March 02, 2022
With Colts head coach Frank Reich and GM Chris Ballard speaking at the NFL Combine Tuesday, a lot of the chatter across the league over the last 24 hours or so has been about what the Colts are going to do at quarterback next season.
There seem to be two camps right now with regard to the future of the former Eagles superstar — either the Colts' roster is too good to waste with Wentz at QB, or he is too much of a sunk cost and there are no other viable options for Indianapolis at QB.
The Colts are financially committed to the 29-year-old for one more year, after which they will not be hit with a gigantic cap hit (though one still smaller than the Eagles absorbed to move on from him).
Why is this relevant for the Eagles? After all, the Birds fleeced the Colts for a first and third round pick last year and have quarterback questions of their own. Well, if Wentz is on the move, it affects everyone. There are a ton of QB needy teams right now, ranging from the Buccaneers to the Commanders to the Broncos, and there is a pretty decent chance wherever Wentz goes he'll face the Eagles next season.
Here's a look at some of the coverage of the Wentz situation following some interesting press conference quotes from Colts officials, signifying they were throughly not committed to bringing Wentz back.
Let's start with a little more information on the tone heard from yesterday as Colts officials, and even Doug Pederson dodged questions about the Wentz issue. It seems like quite a stretch for anyone to expect Wentz be back as the starter in Indy for 2022 if you dissect the way he was spoken about (arguably tanking his trade value, if you ask our Jimmy Kempski).
...the Colts won't openly admit that they're willing to cut bait, just like the Eagles didn't last year, because, well, they want to get something in return in a potential trade.
"I don’t have a direct answer for you,” Colts GM Chris Ballard said when asked if Wentz will be the Colts' quarterback in 2022.
Reich was more expansive, but still said the same thing.
"I believe in Carson," he said. "I was a big part of that decision to get him here. And so, you know, I believe he's gonna continue to have a lot of success a quarterback.
"That might be here. It might not be here. That decision has yet to be determined."
If Reich had clamored for Wentz to come to Indianapolis, and if the Colts had given up the two draft picks to get him, then what does it say about Wentz that his future is in doubt?
"I think that’s just the way it played out," Reich said. "We didn’t finish the season the way we should have ... If we finished the season the way we were supposed to, we’re probably not having this discussion." [Courier Times]
It's really really hard to get good quarterback play in the NFL. By McLane's estimation (with the help of some handy math from Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians) there are eight teams with elite quarterbacks and ten more teams with quarterbacks who are less than elite and who would welcome an upgrade (like the Eagles and Colts). Philly and Indy are in the same boat in a sense, but of course the Colts are the team with the big ticket item in Wentz while the Eagles have Jalen Hurts on his rookie contract.
In a column, the Inquirer's Eagles beat writer looked into some more of the comments made about Wentz at the Combine on Tuesday — and the more you think about some of the answers from Colts GM Ballard the more you have to assume Wentz is as good as gone:
Asked about Wentz’s mental state in light of the doubt about his future, the Colts GM said he wanted to see how he would learn “to handle the criticism.” When the Eagles were winning, Wentz’s personality was often described as Type A. Many NFL quarterbacks have that similar gene.
But when the team’s fortunes declined following the Super Bowl season in 2017, some team sources labeled his reluctance to take hard coaching as stubbornness.
“Always ask yourself, ‘Is the criticism fair?’” Ballard said. “I’ll take it in if it’s fair. If it’s not fair, what am I doing? I’m not wasting my headspace on that. But if the criticism is fair, then we got to be able to look internally and accept that and grow from it.
“Most of it’s pretty fair. And it’ll be interesting to see how [Wentz] grows from this. I think he will.” [Inquirer.com]
This one is a story that admittedly was published prior to the start of the Combine but couldn't be more relevant. In a piece for The Ringer, Danny Heifetz takes a look at what exactly Wentz' issue is, and why he is able to post respectable numbers and play well as a game manager for stretches of a season while also completely ruining the entire season for other stretches. For anyone who is familiar with his playing style with the Eagles a few years ago, the below description comes as no surprise:
In January, Ballard implored Wentz to “make the layups.” That’s a polite way of saying “take the freaking checkdown sometimes, dude.” Almost every NFL quarterback must learn this the hard way. College quarterbacks often succeed by making aggressive throws, but those same throws lead to mistakes in the NFL. Successful pro quarterbacks learn how to tone down their aggressiveness enough to limit turnovers, but not enough to lose who they are.
