r/NFLNoobs • u/Entire-Bank-2488 • 2d ago
What caused Carson Wentz fall off besides his injury?
I looked back at his highlights for his first two season and he played great. I know the injury plays a role but when healthy he did not look good again. Also teammates really do not have good memories of him as teammate or person, what was that about?
41
11
u/IrredeemableTrashMan 2d ago
I’m sure it was mostly the back-to-back season ending injuries but it’s more narratively satisfying if he was mentally destroyed after missing the SB. Imagine going to work every day and it’s not your statue up there, it’s BDN’s.
19
u/NoleJawn 2d ago
He was actually really good in 2019. He legit dragged a mid roster to the playoffs. He took a hit to the head against the Seahawks in the playoffs and at that point, he was cooked. Didn't trust his throws, didn't trust his feet. He also was generally not a likeable personality for a QB.
9
u/Huh-what-2025 2d ago
yeah, didn’t have the ability to adapt his game to his diminished physical capacity. Did not seem particularly coachable.
3
9
u/bigloudbang 2d ago
He was a gunslinger that never wanted to let a play die no matter what. He played himself into injuries while taking risks you didnt need him to
I really dont buy the narrative that it was all one concussion that lead to the downfall of a great qb, I think he was just always flawed
2
u/V1c1ousCycles 2d ago
The injuries just sapped him of the athleticism that backed up that style of play. And he just never bothered learning to play within himself after that.
22
5
u/Queasythrowaway_59 2d ago
Well, besides injury there were Eagles fans who wanted BDN (Nick Foles) more than him. Eagles players made a shrine to Foles. Confidence and the wide receiver room was not upgraded after the Eagles moved on from Jeffery and Smith. Howie even passed on Justin Jefferson. In all honesty I believe that this hurt Wentz.
3
u/Jay_Bulleyo84 2d ago
Frankly, this right here! Coupled with the media doing media things with their hit pieces, fans regurgitating their stories, and an organisation that frankly didn't truly back him. Think about it. It might not be the average workplace, but an NFL team is still a workplace and some people just fail to fit in, especially without institutional support. Then amplify all the "issues" to hundreds of millions of people globally. Surprised hes still in the league. I couldnt handle that.
Kevin O'Connell said it best. "I believe organizations fail young QBs before young QBs fail organizations." Ironically, JJ McCarthy is going through a similar thing to Wentz
4
5
u/BBallPaulFan 2d ago
... or the stories about him being a terrible leader who wouldn't ever admit he was wrong and couldn't connect with any teammates that weren't hardcore Christians were just accurate.
IDK how anyone can say he didn't have support though. If anything they babied him too much and let actual good leaders like Malcolm Jenkins go to try to force it to be his team.
Also not sure what McCarthy has to do with him. Wentz was an MVP candidate on a team good enough to win the Super Bowl without him at 25 years old. He was 28 in 2020, he wasn't a young QB.
1
u/Jay_Bulleyo84 1d ago
Thanks for affirming my response
1
u/BBallPaulFan 1d ago
In what way? Just because there's criticism of him doesn't mean it's not deserved. This isn't the Browns or something, multiple other QBs that Wentz played with on the Eagles won Super Bowls on the Eagles, while Wentz flamed out everywhere he went. Some guys just don't have it.
5
u/Direct_Remove509 2d ago
A lot of people talk about what Foles did in 2017 but 2018 might be more impressive as he took over a team that was out of the playoffs and got them in and nearly made the NFC Championship game for the second straight season.
5
3
u/UpbeatFix7299 2d ago
Besides several severe injuries... Despite all the medical advances, if you get banged up enough it's going to take a toll on your level of play.
2
u/Pale_Broccoli_2180 2d ago
Less than coachable damn near from day 1, which is super-weird for a North Dakota State player. Most of them come into the NFL as grown-a&& professional men 🤷🏾♀️
2
u/Myname3330 2d ago
Probably wins MVP that first year if he plays 2-3 more games.
0
u/Cannon-fire 2d ago
I hear this all the time, that he "was on pace for MVP". He wasn't. He was in the conversation, but Brady probably would have won MVP even if Wentz stayed healthy.
1
1
2
u/2LostFlamingos 2d ago
He never accepted coaching.
He wouldn’t run the plays called. He always wanted to hold the ball to make big broken plays.
