn’t uber impressive by any means, he did the one thing that Carson Wentz has completely failed at this season; protect the football. Hurts made the right choices. He ran when he needed to, made the throws that he was supposed to, and avoided turnover worthy plays, and the Eagles defense held up and did the rest. That’s why they won. I’m sure everyone prefers to watch a guy like Patrick Mahomes or Aaron Rodgers pull ridiculous throws out of their ass–and it is fun to watch, but what coaches really want is a guy that makes the right play and protects the football, rather than try to be the hero 24/7.
Obviously it’s way too soon to tell with Hurts, but I have really have high hopes for the guy. I wasn’t high on him coming out of college but no one could deny that he was always the hardest working guy in the room. He always found ways to improve his game and always sought to be the best that he can be, and you can only respect someone like that. Maybe the Eagles ended up finding their guy, even if it came at the expense of Wentz. As for Wentz, I don’t know what’s in store for him. I think that he can still find a way to return to his 2017 if, and only if, he finds a coaching staff that’s willing and capable to help him fix those bad tendencies. He has insane arm talent and we’ve seen that all throughout his career, but having arm talent means zero if you constantly give the ball to other team and cost your own team games.
OK, Bills fan living in Philly here, so I am try to be unbiased as O say this: If I am a GM looking to start from scratch, and I have the choice of Wentz or Hurts to choose from, I am picking Wentz 100/100 times.
Yes, Wentz has been bad this year. Hurts gave the team a spark they haven’t seen in months. Wentz seems to have lost the team, and if he’s played his way out, so be it.
But as a Bills fan, I have been around the block with QB carousels and ineptitude of all types. It was Hurts first game as a starter and he has room to grow, but from what I saw he looked a lot like Tyrod Taylor. I don’t want to slander Taylor, because he was a lot of fun to watch. It seemed like he could always had the potential to break a big run, and he was genuinely fun to watch play. However, this is the NFL. Defenses adjust. Good defenses learn to use QB spies and well send pressure in ways that are designed to break that big run and dare the QB to beat them slinging the ball. Countless running QBs have failed at this step. Hurts got one game so fat where he manage to keep things alive scrambling while missing the throws Carson used to make with ease.
The question is this: do I think I get better results with a team trying to rehabilitate Wentz with a fresh O-line and weapons, or with Hurts. I honestly think over the long term, you get better results with the former than tha latter.
I would agree with this statement. Although, if I’m a GM and have those two choices, I think I might just resign my position 😛
Haha nice. I know I was arguing with you.
And BTW what we say are Wentz isn’t playing well, but he’s at the bottom of the problems of this team. All the reason we give are 100% on. A QB doesn’t go from playing well to the bottom that quickly. And Hurts sucks too – only reason they won was because of his legs.
Wentz will be great next year. Book it.
Let’s face it, the reason they won was because Payton keeps clinging to this idea that Hill can be a QB, while a fringe starting caliber QB in Winston sat the bench. I think he also underestimated the hit their offense would take not having access to the gadget plays anymore.
So I’ve thought about Sunday’s game, and here are my thoughts.
Hurts did impress me, and I saw a lot of good things. The only real negative was the fumble near the end of the game that gave the Saints a chance to tie it up or win. After all, the big reason Wentz got benched was because of too many costly turnovers. Regardless, he should start the rest of the year so the Eagles can see what he has, and if they want him as their guy moving forward.
This of course leads to Wentz. At this point, the best thing for him is to get the fuck out of Philly and have a fresh start somewhere else. Foles lives rent-free in his head and in the Eagles locker room, and it’s clear that this team has no faith in him, and his confidence is shook.
I believe that the best situation is the Colts. They’re a good team that needs a young QB, they have a lot of cap room, and Wentz would be reunited with Frank Reich, who was his OC from his 2017 year. I don’t know if it would happen, but it would be interesting to see. I’d love to see him get traded in the offseason and have a comeback year.
Eagles won’t do anything this year, even if they somehow win the division. But whatever, I’ll still begrudgingly watch them like I always do.
Personally. I love Jalen Hurts. And despise Carson Wentz. Bye Carson! Have fun in Indy! Maybe you’ll have a chance!!
Dave, I know you’re a smart guy. I honestly expected better of you. Then I remembered that you’re a Giants fan and realized this is EXACTLY what a fan like you wants to see happening in Philly, so I’m willing to give you a pass. 🙂
A lot of us who are pointing out the organizational rot at the very core of this franchise are PERFECTLY aware that Carson Wentz has been ass this year, and that he certainly shoulders a chunk of the blame for this season. However, just a year ago Wentz took a roster just as bad as this one (if not worse) and dragged them kicking and screaming to a division title. And his reward? Being thrown face first into a QB controversy for no good reason and told to do the exact same damn thing again on top of it.
Yes, he should overcome that if he wants to be a franchise QB worth how much he’s making, but the coaching and the organization have not treated him as a franchise QB other than paying him as such. They have not built a good team around him or schemed for him like another team did around THEIR erratic young QB to stabilize him: the Bills, who look like a legitimate contender this year.
Now, I’m an Eagles fan. I will root for them and whichever QB they choose to start each week. I am excited for Hurts and want him to do well (after his Alabama saga, I can’t imagine it’s easy for him to be in this situation again, even if he’s on the other side this time). But using one week against a team who had no real film on him in the Eagles system as proof that he is better than Wentz is a very bold assumption. The Cardinals will have that tape now, and will be better prepared for him. And the Eagles won the game because TAYSOM HILL IS NOT A FUCKING QUARTERBACK.
This organization failed Carson Wentz, and the least they can do for him now is to jettison him to a team that knows what to do for him for whatever they can get now that they’ve artificially torpedoed his value. Just watch, he will reunite with Reich in Indy and become an MVP level QB again, while Howie Roseman and whatever coach he brings in after Pederson is sacrificed as well for this year will expect Hurts to pull off the same miracles Wentz did in 2018 and 2019, and the Eagles will continue go 6-10 for as long as Howie stays in Jeffery Lurie’s pocket.