.vresize.36.36.medium.0.png){kind=small}
.vresize.36.36.medium.0.png){kind=small}
Is Carson Wentz ready to be an NFL starter? The Eagles are betting their season that he is
Carson Wentz has all the tools to be an excellent NFL quarterback — he possesses the intelligence, the feet and the arm to get the job done at the highest level. That’s why the Eagles gave up two first-round picks and a total of five selections to move up to No. 2 in the 2016 NFL Draft and select him.
But even with those tools, there’s nothing that can prepare him for what he’s going to face Sunday.
When you hear NFL rookies talk about the “speed of the game” they’re not just reciting some cliche. I’ve been lucky enough to watch games from the sideline at every level of the sport and can tell you this: The jump from the high school level to the SEC is astounding — it’s like two different sports; the jump from the SEC to the NFL is even larger.
Frankly, it’s a frightening experience watching players that big move that fast and hit that violently. When you watch a game on TV — or even if you watch it from the stands — you’re unable to fathom how fast the game moves.
If you’ve ever thought to yourself "I could go in for a play or two,” let me assure you that you could not. You’d literally be risking death — the best-case scenario is that you are a highlight for the next decade after being baptized by a 6-foot-2, 330-pound defensive lineman who can probably dunk and run a sub-five-second 40-yard dash. You don’t need to be a physics major to understand the kind of force a guy like that creates.
To be fair, Wentz isn’t some random guy off the street — he’s far from it — but he’s never seen anything remotely close to NFL speed in his career.
He certainly didn’t see it in college — Wentz started 23 games for FCS powerhouse North Dakota State. While their games might be entertaining and Wentz’s team might have been wildly successful, he was not playing Alabama. There's something to be said for going up against the biggest, strongest and fastest in college, but Wentz can't say he did that.
He also didn’t see that game speed at the Senior Bowl — the postseason scouting event where his stock rose from a second-day pick to eventually being the second overall pick in the NFL Draft. The Senior Bowl might collect the best talent from around the nation, but the defenses Wentz faced in that game were vanilla. No one was trying to confuse him — unlike NFL defensive coordinators.
Wentz has a total of 38 NFL snaps to his name, all coming in the Eagles' first preseason game. In that contest he didn’t see any stunts or exotic blitzes — he went up against base coverage for most, if not all of the game. His reviews were mixed — he’s a rookie after all. But because Wentz broke a rib in that game, he missed the rest of the preseason and we were never able to see him take on a more ramped-up defense, like the kind he probably would have faced in the third preseason contest — the “dress rehearsal” game.
Breaking in a new rookie quarterback is a tough process, and Wentz — for all of his tremendous skills — enters the regular season at a tremendous disadvantage because of his competition level to this point.
But that doesn’t matter — Wentz's 39th NFL snap will come as the starting quarterback of the Eagles in Week 1 against the Browns.
And while the Browns might not have a good defense, they are still a unit unlike any Wentz has faced before, and they’ll be doing everything in their (in this circumstance) unmatched power to make Wentz’s first NFL game a nightmare.
Why are the Eagles doing this? Why are they throwing Wentz out there when a few practices (hardly a proper corollary to NFL game action) provided arguably the best competition he’s seen?
Well, Eagles coach Doug Pederson thinks the kid is ready:
"Everybody feels like this kid is ready to go. We drafted him to take on the reins. It's something now that we're prepared to do. He's such a special guy. This stage is not too big for him."
While that’s a nice answer, Wentz’s readiness to succeed at the NFL level seemed to be a trivial part of the Eagles’ decision-making process. Wentz was always going to be the starter — if not in Week 1, then eventually — as they gave up far too much to have him be a career backup. And when the Vikings offered a first-round pick to the Eagles for Sam Bradford — mitigating the largest effect of the trade that acquired the No. 2 pick from the Browns — on Saturday, Philadelphia didn’t blink. The Vikings were offering Philadelphia a solution to its quarterback quandary — when do you start Wentz if Bradford is your No. 1? — while replacing the most valuable asset the Eagles traded to acquire the young quarterback.
How fast did general manager Howie Roseman say yes?
The problem, of course, is the reality that now faces Philadelphia. The Eagles had a legitimate chance to win the NFC East this season — that division is mediocre at best and the Eagles’ defense has looked good enough to lead the team to 10 wins in 2016, should the offense be competent.
With Bradford, the Eagles would have been competent. With backup Chase Daniel, the Eagles had a chance at competency as well. Competent was about the best they could have done with either option, but that could have been good enough to get the team into the playoffs.
In either scenario, Wentz would have been the third quarterback, taking a gap year to learn everything there is to know about playing in the NFL and perhaps even seeing some low-pressure snaps. Wentz would have slid into the starting quarterback role in 2017, getting a year and an entire preseason to prepare for that Week 1 debut.
Perhaps Wentz can pull it off — maybe he can be a competent (or better) NFL quarterback despite having no practical experience heading into Sunday’s game. If he can put together a nice game in the first few weeks, then it’s obvious that the Eagles made the right choice and the future in Philadelphia is bright.
But what if it goes the other way? What if it takes a year — or longer — for Wentz to get up to speed? Peyton Manning was a wreck his first year, as were Troy Aikman, John Elway and Eli Manning — they turned out fine. But the Eagles would be sacrificing a playoff shot for the sake of developing a young quarterback. It could pay off in the long run, but that’s a tough pill to swallow in the short-term.
That’s because there are more horror stories than fairy tales. Some rookie quarterbacks never recover from early struggles — Ryan Leaf and Jimmy Clausen never did.
The Eagles are willing to bet that Wentz is part of the first camp, and they’re wagering their 2016 season to prove it. They better hope they’re right.
