Why Carson Wentz Fell Apart in 2020

the national football league is notorious for how swiftly and brutally it can end careers it's got a variety of tools at its disposal and a long track record that grants it that reputation so much so that as fans we're conditioned to just shrug and move on when a player falls off the wagon sorry to see that happened but also we're gonna leave you behind sometimes even with that understanding though the crime feels just a little too perfect a little too rapid of a fall from grace that's why today we're going to try and figure out who killed carson wence's career with the eagles because trying to decode what happened to wentz in 2020 is like playing the most frustrating game of clue ever created you've got suspects suspicions and excuses for every direction but the worst part is maybe at the end of it all it was just him the whole time lock in your predictions now by pressing the subscribe button no i'm just playing but before we get into the rise and fall of the former face of the eagles i'd like to thank today's sponsor over at omaze for helping me to make this video happen omaze is a unique fundraising company that centers on supporting great causes and offering some insane prizes for doing just that case in point coming up is an opportunity to win a 2021 bentley bentega and also 20 000 cash with the best part being that a portion of every contribution benefits the make-a-wish foundation if you're wondering about the bentley it's equipped with a 4.0 liter twin-turbo v8 engine horsepower and little touches like quilted leather seating and a hand finished cabin that make it one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen in my life so if you're interested in the chance to win this 2021 bentega and an extra 20 grand for good measure all while supporting the work of the make-a-wish foundation head to the link in the description at omaze.com set the edge and use code set the edge 150 for an extra 150 entries again that's omaze.com set the edge and code set the edge 150 to make your donation and receive an additional 150 entries so a huge thank you again to omaze and now let's find out what went's wrong [Music] for those who aren't familiar with carson wentz's meteoric rise and the apocalyptic crash that followed it's a path through five seasons unlike any other in nfl history once entered the nfl draft as a highly touted prospect out of north dakota state an fcs school but the typical stigma that permeates draft discussion every time a small school is involved didn't phase the philadelphia eagle's love for wentz as a prospect and they put their money where their mouth is to trade up and select him with the number two pick of the 2016 draft as it turns out having elite size athleticism and intangibles make you a pretty good quarterback fit regardless of alma mater and following a volatile rookie campaign wence would progress in his second season to light the nfl on fire supported by an exceptional coaching staff and one of the best rosters in the entire league but despite being the front-runner for mvp in just his second season the first major blow to wence's career would come in december 2017 where his year would meet an abrupt end with an acl tear against the los angeles rams if i'm remembering the story from there correctly a mythical figure named nicholas foles entered through a portal from like 2014 and took helm of the first seed eagles leading them through the playoffs and bringing home philly their first ring since the liberty bell broke this run while certainly the peak of many fans lives sparked doubt that wence was the messiah he'd been cracked up to be and in the following season he would indeed return to earth also hampered by vertebrae fractures that would end his season prematurely yet again in a case of deja vu foals would take up the mantle and lead another impressive run for philly going undefeated in the final through regular season games and even notching another playoff win that i'm going to shamelessly use to trigger bears fans now that's impossible as you can imagine this only raised further questions when it came to wence his durability and his overall impact on the team's success not to mention foles who had a style polar opposite to that of wence had now posted a four in one playoff record including a win in the super bowl well 2019 would quell some of those concerns with wence signing a massive 128 million dollar four-year contract extension and going on to play a full 16 games hell he even dragged a barely living roster to the playoffs where he would make his first postseason start but after all of that the football gods refused to cut wence a break as he would sustain a concussion just nine snaps into that playoff game against the seahawks so to this point carson wentz had endured adversity in every year of his career and come out stronger on the other side but that cycle was about to shatter entirely due to a variety of interweaving problems that we'll get into wence would put up the worst season of his career in 2020 leading the league in interceptions with 15 sacks taken with 50 and total turnovers with 19 on the season despite being benched after only 12 games wence compounded a set of performances that totaled a negative 35.9 dvoa