Wentz has never found that balance. At 29 years old, he still suffers from Big Man on Campus Syndrome. Playing high school football in North Dakota and then quarterbacking FCS school North Dakota State, Wentz was always the best player on the field. He could win playing hero ball. When he got to the NFL, he was immediately successful. As the Eagles starter, Wentz nearly won the MVP in 2017 largely because he was enormously successful at extending plays and making magic happen on third down. Wentz tore his ACL that season, the Eagles won the Super Bowl with Nick Foles, and Wentz has never been the same.
Rather than being humbled by the NFL, Wentz’s hero-ball instincts were reinforced. He’s the guy at the gym who made five 3-pointers in his first pick-up basketball game and now just jacks up terrible shots instead of going to the rim. This instinct got even worse as the Eagles faced a ludicrous number of injuries to their offensive line and receiving corps for two straight years in 2019 and 2020. With all the injuries, Wentz’s hero ball seemed like Philadelphia’s best (or only) strategy. But it also might have broken him. [The Ringer]
Over at the Athletic, Mike Sando put together a fun little ranking of all 32 NFL teams by how much angst they have at the quarterback spot. Interestingly, the Colts and Eagles were in vastly different portions of the rankings:
If this were simply a ranking of quarterbacks, the Indianapolis Colts might rank somewhere in the middle instead of at the very top. But with their coach and general manager deep into their tenures, with their owner pushing hard for championship success right now and with no clearly superior alternative to Carson Wentz readily available, the Colts arguably carry more quarterback angst this offseason than any other team.
1. Indianapolis Colts
It’s a different level of angst when the team owner punctuates a foreboding social-media rant by looking into the camera on the tarmac near his private jet and declaring in his most serious voice that what happened last season was “unacceptable, and it will not stand.” Jim Irsay runs hot anyway. He’s been overheated lately. All signs point to a quarterback change, but it’s not clear how much the team can upgrade from Carson Wentz. Having sent the team’s 2022 first-round pick to Philadelphia in the Wentz trade doesn’t help matters.
...
26. Philadelphia Eagles
Not much angst here. The Eagles got great value for Wentz in retrospect. They like Jalen Hurts and could stick with him as their starter. They also own sufficient draft capital to play in the trade market if opportunities to upgrade become available there. [The Athletic]
Not everyone thinks Wentz will be jobless (or traded for a Day 3 pick) in a few weeks. ESPN's Bill Barnwell took a look at each AFC team and what they need to do during the offseason and he basically devoted his entire Indianapolis Colts section to why they need to, and probably will keep Wentz. Here's a snippet:
...the Colts don't have any clear path to a replacement. The organization is undoubtedly frustrated by what happened at the end of the season, but dumping Wentz without a solution isn't going to fix what happened.
If Indianapolis doesn't think he is part of its long-term future, that's one thing. If it gets offered a first-round pick by the Buccaneers or Steelers and wants to get off the Wentz wagon, I could understand. Still, given what the Colts put into acquire him, what they've already committed financially for 2022 and how competent he was for most of his lone season in blue and white, the idea of dumping him for nothing just doesn't add up. [ESPN.com]
For what it's worth, NFL Network's Ian Rapoport seems to agree, as he said via SB Nation this week.
“Is Jimmy Garoppolo a better option than Carson Wentz? Is he a better player? I don’t know the answer to that, but that’s one of the things that they’re going to have to try to figure out. I mean there are potentially quarterbacks available. I just don’t know who actually gives them a better chance than Wentz did last year.”
The new league year begins in two weeks. The Colts will certainly be one of the more interesting teams to keep an eye on.
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