Wentz earned his demotion with distressing performances all season, and Pederson telegraphed it by pulling Wentz at the end of their loss Sunday to the Green Bay Packers. But the necessity and predictability of the switch to Hurts makes it no less painful and complicated for the Eagles. They twice attached their future to Wentz at enormous cost, first by dealing a haul of picks to draft him second overall in 2016, then by signing him to a massive contract extension in 2019. They envisioned a franchise quarterback. What they have is a broken albatross.
Wentz, 28 and in his fifth season, has inarguably been one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL this year. He is not alone to blame for his downfall. Pederson’s coaching and the roster-building of Howie Roseman often left him to execute an incoherent strategy behind an aging offensive line and surrounded by mediocre pass catchers. But Wentz’s shortcomings are undeniable. He holds the ball too long, tries to make heroic plays when sensible ones are required and lacks accuracy. He ranks 31st in yards per attempt and 30th in passer rating and leads the NFL in interceptions thrown and sacks taken.
In an interview with the Eagles’ team website, Pederson expressed confidence Wentz could “get back to that level” he played at in 2017, when he became the MVP front-runner before tearing ligaments in his knee and then watching Nick Foles lead Philadelphia to a Super Bowl title. The Eagles have no choice but to hope, because they are for all practical purposes tied to him for next year.
In the contract extension Wentz signed 18 months ago, the Eagles included a dead salary cap hit of $59 million for the 2021 season as a way to spread his salary around in an advantageous way. That maneuvering did not account for the possibility they would want to cut ties. Why would they choose to part with the quarterback they had chosen to lead their franchise?
The finagling now makes either cutting or trading Wentz prohibitive. They would blow a hole in about a third of their salary cap by releasing him. Trading him is effectively impossible, based on what the acquiring team would have to pay over the course of Wentz’s contract and the money that would still count against Philadelphia’s cap. “Could the Eagles offer Wentz AND other valuable assets to take his contact while still incurring a $30M plus Cap charge?” former NFL executive Andrew Brandt asked on Twitter. “In theory, yes. In reality, no.”
And so the Eagles must hope Wentz can be redeemed. Even if he can, what do the Eagles do with Hurts? What if he stars in the season’s final four games? Would the Eagles make Wentz the most expensive backup of all time? And if Hurts stumbles, well, that leaves them with two quarterbacks to be nervous about.
Hurts’s presence has been a complicating factor as Wentz has regressed. In April, after Philadelphia surprised many observers by selecting Hurts in the second round of the draft, Roseman dismissed the idea that Hurts would affect Wentz. “Nobody is going to be looking at a rookie quarterback as somebody who’s going to be taking over a Pro Bowl quarterback, a guy who’s been on the cusp of winning an MVP,” Roseman said then.
Only Wentz could say whether Hurts’s arrival unsettled him, but the selection of a quarterback in the second round only added to the psychological hurdles he faced. He watched another quarterback win the Super Bowl he was headed for. He lost offensive coordinator Frank Reich, whose play-calling unlocked Wentz’s best football. When the Eagles chose him over Foles, a portion of the fan base wanted Foles instead. Wentz often had all of the pressure placed on a franchise savior with little of the adoration.
The fates of Pederson and Roseman must be considered now, too. The Eagles have fallen out of contention in a historically bad division. Three years removed from a Super Bowl crown, the Eagles’ roster has aged, and the players drafted to replace key veterans have faltered.
On Dec. 10, 2017, near one end of Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Wentz dived toward the goal line, his body horizontal, arms outstretched. When he left the ground, Wentz was the presumptive MVP of the NFL, a second-year quarterback in full blossom, the undoubted center of the Eagles’ universe. The present was simple and the future was incandescent. What has happened in the three years since would have been unfathomable then.
A hit shredded his knee, and while the Eagles won the Super Bowl that season, nothing has been the same for them. Wentz lost his job Tuesday. Whether he ever gets it back, and whether he can recapture what made him great, remains to be seen. For the Eagles, the present is messy, and the future is muddled.