last season if you don't know what dvoa is you can pause the video now or just know that that number is 5th worst in nfl history among players with at least 400 pass attempts for eagles fans it was dumbfounding wences 2020 meltdown wasn't just a step backwards it was a historic collapse made all the more confusing by the fact that he was considered a lock for mvp exactly three years prior to being benched for a rookie after the season carson once would be traded to the colts netting the eagles a third in the 2021 draft and conditional second in 2022 with the team now having to accrue the largest cap hit in nfl history to part ways with the player they just invested their future in two years ago so what the hell happened to cause wence to fall off this dramatically and at this point is any of it fixable well as for the list of culprits identifying the biggest problem is not a simple task as there's reasons both in and out of carson wence's control that are responsible for this massive decline the first big red flag is how much wence's mechanical problems as a passer were drawn out to the forefront in 2020. since he was first evaluated as a prospect there have been gripes about his throwing form with a long drawn-out motion and footwork that's often more sloppy than clean but to this point in his career those concerns have been muted to an extent by wence's ability to read the field and hit the open man way more often than not however that decisiveness evaporated into thin air in 2020 and as a result wence's inaccuracy issues became much more costly the first thing noticeable in watching carson wentz in 2020 is that he simply did not trust his receivers to make plays on the ball often waiting way longer than usual to try and make sure they were open before pulling the trigger while it might not seem like much that fraction of a second is an eternity in the nfl and wence's loss of anticipation went hand in hand with taking drive killing sacks and allowing pressure to even further worsen his mechanics his tendency to pigeon toe pointing his lead toe away from the receiver he's targeting limited the rotation of his hips and regularly caused accuracy problems and that still isn't all from having too wide a base that generated overthrows and underthrows to regularly losing linebackers in his peripheral these mechanics and decision-making issues are simply inexcusable for a fifth year quarterback however placing all the blame solely on wence's shoulders would be just unfair especially considering the void of talent around him that was the eagle's offense in part one of this video breaking down the organizational dysfunction of the eagles i discussed the draft record of howie roseman in recent seasons which has been in a word garbage essentially the team has failed to bring in new talent to succeed the old and overpaid declining veterans that make up the roster case in point the eagles weapons center around an old guard that fell victim to father time in 2020 with desean jackson zack ertz and all sean jeffrey all missing large swathes of the year the young talent left over behind either couldn't stay healthy themselves or couldn't gain wences trust in a pandemic shortened off season when you compound that with the fact the eagle's offensive line was a revolving door of injuries rolling out 14 starting lineups in 16 games with critical protectors lost for the whole season all of a sudden your quarterback feels as though he's playing one on 11. the coaching staff and scheme of the eagles offense didn't seem to have a remedy for this either with the play calling consistently lacking creativity plays taking far too long to develop given the inadequate protection or just being tone deaf entirely to what the situation called for as was also discussed in the last video the possibly forced approach of having multiple offensive coordinators only serve to worsen the situation with conflicting schemes trying to mesh and failing to do so in a natural way so with wence losing faith in the offense around him and the play calls coming from the sideline he would try and fail to win games on his own throughout his career carson wentz has been a gunslinger reliant on his mobility to buy time for receivers to open up down the field but while that mentality hasn't changed his physical ability clearly has simply put wence has never been his fluid evading pressure since his acl tear in 2017 with it certainly not helping that he would sustain vertebrae fractures and a vicious concussion in the following seasons we don't know exactly what extent these issues affect him today but wence is a different player athletically than he was when he was at the top of the nfl however his mindset has not really adapted to this fact of course you want your quarterback to be able to take things into his own hands and occasionally subvert the script based on what he sees pre-snap but once his hero complex became far more costly than it was beneficial and from accounts within the team he also decided at a certain point that he couldn't rely on the leadership above him instead using his amount of control in the offense to kill play calls and then reconfigure based on what he saw as you might guess this went pretty poorly feeding into more errant decision