All that matters in a potential Carson Wentz-Colts trade is if he can still play
Joel A. Erickson
Indianapolis Star
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INDIANAPOLIS — The Carson Wentz possibility the Colts might be exploring seems complex on the surface, full of questions that must be answered as the Eagles reportedly field trade offers for their embattled former starting quarterback.
There’s Wentz’s salary and the guarantees involved, the potential return a team must send back to Philadelphia to get him, a murky field of potential competition for his services from the rest of a quarterback-needy league.
Ultimately, however, only one question ends up mattering in the long run for a Colts team that is exploring all of its options at quarterback, according to general manager Chris Ballard.
Can Wentz still play?
May 13, 2016; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz (11) and offensive coordinator Frank Reich talk during rookie minicamp at the NovaCare Complex. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
Unlike Matthew Stafford, a good quarterback who was available only because he no longer wanted to go through a rebuild in Detroit, Wentz is available only because his play tumbled off a cliff in 2020.
Wentz was indecisive and inaccurate, simultaneously prone to holding onto the ball too long and pulling the trigger rashly. Wentz completed just 57.4% of his passes, tied for the league lead with 15 interceptions, took a league-worst 50 sacks and finished with an unsightly 72.8 quarterback rating.
He looked broken.
So broken the Eagles replaced him with rookie Jalen Hurts for the final four games of the season, and a damning Philadelphia Inquirer story emerged after Wentz’s benching, alleging the quarterback had become a problem for the coaching staff, unable to hold himself accountable for his own mistakes.
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If that were the player Wentz had been his entire NFL career, there would be no trade speculation, no complexity, no contract or salary cap implications hanging around the Eagles’ neck.
The reason Philadelphia might be able to trade him, and reportedly has considered keeping him, is that there may still be another version of Wentz left in his 28-year-old body, a version that would certainly fulfill the “veteran vision” Colts owner Jim Irsay wants, the type of player who could step into the starting role and ensure Indianapolis doesn’t take a step back from its 2020 resurgence under Philip Rivers.
The other version of Wentz, the one that earned him the four-year, $128 million extension that now seems like an anchor in Philadelphia, completed 64.4% of his passes, threw 81 touchdown passes and just 21 interceptions, averaged 7.2 yards per attempt and posted a 98.3 rating despite being hit hard by injuries from 2017-2019. Wentz was an MVP candidate in 2017, a quarterback good enough to drag a flawed Eagles team into the playoffs in 2019.
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Exactly the kind of quarterback a playoff-caliber Colts team could use.
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If the Colts believe that version of Wentz is still in there, they have every reason to believe they can get it back out of him.
For starters, the obvious: Indianapolis head coach Frank Reich is the man who built Wentz into an MVP candidate in Philadelphia, and after three seasons coaching three different starting quarterbacks, the Colts front office is supremely confident in Reich’s ability to get the most out of the most important position in football.
Reich has already shown an ability to fix Wentz’s biggest flaws.
The Colts got another beaten, battered quarterback, Andrew Luck, to start getting the ball out of the pocket quickly and stop taking so many hits. Under Reich, Luck turned in the most accurate season of his career, by far, and Rivers cut down on the interceptions that ended his legendary tenure with the Chargers. Accountability is a foundational element in Indianapolis; both Reich and Ballard are relentlessly self-critical, and Colts players and assistant coaches alike say it sets an example everybody else has to match.
And once again, that leaves the only question that matters.
Can Wentz still play?
If he can, the price the Colts ended up paying would fade, even if it drew criticism in the immediate aftermath of the move. The speculation surrounding the price the Eagles have set has been all over the map; some say Philadelphia is going to hold out for a first-round pick after the haul the Lions got for Stafford; others say Wentz’s diminished value and two years of guaranteed money might force Philadelphia to take less than the premium.
Under Wentz’s current contract, the Colts would be on the hook for guaranteed salary-cap charges of $25.4 million in 2021 and $22 million in 2022.
If Indianapolis made a move for Wentz, those numbers would immediately become the focal point of any analysis of the deal.
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Ultimately, the cost of the deal doesn’t matter that much, even though that’s not the way Ballard typically operates, and likely isn’t the way he’s approaching any potential deal. Ballard’s modus operandi is to set a value on a player and resist the urge to pay any more than that.
If Ballard does make the move, though, all that matters for the Colts — or any other team that acquires Wentz — is how he plays.
A move to get Wentz is almost certainly a move for a starting quarterback, rather than one-half of an open quarterback competition.
If Wentz is good enough to elevate these Colts the way Rivers did and keep them in the playoffs, it’s not going to matter if Indianapolis gave up the No. 21 pick or a fourth plus next year’s third, or how big his checks are each week. The acquiring cost certainly wouldn’t matter if Reich unearthed Wentz’s 2017 form and the Colts ended up landing a franchise quarterback in his late 20’s.
By the same token, if Wentz can’t be fixed, any move to get him would be the wrong one, no matter the price. Even if Indianapolis landed him for nickels on the dime, a 2021 — and potentially a 2022 — dragged down by a performance like the one Wentz just slogged through in Philadelphia would be a waste, costing the Colts a season with a young, talented core entering its prime and leaving the franchise back in the quarterbacking wilderness this time next year.
Need evidence?
In a league where the NFL’s best quarterbacks all make $35 million or more, the $25 million the Colts gave Rivers last season was seen as too much in some parts of Indianapolis — until he turned in a better season than anybody expected. By the same token, Jacoby Brissett’s two-year, $30 million deal and $21.5 million cap hit in 2019 were mistakes, in retrospect — because Brissett failed to capitalize on his opportunity to seize the starting job. If Brissett had emerged as a bona fide NFL starter, that deal would look like a steal now.
And that brings us back to the question the Colts have to answer for themselves, the only question about the Wentz possibility that will ultimately matter in the long run, no matter how many words are written or how many broadcast minutes would be spent debating the cost in the immediate aftermath of the move.
Can he still play?
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