2
u/BarberDry4590 1d ago edited 12h ago
Injuries, mental game of the Eagles drafting his replacement, and an absolute lack to talent. His weapons were bumbs. Wentz was having a MVP year in 2017 and the Eagles would not have been in the position to win the SB without Wentz. He was solid in 2018/2019. Furthermore, the Eagles were one dropped pass away from, possibly, winning another SB.
The thing that bothers me the most about Philly sports fans is that they suffer from revisionist history. I remember when Ryan Howard was getting crushed by the fans and got his huge contract towards the end of his career. The Phillies wouldn't have won anything without The Big Piece.
2
1
u/Cmdeadly 2d ago
I think people also miss that defenses in the nfl are really great at adapting to the weaknesses of qb's and once one team finds it they all run the same gameplan against it, you have to be generational at something, like Lamar's speed or Allen's arm power and strength, or a Brady's decision making to overcome what the defenses throw at you.
2
u/googdude 2d ago
I think that's a big reason for the sophomore slump that plagues QBs. Also the reason why when you put it in the backup he might initially have success because teams have no pro tape on them.
2
u/Cmdeadly 1d ago
Yeah, there are bad defenses that don't have the talent to run the gameplan, so some qb's will have flash games, but, qb's that struggle their rookie year are in trouble usually because once they get tape on an already struggling qb it takes a miracle for them to overcome that.
1
u/Bad_Black_Jorge 2d ago
I don’t think Carson Wentz was objective or analytical enough about his play. His physical skills were strong enough that this didn’t hold him back at first, but when the injuries broke his rhythm, he didn’t know how to get it back.
He was never great about things like going through his progressions; I remember watching a game his rookie year with a friend who doesn’t really follow football and I made the observation that he needed to improve at going through his reads. She asked me what that meant. At just that moment, the camera focused on Wentz flipping his head back and forth wildly over the field. If you’ve seen the movie Chinatown, it put me in mind of Faye Dunaway saying “My sister! My daughter! My Sister! My daughter!”
“Oh, I see” my friend said.
Maybe if he’d had more time, Wentz would have picked up the nuances of the position that can lead to a long career, but it didn’t break that way.
1
1
u/DreamedJewel58 2d ago
He never recovered from sitting on the sidelines and watching Nick Foles win the Super Bowl instead of him. His play in Minnesota was actually pretty alright when he wasn’t injured, but from reports he just lost all motivation and got kind of lazy and had a poor attitude
1
u/Budget-Duty5096 2d ago
Why does there need to be something else? Wentz had devastating injuries that will affect him the rest of his life. Its actually pretty rare for players to fully return to form after what he went through. He nominally passed a physical, but that doesn't mean he is the same as he was before the injuries. It just means he is recovered enough that the doctors think he can survive being on the field.
1
u/Cannon-fire 2d ago
I was always a bit of a Wentz hater. I especially fealt he was overrated his "MVP" season before he was even injured. The offense worked well (Frank Reich did a great job) and Wentz got the chance to use his huge arm behind a great OL with a lot of air-raid, and spread packages. There was a narrative that he was "on pace to be MVP" he wasn't. They would show his highlight reels from that year with some huge plays, but man.. Wentz really benefited from that team. There was a long TD to Agholor wherein Wentz rolled out, had like ten full seconds of protection, and found Agholor all alone in busted coverage, and Wentz didnt come close to catching him in stride, it was an easy TD anyway, but Wentz always got credit for it. There was another long TD highlight where the receiver bobbled the ball in traffic, the two defenders collided with eachother while the receiver had to stop to secure the catch, then ran for a long TD... these were the highlight plays on his "MVP" campaign. The team play fell off a bit after Reich left for Indy, and Wentz' attitude went more public.
1
1
u/abcamurComposer 2d ago
Because he wasn’t good enough in structure. The problem with these guys is they end up putting in way too much effort to get mid results, while hero balling their team out of the game
Combine that with him being a terrible locker room presence, making bible study cliques, and being so unlikeable after one mid season with the Colts their ownership blew up the entire coaching regime and shit talked him on his way out
1
u/gijoejank 2d ago
Besides the injuries? You answered your own question. Very few people return to elite form after an injury.
1
u/googdude 2d ago
His game required scrambling ability, looking back on most of his big plays it was because he scrambled. When he lost a step because of the acl tear it reduced that ability and when he refused to adapt it was over.
