Two injuries in two years. Rehab, isolation, watching his team play in the biggest moments without him.
Carson Wentz reached a tipping point.
In December, after a stress fracture in his back ended another of his seasons too early, the then 25-year-old franchise quarterback met with his pastor and mentor to purge it all.
“I had a lot of built up frustration and everything,” Wentz said during an extensive interview with reporters a week and a half ago. “Kind of just talked to him and let it all out. Everything I had been going through, the journey and everything. Kind of let it all out and fully surrendered it. My faith in the Lord is ultimately what I surrender it to. There is that moment, just talking to him after the injury last year, that I let it all go.”
Just like that, Wentz was free.
All spring and summer the Eagles’ franchise quarterback has looked lighter and for once we’re not talking about his weight loss. For much of last season, he was carrying around some pretty heavy stuff. The injuries, the rehab, the pressure, the criticism.
Wentz admitted that football became more stressful last season.
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But now he’s found peace of mind.
“It’s been a journey and, by no means, am I going to say I’m perfect, that I have everything figured out,” Wentz said. “But the pressure and the expectations and everything surrounding everything that I have always done a good job of blocking out. But then you compound that with injury and then the struggles that we had last year early on, it just kind of got me to … seeing this game, it was more stressful and I was less free playing it.
“Finally, that (back) injury, it just allowed me to release everything and take a bigger look at it. As a lot of you guys know, my faith has really gotten me through really everything. So just remembering that I play this game for a much bigger picture and that God’s in control of every single detail of it. Just surrendering that to him was a challenge but that’s ultimately what got me through it.”
It’s not that there’s any less pressure on Wentz this season. Heck, there could be more than ever. It’s just that he seems better equipped to handle it now.
Even though he realized it’s always been a part of NFL life, Wentz admitted that he started to hear the criticism of him a little more last year. After rehabbing from his knee injury, the Eagles’ offense wasn’t preforming well enough and the team got off to a shaky start. With that came plenty of criticism.
But when he had this epiphany last December, he realized he couldn’t control what other people think or write. So he let that go, too.
Last year at this time, Wentz was preparing to watch the first couple games of the 2018 season as he came back from his torn up knee. This year, he knows he’ll be on the field in Week 1. It’s a pretty good feeling.
“I feel like I’m just mentally in a much different place and physically I feel good too,” he said. “Little more relaxed, you could probably say.”
You probably would.
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