LONDON — His day started off with a fumble. Then an interception.
Two drives in, Carson Wentz was 0-for-Wembley.
It was the first time since a game against the Giants his rookie year that Wentz had turned the ball over on each of the Eagles’ first two possessions.
“Adversity is going to strike in a season, adversity is going to strike within a game,” he said. “Sometimes you just make bad plays. You’ve got to bounce back from it. That really shows the type of player and character that you have.”
Wentz showed his character by bouncing back beautifully after those two turnovers and leading the Eagles to a 24-18 win over the Jaguars at Wembley (see observations).
Halfway through the season, Wentz is doing some serious record chasing:
• He went 21 for 30 for 286 yards with three touchdown passes, the one interception and a passer rating of 119.6 that made him only the second quarterback in NFL history to fashion a rating of 115 or higher in four straight games (minimum 30 attempts). Peyton Manning did it in 2012.
NFL
• He’s completed at least 66 percent of his passes in all six games he’s started, the last three over 70 percent. He’s got 13 touchdowns and two interceptions.
• With three TDs and one INT, he tied Matt Ryan’s NFL record of 21 consecutive games with at least one touchdown and one or fewer interceptions.
• He increased his career total to 62 touchdown passes, fourth-most in NFL history by a quarterback after 35 games (behind Dan Marino, Kurt Warner and Matt Stafford).
“Eliminate those two turnovers, I thought he played extremely well,” Doug Pederson said. “Led the team, played well, played tough. Made some tough scrambles for some first downs. Hung in there. … I thought he played aggressive. He played hard. He played tough. Really kept us in the game.”
Wentz took a beating.
He was sacked four times and hit late numerous times without a flag by the same crew that called a personal foul on Nigel Bradham on a play where he barely touched Blake Bortles.
But he converted three long third downs — a 3rd-and-14 with a 31-yard pass to Jordan Matthews, he scrambled for 13 yards on a 3rd-and-11, and he hit Alshon Jeffery for 12 yards on a 3rd-and-9.
In all, the Eagles were a season-high 58 percent against the NFL’s No. 9 third-down defense.
Wentz really used his legs Sunday more effectively than he has all year.
“That man’s as tough as they come,” Nelson Agholor said. “That’s my quarterback. He did his thing. He stayed alive. If he got sacked he got back up and made plays.
“He was hungry and he did what he does every week, find ways to make plays. He’s such a competitor and he’s going to go make plays, with his arm and with his feet. Whatever it is, he’s going to do it.”
The Eagles once again moved the ball great between the 20's and still struggled to score points.
“We moved the ball well, that's the thing,” Wentz said. “That was the positive sign. Obviously both turnovers on my part are things we got to clean up.”
The Eagles did a few things they haven’t been doing.
They ran the ball somewhat effectively — Josh Adams was 9-for-61 with a couple big runs — and they spread the ball out.
Four receivers had at least one 30-yard catch and none of them was Zach Ertz or Alshon Jeffery.
That’s a good sign.
Ertz, Dallas Goedert and Wendell Smallwood caught touchdowns, and Matthews led a balanced attack with four catches for 93 yards.
“That’s what we like around here,” Wentz said. “It's usually a good thing when we get lots of guys involved. Shoot, even I had a catch today (on a deflected ball). So we were spreading the ball around.”
As for the turnovers, the fumble really wasn’t his fault. He got blindsided by Marcell Dareus on the seventh play of the game.
His seven fumbles this year were tied for the league lead going into the rest of Sunday’s games.
“It sucks,” he said. “Something I got to clean up. Something I got to look in the mirror and say, ‘How can I protect the ball a little bit better?’
“Sometimes it's just getting the ball out earlier, finding my guys faster. Something I've definitely looking at.”
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