When Carson Wentz makes his 2018 debut and takes the field next Sunday, he’s going to be coming from the Eagles’ locker room.
Not a phone booth.
Wentz is definitely an MVP candidate. He’s definitely the Eagles’ best player. And he’s definitely one of the best football players in the world.
But he doesn’t wear a cape.
“We can’t expect him to just put his Superman cape on and be his old self,” Zach Ertz said on Sunday night. “He’s going to be rusty. But we got a lot of good players on this team.”
Doug Pederson agreed with that assessment on Monday. Despite being from the midwest and wearing glasses and despite the heroics we witnessed from him during his magical run in 2017, Carson Wentz is from Earth … not Krypton.
So what’s realistic to expect from Wentz on Sunday?
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It’s probably unfair to expect Wentz to get on the field Sunday against the Colts and immediately be the league’s MVP right away. He hasn’t played in a football game in over nine months and the focus for most of that rehab time was healing from an ACL and LCL tear, not actually playing. The closest thing to playing in a game that Wentz has done over the last few months has been practicing. No matter how intense those practices are, they aren’t like games. The speed is just faster when the real bullets are flying, to steal one the Eagles’ favorite sayings.
Even Pederson admitted there might be some early struggles, saying, “It’s going to take some time to get back into the rhythm of the game.”
From a physical standpoint, Wentz is fully cleared. There are no restrictions and Pederson said he won’t coach scared. That’s a good thing. Of course, the coaching staff will have a conversation with Wentz about the importance of protecting his body; that was a normal occurrence even before this injury.
During this rehab, Wentz has had a ton of time to work on his upper body strength. So in that regard, he’s actually stronger than he was last season. He’ll be able to toss deep ball after deep ball. Of course, thanks to the Eagles’ shortage of wide receivers, we’re not exactly sure who’s going to catch them. Wentz is going to help the team immediately, but there are still some serious question marks about the other skill positions on the team. Wentz will probably make them more serviceable in the interim.
Lastly, a big part of Wentz’s game before the injury was his mobility. Aside from just scrambling, Wentz was also able to use his legs to get out of tough situations and buy some extra time.
Coming off a torn ACL and LCL, will he have that mobility back right away?
“We’ll see,” Pederson said.
Yes, we will. It doesn’t matter if Wentz is back to his MVP form or just on his way there, it’s still going to be a glorious sight.