Philadelphia Eagles’ Carson Wentz reclaims ‘King of Third Down’
Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz is on a mission to re-establish himself as the ‘King of Third Down.’
We’re not sure how many times we can rave about Carson Wentz’s 2017 season. After all, the guy did play like the NFL’s most valuable player. Unfortunately, a knee injury derailed his chances of winning the award and leading the Philadelphia Eagles on a Super Bowl run.
Since Wentz’s 2018 effort wasn’t nearly as impressive, a lot of us can’t help but go back to the best season of his career and talk about the ‘shoulda-coulda-woulda’ MVP of the 2017 season. However, it gets old. I’ve grown sick of watching Carson Wentz escape a collapsing pocket on third down. The deep ball to Mack Hollins on Monday Night Football was neat, but it’s been overplayed.
Eagles fans needed Wentz to offer them more in 2019. The offseason hype existed as many were under the belief that Wentz was looking more like his 2017 self, rather than last year’s. But we needed to see it in action. We needed to see Wentz escape the rush and do some improv.
We needed to see Wentz throw multiple touchdown passes, without turning the ball over. And most of all, we needed to see Carson Wentz and the Eagles offense execute in critical situations. Not only did the Eagles formulate a comeback after being down two possessions on Sunday — but Wentz was also spectacular under challenging circumstances on third-down — just like he was in 2017.
The ‘King of Third Down’ is making a comeback
“Carson Wentz’s third-down mastery continues,” read a headline from NBC Sports Philadelphia back in 2017. “Carson Wentz was outstanding on third down,” was another one from one of Wentz’s most prominent critics in The Philly Voice.
No. 11 wasn’t ‘overrated’ by any means that year. Carson was clutch, and he was dominant — especially on third down. Sure, you would like to see an offense get a first down on every play, but that’s just not reality. What’s reality is that teams fall behind on the count as not every play can be a home run.
Third downs are extremely challenging for any quarterback, and it takes a special one to remain calm at all times and consistently convert. That might not have been Wentz’s bread and butter during a down season, but it was his best down this past Sunday during Wentz’s 2019 debut.
Against Washington, Wentz was spectacular on third down. The Eagles had the opportunity to face third down 17 times this past Sunday. In 13 of those 17 situations, the Eagles elected to pass. Carson Wentz managed to complete 12 of his 13 passing attempts on third down.
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Quite an impressive number, right? Let’s also not forget to add in that those 12 completions were for just under 200 yards. And all three of passing touchdowns on Sunday? Yes, they came on third down as well. Two of them happened to be 50-plus bombs to DeSean Jackson while another was a five-yard throw on the run in a tight window to Alshon Jeffery.
Sunday might be a small sample size, but understand that this type of production on third down is nothing new to Wentz. We saw this two years ago when he was fully healthy without the pressure of a backup taking over in his shadow. This season, Wentz is in the same predicament. Realistically, we could be talking MVP soon enough once again if those numbers keep up.