A Legend in the Making

I've written before (after his very first regular-season start, in fact) that Carson Wentz is a blossoming star. So I was interested in how Wentz's injury-shortened 2017 season—in which he was on track for NFL MVP before his injury in the 13th game of the season against the Rams—compared to the best QB seasons in Eagles history. Eagles fans know that he set a franchise record for TDs with his 33rd, after tearing his ACL against the Rams!

But I wanted to compare other stats, such as Wentz's yardage, completion percentage, and so on, to the best seasons for Eagles QBs, like McNabb 2004. So Google took me to this Pro Football Reference page. Though it wasn't what I was looking for, I did discover something very interesting...

Since 1933, only 12 Eagles' quarterbacks have passed for at least 7000 regular-season yards in their entire careers in Philly! And Carson is already one of them:

After less than 2 full seasons—29 games, to be precise—Wentz already ranks as the 12th-leading passer in Eagles' history!

Assuming that Wentz plays the entire 2018 season and remains healthy, it's reasonable to assume that he'll reach 3000 yards passing this coming year—a mark that would catapult Wentz into the top-6 in Eagles' franchise history! In fact, there's a pretty good chance that by the end of this coming NFL season, Wentz will be the #5 passer, in terms of regular-season passing yards, in Eagles' history.

After only 3 professional seasons!!!

That's quite an accomplishment, even for such a gifted young passer. And it really puts into perspective how few good QBs the Eagles have had over the years.

• Donovan McNabb is, unsurprisingly, the Eagles' all-time passing yards leader. 
• Ron Jaworski is #2 on this list. He was also a pretty good QB.
• Randall Cunningham is third on the list; he would surely be higher if he hadn't spent most of his Eagles' career playing for the run-first Buddy Ryan, with few receiving threats. Cunningham was undoubtedly a talented player; a superstar in the making whose coach failed to maximize his prodigious gifts. Let this be a lesson about the importance of a good coaching staff!
• Michael Vick ranks 6th, just 16 yards shy of the 10,000-yard mark. Not bad numbers considering that he spent 5 seasons in Philly, and never played a full 16-game slate for the Eagles.
• Hall-of-Famer Sonny Jurgensen ranks #7 on the Eagles' all-time yardage list. The Eagles traded him to Washington in April 1964, after an injury-shortened 1963 season. A legendarily terrible move by new coach Joe Kuharich, who may rank as the worst head coach in franchise history.
• Norm Van Brocklin, QB of the 1960 NFL Champion Eagles—the only team ever to beat a Vince Lombardi-coached team in the playoffs!—sits at #9 on this list.

Honorable mention goes to:

• Nick Foles - MVP of Super Bowl LII, who ranks #10 on this list. Foles' 52 TD-19 INT ratio with the Eagles is an enviable mark! Say what you want about Foles' awkward deep-ball delivery or 'happy feet' in the pocket in 2014; that kind of ratio doesn't happen by accident or by scheme. The guy is clearly not on the same level as Wentz, but it's equally clear that he does have NFL-caliber talent.
  
  The 'knock' on Foles in his first turn as Eagles' QB was that he's the kind of guy that needs everything to go right for him--good coaching, good play from the offensive line, a good running game, etc. That's probably true. But a look through the history of the Eagles' QBs [not to mention the history of the NFL in general] demonstrates that few can succeed without those factors.
   
• Sam Bradford - brace yourself for a take that's unpopular in Philadelphia: Sam Bradford is a pretty good QB. I think he's on the same level as Foles, but with nicer-looking mechanics.
  
  Now, he doesn't have the same killer mentality as Foles, or many other QBs. Bradford is certainly apt to take the 'safe,' quick completion rather than taking a risky deep shot. This tendency is probably in no small part due to his history on terrible Jeff Fisher-coached Rams offenses, not to mention suffering from ACL tears in two straight years. Such a star-crossed start to his NFL career surely affected his psyche!
  
  I think Bradford is better than he gets credit for; he's just been a victim of some terrible luck. Look at his only season starting for the Eagles: a 65.0% completion rate, 19 TDs to 14 INTs, and 3725 yards on 346 completions (532 attempts), good for a respectable 7.0 yards/attempt. That lone 3700-yard season is good for the 17th-best career passing yards for an Eagles QB!
  
  Oh, and by the way, that 65% completion rate is the best single-season completion percentage of any QB in Eagles history (well, actually, it's good for 39th-best. But 22 of those 39 players went 1-for-1, which clearly doesn't count! The only one of those 39 who has even a sliver of a claim to the single-season accuracy title is Randall Cunningham, who went 76-for-110 in 1993 before suffering a season-ending injury in Week 4 against the Jets).
  
  Chip Kelly's 'QB-friendly' scheme aside, that kind of accuracy doesn't happen by accident, either. As Bradford's impressive performance for the 2016 Vikings shows, he is more than capable of leading an offense. And, lest you forget, Bradford had an even more impressive start to the 2017 season (before getting hurt. Again.).
  
  It's worth reiterating that Bradford is a pretty good QB. Certainly not a great one, and not a reliable one, either! He's definitely earned more money over his career than his performance warrants. But if you judge solely by Bradford's performance when he's on the field, he's clearly a pretty good QB.
  
  Is Bradford injury-prone? Yes. Is he a dink-and-dunker who perfectly fits a pure quick-hitting West Coast scheme? Yes. Was he the right QB for the Eagles? No. But none of that makes him a bad quarterback.
   
• Doug Pederson, 33rd on this list. Yeah, he was never a good QB—that's why he was a career backup. But he's shaping up to be the best head coach the Eagles have ever had!
  
  Oftentimes, they say, physically gifted athletes—such as Bradford—make poor coaches. Why? When you're naturally good at something, it's hard to explain to someone who isn't. For example, pretend you're talking to a four-legged alien who asked you how to walk on two legs without falling over.
  
  Pretty difficult to put into words, right? It'd be a similar experience if you asked Michael Vick how he can throw an accurate 60-yard pass with just a flick of the wrist: "I don't know, I just do it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ "  Yeah, not helpful. But Pederson had to work to stay in the NFL; if he relied on his good-but-not-starting-caliber physical traits, he never would have had a 14-year pro career. So he can share all the tips that he learned, because his mind is what kept him in the League—not his arm.

And, after all that, I finally found what I was looking for: how did Wentz's 2017 season rank in terms of single-season performances by Eagles' QBs? 

The answer? Not bad for a partial season—17th overall in passing yardage, 13th in completion percentage (among QBs with at least 200 pass attempts), and 20th in yards per attempt (among QBs with at least 200 pass attempts). 

Interestingly, Donovan McNabb's 2008 season yielded the most passing yards in a season in Eagles' franchise history, with 3916 yards on 345 completions (571 attempts). He also flirted with the 4000-yard barrier in 2004, with 3875. 

Prorating Wentz's passing yards/game average over a 16-game season in 2017 would have made that the first 4000-yard passing season in Eagles' franchise history. But we deal in facts, not hypotheticals. Here's hoping that Wentz can break the 4000-yard barrier in 2018, which would make him the #5 all-time Eagles passer in only his third season!!!

And, of course, let's all hope that they can repeat as Super Bowl champions!

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