Merry Christmas, Happy Chanuka, Joyous Kwanzaa, and for my Klingon friends, “Batlh Bilopjaj”…
This Eagles season has been a combination of anticipation and fruition mixed with frustration. But I think the team is headed in the right direction if sustained excellence is the ultimate goal. Our record (6-9) is bad but we are not a bad team, if that makes any sense. That’s because we have a stable front office with a unified vision for the first time since 2013. All the fighting for power is done on the field now, something we couldn’t truly say two years ago. We know who we are personnel-wise and we know the kind of pieces we need to get better. We’re not serving leftovers for dinner anymore.
Cleveland Browns, Los Angeles Rams, Jacksonville Jaguars, New York Jets— these are examples of bad teams with stagnant leadership issues and dysfunctional issues across the board. It could take years more to sort out those franchises and their problems. Even the most objective analysts are saying Philly is way ahead of the curve compared to the road ahead for the “deplorables”.
Looking at what we get for Christmas this year, the biggest and best gift remains unwrapped—in fact, he’s still playing under center for one more game this season, and the key aspect of the gift for me is just how difficult he is to “wrap up.”
Who knew Carson Wentz had escapability skills?
I assume the Eagles scouting department knew… I sure didn’t.
Through the first 8 games of 2016, you could see even at 6-5 and 235 Carson Wentz was a wiry dude…with that wide frame and slightly bow-legged foundation reminiscent of a big shortstop or corner infielder in baseball…the kind of posture which is more about “reflexive reaction” readiness but not necessarily cat-like contortion or explosive acceleration.
Through the first 8 games Wentz was predictably conservative when trapped under pressure in a collapsing pocket. Throw it away, or take the sack but secure the ball. On the few occasions he did take off upfield, it wasn’t so much an escape move as it was like a shoplifter bolting through a door left open by an unprotected lane. A couple of ill-advised head-first collisions with the law soon put a stop to that bad habit.
Then, around Game 9, it began to click. Carson Wentz started to duck and weave under pressure like Joe Frazier, but with eyes downfield. He was lab-testing a QB skill we haven’t seen in these parts since a healthy Mike Vick displayed it in 2010—the concept of ESCAPE with the primary goal of EXTENDING THE PLAY!
His early experiments were sometimes awkward dances performed while in the grasp of defenders. But by Games 14 and 15, he was resembling a clone of Big Ben/Russell Wilson in sensing when and how to turn himself into Gumby and extend a play. He was even learning to slide feet-first.
“It’s just instinct,” Wentz says. “Natural instinct takes over.”
He’s being too modest there. It’s natural instinct to pull your hand out of a flame. It’s learning from experience and technique how to avoid the flame and shut off the burner with the same hand.
Can you imagine what a savvy extender of plays could mean for future Eagles offenses? Especially when our receivers learn to come back to the ball on what we used to call “broken plays”…
Extended plays wear out defensive players, too. You can game-plan to seal off escape routes for a quarterback, but you can’t game-plan for a spin-move undercut maneuver by Gumby.
“He’s going to be a nightmare for defenses,” safety Malcolm Jenkins said of Wentz. “He’s already so advanced for a rookie. We ask him to do a lot and you see how he handles responsibility. He’s growing before our very eyes. It’s going to be very difficult for defensive coordinators to draw up ways to slow Carson down.”
That’s my take on the best gift received from the Eagles this holiday season. It’s tied into the naughty word we’re not supposed to use around here, which is “hope”… I can taste what it will feel like to have a competent young veteran QB extending plays when necessary without fear of the unknown. It will add a new dimension to an Eagles offense which too often over the years has been staid and predictable.
Carson Wentz is the gift that is now hard to wrap up—and that’s a good thing.
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