Eagles Start Their Exit Plan with Carson Wentz
PHILADELPHIA - The Eagles are open for business when it comes to Carson Wentz.
And according to NFL Media at least, some teams are calling.
Perhaps it's appropriate that news broke on the third anniversary of the Eagles Super Bowl LII championship, the one and only Lombardi Trophy in franchise history.
If there was any lingering doubt coming off a dismal 4-11-1 season in which the head coach was fired, Philadelphia’s championship window is officially slammed shut for the time being as the Eagles move forward to the Nick Sirianni-Jalen Hurts era.
Turns out the lifetime dispensation card Doug Pederson should have earned on Feb. 4, 2018, lasted 35 months with the lede I wrote from that cold winter’s night in Minneapolis proving prophetic: “A man who wasn't wanted gave Philadelphia what it wanted most ... a Super Bowl championship.”
The entire band of the “Philly Special” will also be gone by March when Corey Clement inevitably joins Trey Burton and Nick Foles as ex-Eagles.
Frank Reich is already in Indianapolis feeding the Eagles his leftovers and Jim Schwartz is back in Baltimore contemplating retirement and getting ready to watch some Orioles games.
Dave Fipp and Duce Staley are preparing for a move to the Motor City and John DeFilippo has failed on two occasions to turn Foles into a real starting QB in other cities.
What remains is Jeffrey Lurie, Howie Roseman, and the shell of the championship team sure to lose more of its foundation this offseason as Wentz attempts to wrangle his way out of the Deleware Valley and Zach Ertz hopes Roseman’s bad-cop routine comes with a change of address form.
And who knows what happens with aging veterans like strip-sack hero Brandon Graham and oft-injured offensive linemen Brandon Brooks and Lane Johnson.
The Eagles are in a transition, after all, something Lurie said seven times in his tortured press conference announcing the departure of Pederson.
A rookie coach, meanwhile, is afforded all the heft Pederson could never get.
Once tabbed as a rising star in the organization, Press Taylor turned into too young and too friendly to Wentz once Pederson tabbed him as a protege, yet the 33-year-old Brian Johnson is on the cutting edge of offensive football because the University of Florida could score in the glorified video game that is college football?
Sirianni hired a 29-year-old special teams coordinator in Michael Clay. Linebacker coach Nick Rallis is the same age as his top pupil, Alex Singleton.
Maybe all the unproven coaches turn out to be stars but Wentz surely wants no parts of the growing pains en route to that after he was thrown to the wolves less than two years after the Eagles were absolutely sure he was the face of the franchise to the tune of four years and $128 million.
Maybe $33.8 of sunk cost from that is the football gods fine for hubris.
All is lost but the Eagles continue to play the game and create the illusion of some leverage by claiming others were calling even in the wake of the Los Angeles Rams sending two-first round picks and a third-rounder to get Detroit to take Goff’s Wentz-sized contract off their hands, all for Matthew Stafford.
Presumably, the Eagles aren’t interested in bringing back a significant asset for Wentz so the total haul the Lions received is not a measuring stick. However, it does indicate that the Eagles aren’t getting anything of substantial value for Wentz and that’s the last hurdle that needs to be overcome before what needs to be done here is executed.
By all accounts, Philadelphia still wants “value” in return for Wentz and that’s simply not happening, leaving us with two options: Hold your nose and get rid of Wentz at clearance aisle prices or wait another season before releasing him, perhaps at the expense of Hurts’ development.
There is no reclamation project here, no reboot, and no rebuild.
This is about an exit plan.
John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's EagleMaven and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John every Tuesday and Thursday on "The Middle" with Eytan Shander, Harry Mayes, and Barrett Brooks on SportsMap Radio and PhillyVoice.com. He’s also the host of Extending the Play on AM1490 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
Ed Kracz is the publisher of EagleMaven. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
