Nine days after his season ended with a torn ACL, Carson Wentz was officially recognized as one of the NFL’s best when he was named to the NFC Pro Bowl team.
Wentz, 11 days shy of his 25th birthday, joins Drew Brees and Russell Wilson as the NFC quarterbacks. He was the leading vote recipient among the three NFC quarterbacks.
Wentz is the fourth different Eagles quarterback named to a Pro Bowl team in the last decade, following Donovan McNabb, whose final Pro Bowl came in 2009, Michael Vick in 2010 and Nick Foles — the Eagles’ current quarterback — in 2013.
No other team has had more than two Pro Bowl quarterbacks during that span.
Wentz went 11-2 in 13 starts and broke Sonny Jurgensen’s 56-year-old franchise record of 32 touchdown passes in a season on his final pass of the season — a TD to Alshon Jeffery against the Rams.
He finished the season with a 60 percent completion percentage, 33 TDs and seven interceptions, 3,296 passing yards and a 101.9 passer rating.
Wentz joins Brett Favre, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan as only the fifth quarterback in NFL history to throw at least 32 TD passes in a season with seven or fewer interceptions.
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Among quarterbacks with 1,000 or more career pass attempts, Wentz now ranks seventh in NFL history with a 2.01 interception percentage (2.01 every 100 attempts), a fraction behind former teammate Sam Bradford (1.97) and a fraction ahead of Foles (2.02). His TD percentage (4.68) is 17th best in NFL history.
Wentz is one of six quarterbacks in NFL history in the top 20 in both INT and TD percentage. The others are Rodgers, Brady, Derek Carr, Wilson and Foles.
Wentz opened the season with six touchdowns and two interceptions in the Eagles' first four games before really heating up and throwing 27 touchdowns and five interceptions in the next nine games.
Only Brady, Rodgers and Brees have also thrown 27 or more TDs and five or fewer INTs in any nine-game span in NFL history.
Wentz goes into 2018 with an 18-11 career won-lost record. He's already the seventh-winningest quarterback in franchise history and with two more wins will pass Bobby Thomason and Norm Van Brocklin and tie Vick and Roy Zimmerman and trail only Norm Snead (28), Tommy Thompson (38), Randall Cunningham (63), Ron Jaworski (69) and McNabb (92).
Wentz takes a streak of 15 consecutive games with one or more touchdowns and one or fewer interceptions into next year. That's the sixth longest such streak in NFL history and six shy of the record of 21 set over the 2015 through 2017 seasons by Ryan.
Wentz was one of four first-time Eagles Pro Bowlers announced Tuesday evening. Brandon Brooks, Lane Johnson and Zach Ertz also received the honor for the first time (see story).
Other Eagles quarterbacks who've made the Pro Bowl team are Thomason (1953, 1956), Adrian Burk (1954, 1955), Van Brocklin (1958, 1959, 1960), Jurgensen (1961), Snead (1965), Roman Gabriel (1973), Mike Boryla (1975), Jaworski (1980), Cunningham (1988-90), McNabb (2000-04, 2010), Vick (2010) and Foles (2013).