January 05, 2017
In his rookie season, Carson Wentz was up and down, displaying good arm strength, mobility, and poise beyond his years while throwing to lackluster skill position players behind an often shuffled offensive line. While there is certainly room for improvement, Wentz showed that he is a franchise quarterback that the Philadelphia Eagles can build around.
Here are my top-10 Carson Wentz plays of the season:
In the first game of Wentz's career, he beat CB Joe Haden for a score on a perfectly thrown bomb to Nelson Agholor.
This may not look like much, but there aren't many quarterbacks who can do this. Rolling to his right, Wentz has sort of an effortless flick down 25 yards down the field, with juice, to Zach Ertz, who of course slides after the catch during his "pre-called-out" phase of the season.
The actual run on this play by Wentz wasn't particularly highlight-reel worthy, but it did cap an impressive drive on the road that would have equalized the score had the Eagles kicked the extra point.
This is such a difficult throw. Wentz is moving to his left and throws back to his right in between three defenders on the money to Agholor. This may not be the advisable decision, but look at how pretty it is.
Wentz avoids a pass rusher by escaping the pocket to his right, waits for Darren Sproles to clear the linebacker, and lofts a perfect touch pass to Sproles, who then runs for a 73-yard score. It's the ease with which he makes this play that is so impressive.
Wentz improvises.
— NFL (@NFL) September 25, 2016
And Sproles brings the ZOOM.
73 yards! #FlyEaglesFly https://t.co/UMO0f3SyE6
This throw is all arm, which Wentz rifles through a tight window while being hit.
On a play in which he had all day to throw but seemingly did not have any open receivers, Wentz rolled to his right and pointed for Jordan Matthews to run deep down the field.
Any defensive back who sees that from a quarterback on a broken play is going to turn and run so that he doesn't get beaten deep by the receiver. However, instead of lofting a deep throw, Wentz made an accurate back-shoulder throw while on the run to a spot behind the corner, where the corner had little chance to recover and knock it away, especially when the quarterback has already told the world he's throwing deep. This is awesome.
We see a lot of quarterbacks make this difficult throw, which Wentz puts on the money, but we'll list this one a little higher than normal because it was the very first drive of Wentz's career.
Shades of MV7.
Lol
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