Comparing Carson Wentz to 3 future Hall of Famers who struggled early

Were Carson Wentz’s bad performances last year really all that bad?

Before this devolves into another one of those debates about whether Carson Wentz is elite or not, let’s do some housekeeping. As a fan, it’s hard not to compare your team’s signal-caller to guys like Aaron Rodgers or Russell Wilson. It happens, but that’s not what we have done here. Instead, we did some research and watched some film of some of their poor performances to see how they compare to that of Wentz’s this week. This is simply to show that even great quarterbacks have gone through struggles like this.

Many Eagles fans are worried, and they have a right to be. Wentz has had had his share of bad showings dating back to 2018. In 2019, he didn’t perform well versus Atlanta, Detroit, Dallas (the first time), Seattle, or New England. To be fair, the Eagles were dealing with plenty of injuries in most of those games though.

In the Atlanta game, Wentz bounced back for an amazing second half where Nelson Agholor dropped a potential game-winning touchdown and Zach Ertz didn’t get to the sticks on fourth down. They also lost DeSean Jackson and Alshon Jeffery in that game before it even got going.

Versus Detroit, there were countless drops including the J.J. Arcega-Whiteside potential game-winner. In the New England game, the Patriots secondary completely took away every wide receiver and Agholor dropped another potential game-tying touchdown.

It would be unfair to compare this past Sunday to those losses and blame them solely on Wentz. In most of those games, he controlled what he could and made the throws he needed, but here’s something to consider. Sometimes, ineffective play happens. Just ask some of the all-time greats who are still playing.