The Inquirer’s Eagles beat writers weigh in on the Carson Wentz trade

Macro view, unprecedented disaster. Micro view, they probably got the best deal they were going to get, under the circumstances.

You never want to sell an asset at its absolute lowest point. If you have a house that’s worth $1 million, and a flood comes along and leaves it worth $400,000, you’d want to get the house fixed up before you tried to sell it. Somehow, the Eagles got themselves into a position where the house — Carson Wentz — refused to be repaired, and wanted to be sold as-is. They had to unload it before March 19, when it would have been sitting long enough to need costly mold remediation.

You could argue that under those constraints, Howie Roseman’s haul was pretty good, a third-round pick this year, and a second next year that can be a first if Wentz is healthy and pretty good. Maybe Roseman got $450,000 or $475,000 for the house, even though only one bidder was all that interested in a flood-ravaged property.

But Roseman didn’t get anything close to what the property would have been worth a year ago, and much more important, he might not be able to find another million-dollar house. He has a tidy bungalow with curb appeal (Jalen Hurts) that maybe could be expanded and upgraded into a million-dollar house, but that is far from certain. And there’s a plot of land he owns — let’s call it Lot 6, for the sixth overall pick in the draft — that might be a nice setting for a million-dollar house, but there are all kinds of hurdles to overcome before that becomes a reality. The building process is arduous.

» READ MORE: Eagles trade Carson Wentz to Indianapolis Colts

In the end, unless the bungalow overperforms, Roseman’s bottom line is going to suffer for a long time from his decision to build a million-dollar house on a flood plain.

What Les said.

Not enough? How about if I look at the Eagles’ handling of Wentz and the quarterback situation from their rose-colored perspective? Maybe there’s an argument defending their actions. They made a bold move to draft a quarterback they had identified as the chosen one. Roseman’s maneuvering was widely praised at the time and for two years Wentz had proved him correct.

» READ MORE: Carson Wentz trade marks a dark day for Howie Roseman and the Eagles | Jeff McLane

But everything changed in Los Angeles in December 2017 when Wentz tore two knee ligaments. Nick Foles took over, led the Eagles to the Super Bowl title, and the dynamic shifted. The bar had been set and nothing short would satisfy most, especially the longer it took for Wentz to clear it. There’s little the franchise could have done to alter those circumstances.

The Eagles gave Wentz a $128 million extension just a season later because they believed in him, and partly because it made fiscal sense, a decision most thought was prudent at the time. But they also had to consider what the show of confidence would do for his psyche. Maybe that should have been a sign that he wasn’t mentally equipped to handle a year like 2020?

Wentz, of course, would suffer another season-ending injury the next season — a concussion in the playoffs — and the Eagles came to believe that they needed to invest more in a backup. Not in terms of money, otherwise they wouldn’t have drafted Jalen Hurts. But the execution was faulty — expending a second-round pick on a luxury when they had more pressing needs at other positions — and the Eagles have paid the price.

» READ MORE: Inside Carson Wentz’s turbulent season and the forces behind his regression

Obviously, they didn’t intend to torpedo Wentz’s career in Philly, and he shares some of the blame for his regression, as do others. But this is the fork in the road where it’s hard to defend Roseman and owner Jeffrey Lurie. Wentz would subsequently lose faith in the franchise and wanted out, and the Eagles didn’t want a quarterback who didn’t want them.

The return on the trade to the Colts seems fair. And, of course, those picks could factor heavily into the Eagles’ ability to find their next starter, assuming they aren’t 100% sold on Hurts. But it’s difficult to look past a disastrous end to Wentz’s tenure here — at least right now — and feel positive about the future.

I tend to agree with Les and Jeff here. There’s not much to quibble with regarding the compensation the Eagles got for Wentz considering the lack of interest from teams not located in Indianapolis. If the Eagles use this year’s third-rounder and next year’s conditional first- or second-round pick wisely, this trade could help them turn things around while they identify and build around their next franchise quarterback. If Jalen Hurts becomes a high-end starter, this trade will probably look better in a few years. If the Eagles draft someone who pans out and build around them with these picks, they’ll also be just fine.

Still, Carson Wentz was supposed to be that guy. Wentz is worthy of his share of the blame for his shocking regression, but there’s no doubt the Eagles’ roster management the last few years played a role. While I’m not as convinced as others that Wentz will plug into Indianapolis’s offense and immediately return to form as a quality starter, there’s a good chance this is the lowest Wentz’s value will ever be.

» READ MORE: Carson Wentz trade clears the path to start Jalen Hurts ... for now

It’s fair to bring up the sunk-cost fallacy when discussing the draft picks, money, and time invested in bringing Wentz to Philadelphia, keeping him here, and building around him. Wentz’s play and general discontent made it this move necessary for the team to cut its losses regardless of resources invested, sure. But it’s important to remember just how often the Eagles are forced into situations like this because of bad decisions, and therein lies the problem.

Roseman might have done a satisfactory job getting out of this bind, but just like roster dilemmas in the past with poor draft picks (Sidney Jones and Rasul Douglas) and bad contracts (Alshon Jeffery and DeSean Jackson), the bind was of his own making. The big-picture bottom line here is the Eagles traded their franchise quarterback because he lost faith in the organization’s ability to help him turn his career around. No matter how you look at it, that’s a bad sign.

Timing is everything.

If the Eagles had been interested in trading Wentz 12 months ago, they would have gotten a king’s ransom for The Deer Hunter. It would have made the third-round pick and 2022 conditional second-round pick they’re getting from the Colts for him now look like cab fare from the Cancun airport to Ted Cruz’s hotel.

Wentz was inconsistent in 2019 but still finished with the league’s sixth-best touchdowns-to-interceptions differential (plus-20). He threw 10 TD passes and just one interception in the Eagles’ last five regular-season games before suffering a concussion nine snaps into the playoff loss to Seattle.

That Wentz would have had a dozen suitors calling Roseman.

This Wentz, the one who finished 34th in passing and completion percentage last season, and threw a league-high 15 interceptions, and got benched in Week 12, had two — the Colts and the Bears.

The Eagles’ preference was to keep Wentz and see if a new coaching staff could fix him. But The Deer Hunter wasn’t interested in that.

He couldn’t get over the benching and the fact that mean old Howie had the audacity to draft Jalen Hurts in the second round last year. I thought Wentz was mentally strong enough and competitive enough and secure enough in his own ability to deal with the presence of a young quarterback. But I was wrong. Even with a four-year, $128 million contract extension as an assurance of the Eagles’ belief in him, he wilted like an orchid in a North Dakota winter.

» READ MORE: The Eagles misread Carson Wentz as a person and a quarterback. This trade is the result of that failure. | Mike Sielski

Wentz drove this trade, not the Eagles. He wanted out and the Eagles had no choice but to oblige him, which turned them from a team trying to make a deal into essentially a charity case. They took the best offer they could get for him, which turned out to be the only offer they could get for him since the Bears never actually made a real offer.

If he can keep from getting hurt again, Wentz should thrive with the Colts. He had his best season in 2017 when Colts coach Frank Reich was the Eagles’ offensive coordinator. Indy is a perfect town for The Deer Hunter. It’s a lot more Fargo than Philly. The fans don’t boo and the media’s teeth aren’t as sharp as they are here.

So, that conditional second-round pick likely will wind up being a first-round pick next year, albeit one at the bottom of the round.