making and later prompting a move by doug peterson to reign in wence's freedom and simplify the offense further naturally for a player who already didn't trust his coach this only served to widen the chasm between peterson and wentz a chasm that would in part cost peterson his job after the season according to a report from jeff mclean of the philadelphia enquirer in 2020 there wasn't anyone left on the staff poised to check wence on his mistakes with the closest to carson being quarterback's coach press taylor a personal friend of his who failed to hold him accountable for his bad decisions and sloppy mechanics so as not to rock the boat too much in 2016 and 17 wences nature to go rogue was held in check by the stringent coaching of john d filippo and o coordinator frank reich but following their departures from the eagles once allegedly grew more and more tired of taking cues from the coaching staff a scathing report surfaced following wences 2018 season that painted the quarterback as selfish uncompromising and egotistical and though that report was challenged the time by many teammates later sources coming forward in 2020 seem to indicate at least that some part of the eagle's behind the scenes toxicity can be traced back to wence himself whether it was the coaching staff the culture or whence's arrogance at fault that ship had sailed and when he was benched after 12 games of poor performance whispers began circling about carson wentz having played his last snap in philadelphia though it seemed like nonsense at the time given the investment into his contract when news of a trade broke in february it became real that wence's time with the eagles had come to a bitter end no mvps no super bowl mvps no ring of honor no retired numbers just a couple draft picks and a devastating amount of dead money to get his contract off the books wence always wanted to be embraced as the savior of the philadelphia eagles and part of the problem ultimately was that those at the top treated him like just that players like former eagle safety malcolm jenkins have come out in saying the organization is partly responsible for wence becoming less coachable over time giving him too much leeway influence and inflating his self-importance before he truly hit the apex of his career much has been debated about the effect of howie roseman drafting jalen hurts with their second round pick in the 2020 draft especially with wence only having just escaped the shadow of nick foles hanging over his career while there's certainly evidence that kind of move can light a fire under a player according to many sources in philadelphia wence felt it undermined the confidence the organization had in him obviously making any concrete assessments about how it may have affected carson wentz mentally is a fool's errand considering i am not carson once but no matter where you base your argument most for carson's decline on the field either physically or mentally the unavoidable truth is that carson wentz was broken as a quarterback in 2020. to put it bluntly the eagles killed carson wentz and carson once killed the eagles that's a pretty good clue accusation in reality there's no good guys or innocent parties here because the story of philadelphia's self-implosion is a story of what happens when trust is lost from an organization at every level front office coaching staff quarterback team every one of them was hindered by arrogance and ineptitude if not at their own level then certainly up above of course no one can ever take away the super bowl their team won in 2017 and this analysis was never meant to diminish that accomplishment but in a way the eagles do make me feel a little bit sad because they could have been a hell of a lot more had different decisions been made now carson wentz will reunite in indianapolis with frank reich and his career now depends on if he can unlearn these regressive habits built in 2020 and trust again in the structure of the team around him with the colts reich obviously has experience coaching wentz and even in creating strengths after a down year having done that for andrew luck in his first season as the colts head coach if we're honest wence will never again be the same player he was in that explosive 2017 season he just isn't the same athlete and there's even evidence to say his success as a passer was based on some wildly unsustainable efficiency but contrary to what some people think wence has shown he doesn't have to be in that 2017 form to win football games and after the season the eagles had it's undoubtedly his best option to get a fresh start somewhere new back in philadelphia they'll have to try and gather up the mess of pieces and dusty confetti still on the floor and try to start all over again maybe with jalen hurts or a new quarterback of the future on a roster that needs help across the board regardless of what their plan is one thing is for sure if the eagles fail to address the underlying problems that led to the downfall of carson wentz don't expect them to take flight again with anybody else either [Music] you

Channel: Set the Edge

Views: 328,529

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Id: lU_Km4r045E

Length: 15min 12sec (912 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 07 2021