Season in Doubt, Carson Wentz Likely Won’t Get a Chance to Be the Eagles’ Hero QB

The Eagles’ type-A quarterback is facing a possible season-ending injury, this time a vertebrae fracture, handing him another offseason of rehab and questions.

Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

It did not take long for the narrative to develop in Philadelphia: With Carson Wentz on the mend again, this time with a fractured vertebra, Nick Foles can transcend NFL folklore and become something beyond human. He can take the Eagles from their current ditch (generous projections have them at an 18% chance of making the playoffs, though ESPN’s FPI is has them below 10%), traverse the team’s remaining schedule that includes the Rams and Texans and land the suddenly red-hot defending Super Bowl champions into a postseason wild-card spot.

You know the rest of the story from there. The Eagles roll into some opposing city, one of their fans decks a horse, another tortures some well-meaning Midwesterner on the way to his or her seat and Foles uncorks a flea-flicker to Golden Tate for a game-winning touchdown.

That scenario is unlikely, but more fun to think about than the alternative: that Wentz may not finish a season for the second year in a row, that there may be something to monitor or work around during his offseason program, that even though they say he doesn’t need surgery, there will obviously be a concern about re-aggravation moving forward.

Should this end up being another significant issue for Wentz, it’s fair to wonder if he’ll have a difficult time again digesting the fact that he’s sidelined for a pivotal portion of his team’s season. He does not get nearly enough credit for pinballing through last offseason the way he did, patiently waiting until Week 3 to return and throwing 13 touchdowns to two interceptions over his first six games in 2018.

I think about this passage from a Philadelphia Inquirer story about his comeback often: He thanked God for the victory, but he also asked for strength to fight any jealousy he may have toward his teammates. Wentz soaked in the atmosphere and knew he wanted to experience what Nick Foles, as the starting quarterback, just had, but he didn't make any guarantees.

Such an essential part of embodying the franchise quarterback role is being lucky enough—healthy enough—to lead a team during those defining moments. While assuming that Foles will go on a similar run is getting way ahead of ourselves, it isn’t a stretch to imagine how disappointed Wentz will be if he doesn’t have a hand in the Eagles’ final three games this season.

After all, the only way to truly exorcise the unimaginable bittersweetness of the Super Bowl LII victory would be to do something even more surprising.

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