Pro Football Focus is an amazing source for football data, and for football nerds like myself, it’s a treasure trove of knowledge that can’t really be found anywhere else.
I’ve used their metrics numerous times to support some of my claims, but there are times where I scratch my head at some of the analysis they’ve done of certain players. Carson Wentz being the most blatant.
About a week ago, PFF put out their top-50 current NFL players. Only two Eagles made it, Fletcher Cox (15) and Brandon Brooks (34). Of course, Wentz was nowhere to be found. He didn’t even make the cut for their follow up article, 10 players who just missed PFF’s list of the top 50 players in the NFL.
FS1’s Colin Cowherd — someone who’s always been a defender of Wentz — put out his take on PFF leaving Wentz outside their top-50. He refers to Wentz as the “new Russell Wilson. Here’s the entire clip:
There will undoubtedly be fans who scoff at Cowherd’s comparison of Wentz and Wilson here, but he does actually make some solid points. If we look at both Wentz’s and Wilson’s numbers through their first four years, this comparison seems pretty reasonable.
Wentz’s stats through four years:
- Completion percentage: 63.8%
- TDs: 97
- INTs: 35
- Yards per attempt: 6.9
- Yards per game: 253.4
Wilson’s stats through four years:
- Completion percentage: 64.7%
- TDs: 106
- INTs: 34
- Yards per attempt: 8.1
- Yards per game: 218.3
Those are very similar numbers. Wilson has the slight edge on touchdowns, but Wentz has him beat on yards per game and he’s been able to do it with a lower yards per attempt than Wilson.
Honestly, I’m not really sure why there aren’t more big media personalities endorsing Wentz. It seems like the majority of these pundits usually just write him off as being injury prone, but in the next breath they’ll praise someone like Deshaun Watson as being one of the best up and coming signal callers even though he’s missed more regular season games than Wentz has, and Watson hasn’t even been in the league as long as him.
Wentz made very promising strides towards the end of last season. He carried a motley crew of receivers to a division title, winning four divisional games in a row to close the season out. I don’t care how bad the division was last season, we all know anything can happen when two NFC East teams meet on the field.
Obviously, his early exit in the playoff game didn’t help his cause. It was just more ammo for the people who constantly pin him as an injury prone quarterback.
With an improved receiving corps and a handful of new offensive coaches to help with his development, Wentz should be even better next season. If he builds off last year’s performance and stays healthy, there’s nothing this Eagles team can’t achieve in 2020.
3 comments