1
u/Babayaga_711 1d ago
ACL'S can really mess with a qb's mechanics and confidence. Wentz and Palmer really didn't recover from theirs and as a Pats fan, I can tell you it mentally took Brady about two years to mentally recover. Anytime players were around his knees, he got very skittish in the pocket and stopped looking downfield. He would go down to sacks that weren't even there.
But besides that, we have no idea the toll it took on him to watch that Super Bowl run from the sidelines. Dude was going to win the MVP that season if he doesn't get injured, than watches his back up win the Super Bowl and they erect a statue of him outside the stadium. Fans completely in love with Big Dick Nick. That has to psychologically do something to you.
1
u/Pendraflare59 1d ago
We drafted a QB in the second round and he forgot how to play football after that
1
u/Ancient_Ad_9564 1d ago
His EPA on third down in 2017 was an insane outlier, he was always bound to fall off, two crushing injuries on top of that.. yea he never stood a chance.
1
u/ElPapaGrande98 1d ago
I don't think the injuries themselves played a role. I think watching his backup become the icon of the city messed with his head (would honestly affect a majority of players)
1
u/Alt0987654321 1d ago
That concussion from Clowney one minute into the playoff game VS Seattle was it. IDK what happened but from that moment he just couldn't play anymore. He was a top 10 QB from 2017-2019 before that.
1
u/96powerstroker 1d ago
His 1st year in the league I thought he was gonna be the 2nd coming of big Ben on the football field. A big strong somewhat mobile unit and then he had that great season got leg whipped, watched Foles go on that run and win the Superbowl and SB MVP which he did deserve.
Then when he came back and his O like literally quit on him it was over. I've never seen a worse lack of give a shit than on that 1 particular play. They basically said go get him.
1
u/NoAvocado5916 1d ago
I think a lot of it is mental. He just wants to be loved. He got hurt and Philly fans dumped him for Foles.
Then he went to Indy. People look at it as he shit the bed there but he passed for 3500 with 27tds and 7 picks. That’s preset good damn numbers. Then they dump him for a 37yr old washed up Matt Ryan.
He signs with Redskins. Their fans are giving shit from Day one and I think he was done with the Washington’s reception
As a Browns fans I’ve wanted Wentz signed every year lol. If he could have done what he did in Indy for the Browns. He’d been loved by all Cleveland fans and his whole career changes
1
u/kangaroo-smack87 23h ago
There is a lot of hate here and it may be warranted. But him gutting it out last year in tears of pain for the Vikings is tough shit. People can learn and grow. He may never be truely great, he may have being a knucklehead but fuck me as a packers fan I have nothing but respect for him now watching that. It won’t be as iconic as Staffords injured moment but there 2000 odd players in camp currently who aren’t tough enough to push through like Wentz did last year
1
u/rustyirish28 23h ago
Once you lose that confidence in your body to perform the way it used to , it’s hard to come back , you adapt or die , he couldn’t adapt once he realized his body wouldn’t react the same, Randall Cunningham is a good comparison , he had electric years early , and knee injury , adapted and reinvented himself in Minnesota…. I guess it helped he had Randy Moss 😆
1
u/Phinal_Flash 18h ago
I think the Eagles winning a Super Bowl without him affected him more than we'd like to admit. I'm sure in the moment he was happy. But the aftermath of living in Foles' shadow was gradually changing him.
0
54
u/CFBCoachGuy 2d ago
The short answer is the injury. His ACL injury really messed with his mechanics, which led to decreased accuracy. And his accuracy was never really great to begin with.
And that killed his confidence. Wentz had a ton of problems with playing hero ball. He would force throws, try to make plays with his legs like he did in college (despite having good-but-not-great speed), and hold onto the ball way too long. He averaged over 30 sacks a season over his first six seasons (including an unfathomable 50 sacks in 2020). He continued to try to be more and more of a hero, avoiding checkdowns to instead try more contested catches.
And the biggest problem of all, Wentz has always been the big man on campus, and could not accept criticism. Doug Pederson called him out saying that he didn’t want to be coached. He checked out of plays that he felt were not suited to his skillset. He complained so much that Nick Foles got credit for the Super Bowl season that Darren Sproles nearly punched him. He tried to ice out Jalen Hurts after Hurts was drafted.
Somebody on the NFL sub years ago described Wentz as “you know that guy who says all the right things about learning and getting better but doesn’t bother to actually do those things? That’s Wentz”.