Entering this offseason, everyone expected the Eagles to invest a lot of their time into acquiring weapons for Carson Wentz. Now that were essentially done with free agency, the team hasn’t added any notable offensive players. Instead, Howie focused on the defensive side of the ball, acquiring a handful of impact players along the defense.
When Roseman was asked about his negligence towards the wide receiver position this offseason during a conference call a few weeks back, he said that team had more faith in their receivers than most of us fans do.
You can take that at face value if you’d like, but if we take all of the transactions this offseason into consideration and read in between the lines of Howie’s comments, one thing starts to become very clear.
This organization is ready to hand they keys over to Carson Wentz and they believe he’s ready to be an elite quarterback who can lift the makeshift group of weapons around him.
Is that a fair assessment by the front office? Well, he did carry an offense full of practice squad players to a division title last season, albeit in the worst division in football. Expecting the same level of play from Wentz moving forward is completely reasonable, though.
They wouldn’t have handed him the contract extension last offseason if they didn’t believe he was the guy, and Howie’s willingness to bank on Wentz’s ability alone to carry essentially the same offense from last season is only further evidence to that.
Of course, if everyone stays healthy offensively, Wentz already has some solid weaponry around him. He has two top 10 tight ends, a young and promising duo of running backs and a solid offensive line in front of him. Having an elite receiver would be a luxury, and continually using the ‘he needs elite weapons around him’ argument is lazy. And quite frankly, it’s more of an excuse rather than a legitimate reason for some of Wentz’s shortcomings.
It may seem like I’m coming down on Wentz in this piece, but I’m not trying to. I believe he can be the best quarterback in football if he reaches his full potential. It looks like the organization sees it that way as well.
As always, this team will go as far as Wentz takes them. When Wentz played well last year, the team usually followed suit. When he struggled, so did the rest of the team.
If Wentz can put it together for all 16 games moving forward, the Eagles will continue to be in playoff contention year in and year out.
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