One NFL expert believes that he’s identified Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz’s biggest weakness.
It would seem that Carson Wentz just can’t seem to win. If his health isn’t being discussed, it’s his leadership. If that isn’t the subject, we’re discussing inconsistency, The Philadelphia Eagles awarded him a four-year, $128 million contract extension with $107 million guaranteed on June 6th, and despite the fact that he’s completed just under 65 percent of his passes through the first two games of 2019’s season (the second-highest total of his career), all anyone can seem to talk about is two bad looking interceptions versus the Atlanta Falcons and two slow starts in two games.
Both are reasonable complaints, but there’s more to him than that, right? What about the way he rallied the team in both of those games? What about the four touchdown tosses? What about the fact that, in Week 2, he had to adjust to losing three receivers he had practiced with all week?
Here’s something interesting. Recently, Pro Football Focus published a story by Cam Mellor, detailing the biggest weakness for all 32 NFL starting quarterbacks. This one’s a conversation starter, to say the least.
The immediate question that probably comes to the Eagles fan’s mind is where does he sit on Carson Wentz? What does Mellor say about him? Are we talking about his leadership again? Inconsistency? His injury history? Thankfully, none of those were brought up. Mellor takes another approach. Wentz’s ‘kryptonite’ lies neither in leadership nor in the limitations of his body. It’s in his turnover-worthy passes. Take a look.
"From the start of the 2017 season, Wentz has done a lot right, but he also has unloaded a ton of turnover-worthy passes. His 28 such throws rank as the 13th most among all signal-callers since the beginning of the 2017 season. Wentz has gotten a bit of interception luck, as only 16 of those have actually been picked off, but we’d still like to see that number decrease for him to crack the top tier of quarterbacks."
On Sunday, there was no such luck. ’11’ threw two bad looking interceptions.
Mellor’s right on one hand, and for the Eagles to be truly successful, Wentz needs to take better care of the football, especially if he’s without two of his best weapons for an extended period of time.
On the other hand, some things don’t have stats. You don’t get points for battling back in Week 2. There’s no measure for the heart. Check both boxes for ’11’.
With repetition, the chemistry with the reserves will increase. It’s also still September. Philly will continue to gel. The Eagles will be fine. Wentz will study more, improve, and make better decisions. The best is yet to come in Philadelphia.