Playing Carson Wentz This Preseason Is A Risk Not Worth Taking For Eagles
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Leather helmets are long gone. So are two-a-days, water break bans, ill-fitting helmets, leather-and-wool shoulder pads sewn into jerseys and canvas pants. All gone.
Yet some people like hammering home that "old ways" work when preparing for an NFL season, like having Carson Wentz step on a field this preseason and play.
It's been cited often, and it will be here again: The Los Angeles Rams sat most, if not all of their starters last preseason and began 8-0, finished 13-3 and reached the Super Bowl.
On Tuesday while addressing the media, Doug Pederson didn't rule out the possibility of Wentz sitting the entire preseason.
"He's done some great things out here [in practice], obviously," Pederson said. "I try to make the way the practices are set up in training camp as hard as they can be in camp and not just for him, but for everybody and we've seen a lot of good things. He's progressing and getting better every single day. The timing and rhythm with his receivers is getting better and it's still kind of up to me to play anybody the rest of the way, but getting a lot of great work in in these practices.
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"We still have a plan with not just him but with all of our guys and all of our starters. We don't play the Washington Redskins for a few more weeks [the regular-season opener Sept. 8], so the goal is to get ready for that. But I have to evaluate these guys in the next couple of weeks and see if they need to play in some of these games and make decisions that way."
Wentz has played 24 games the previous two seasons. He tore the ACL and LCL in his left knee in 2017, and played with a fractured bone in his back from late September into early December last year.
Some say Wentz needs to play football to become a better football player. Like in boxing, fighters with prolonged, distinguished amateur careers don't need extensive sparring. They need to go into preservation mode. They've taken enough punches.
The fewer times Wentz gets hit, the better. He has played enough football during his young pro career already.
It would be a bad experiment to dangle No. 11 out there and wonder during preseason: Let's see if he holds up or not.
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Some say Wentz has to build timing and rhythm with his receivers. It's basically the same core of receivers that he's had the last two years. They should be on the same page by now.
It's simply not worth risking Wentz's health during the preseason. If he's lost, the season is lost.
Last time anyone looked, Cody Kessler and Clayton Thorson aren't reminding anyone of Nick Foles — or even Thurston Howell III.
They need as much work as they can get.