Carson Wentz’s brutal day with Commanders shows why Eagles better off with Jalen Hurts
PHILADELPHIA − We all know that Carson Wentz has long moved on from the Eagles, as have the Eagles from Wentz.
But now that Wentz is back in the NFC East with the Washington Commanders, the Eagles have to face him twice each season, beginning Sept. 25 in Washington.
So a comparison is relevant here.
Sure, it’s low-hanging fruit to say the Eagles are better off with Jalen Hurts than they are with Wentz. It’s also low-hanging fruit to reach that conclusion after seeing Wentz’s three-interceptions disaster of a day Monday during a Commanders’ training camp practice.
Reporters at that practice described fans booing Wentz and pretty much lamenting the fact that the team is picking up Wentz’s $28 million contract for 2022. That decision, in large part, forced the Commanders to part with veterans like Landon Collins, Matt Ioannidis and others because they had to fit Wentz’s contract under the salary cap.
But really, the reasons for the Eagles being better off with Hurts run much deeper than a bad day during the first week of training camp.
We saw some of this Tuesday through a steamy morning practice in which Hurts connected on a deep ball to Jalen Reagor, continued to work his top target in A.J. Brown, and generally made good decisions with the ball.
Yes, the usual caveats certainly apply in both cases.
Wentz certainly isn’t as bad as his 3-INT day. And Hurts threw one interception in each of the Eagles’ first three practices, including a brutal decision in which he threw across his body while running to his left.
Hurts, however, is a student of the game, and it doesn’t take much to see that he’s not above taking criticism. He’s also in a much better situation, with better players around him. And he’s in the same system, with the same coaches for the second year in a row.
That matters.
Wentz, meanwhile, is on his third team in three seasons. He was pretty much run out of Indianapolis last season after a brutal finish to the season. That came a year after he reportedly asked the Eagles to trade him in large part because he didn’t want to compete with Hurts for the starting job after getting benched for the final 4½ games of the 2020 season.
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