After dragging on for about a week and a half, the Eagles have officially traded Carson Wentz to the Indianapolis Colts in exchange for a 2021 third round pick and a 2022 conditional second rounder (that could potentially convey as a first).
There’s a few angles to unpack here, but we should ultimately be glad the drama is over and that we can move onto the rest of the offseason.
No matter where you stand on Wentz as a player, there are reasons to applaud this trade in a vacuum, but big picture it’s difficult to treat any of this like a victory for the franchise.
While there will be plenty of debate around this trade in the coming hours and days (how we got here, who won, was it a mistake, etc…) rather than sulking in the past I’m far more interested in discussing what the Eagles future looks like moving forward. Most importantly, what is the team’s plan at quarterback?
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter and Chris Mortensen:
“Each team walks away from the deal with what it wanted across all fronts: Wentz will be reunited with Colts head coach Frank Reich, his former offensive coordinator in Philadelphia, and help fill the void left by Philip Rivers‘ retirement, while the Eagles are likely to turn to Jalen Hurts, though they also intend to bring in competition for him. The Eagles’ starting job is not expected to automatically go to Hurts.”
As they should be, the Eagles are 100% in the market for quarterback (at 6 overall or possibly higher) though that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll draft one. We’ve always known that Howie believes in Jalen Hurts, but it’s encouraging to hear that he isn’t automatically being handed the job and that the franchise will do their due diligence.
Hurts didn’t do enough to earn the job through four starts, he didn’t have long-term starter value coming out of college, and he shouldn’t be treated as such now that he’s all of a sudden the only signal caller on the roster. While I’ve touched on this in the past, the organization shouldn’t take the opportunity to draft a franchise QB for granted, and a top-6 pick in a class with multiple strong QB prospects is sitting right in their lap.
Opinions on Wentz and the trade aside, we should all be glad this drama is behind us. My only hope is that the team is clear-eyed about their direction moving forward, because right now there isn’t a single person in this city who would express confidence in this organization.
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