Carson Wentz chokes, Jalen Hurts dominates in Eagles revenge game

LANDOVER, Md. — This wasn’t Philadelphia against Washington, or the Eagles vs. the Commanders. This was Carson Wentz vs. Jalen Hurts. It’s the only matchup that mattered, and it was a heavyweight bout.

Hurts won. In a knockout.

Wentz? He mostly ducked and covered.

The final score was 24-8. The Eagles moved to 3-0, the Commanders to 1-2. But this was about more than a score, or even the record. It was about revenge.

Hurts finished 22-for-35 and threw for 340 yards and three touchdowns, compiled a 123.5 passer rating, and in a stadium turned green, left to chants of “M-V-P!”

Wentz, the greatest homegrown villain in Philadelphia sports history, was 25-for-43, threw for 211 mostly empty yards, compiled a 71.0 rating, and was sacked nine times, delighting the massive throng of supporters for the enemy. They traveled the 135 miles down I-95 as much to support the Birds as to jeer Ginger Jesus.

Wentz noticed.

“I don’t think my performance was affected by that,” he said, falsely. Wearing a fuchsia sportscoat with matching Nike Blazers basketball shoes, suede, circa 1977(!), Wentz called the experience surreal: “I know Eagles fans travel well. They showed up, and they had a lot to cheer for today.”

They had a lot to cheer against, too. When Wentz led the Commanders onto the field, Eagles fans booing Wentz drowned out Commanders fans cheering him. Surreal, indeed.

The principals barely interacted. Hurts wasn’t a game captain, so he didn’t attend the coin flip, where Wentz shook hands with old friends Brandon Graham, Fletcher Cox, and Jason Kelce, which he called “surreal.” He exchanged jerseys with Kelce after the game. He exhanged a postgame embrace with Hurts.

It lacked warmth.

This could not have been predicted. Wentz had played well in his first two games with Washington this season; he shared the league lead with seven touchdown passes and was second with 650 passing yards. But on Sunday, at home, facing the team he’d betrayed and about 10,000 ravenous Eagles fans, Wentz choked.

With all eyes on him, against a motivated opponent, he choked.

Wentz fumbled twice and lost one. The sacks were almost always of his own doing, and he admitted that. He still refuses to throw the ball away. He still remains incapable of progressing through his reads. His numbers were worse early: 9-for-17 for 45 yards on the Commanders’ first nine possessions.

But this was about more than numbers.

This was about doing the right thing or doing the wrong thing. Wentz, in 2020 and 2021, did the wrong thing.

» READ MORE: Eagles defense and DeVonta Smith created a nightmare for Carson Wentz’s Commanders in a 24-8 win

He quit on his team in 2020. He forced a trade that cost them their Super Bowl coach and left the Eagles in salary-cap ruin in 2021.

As things turned out, Wentz did the Eagles a favor. Hurts has become a fine quarterback. Wentz has regressed like few QBs in history.

Still, Sunday in Landover was about revenge; revenge for a city and for a franchise. Wentz’s petulance cost 30-something veterans like Kelce, Cox, Graham, Lane Johnson, and Darius Slay a precious year of their careers.

This was the first chance the Eagles and Philadelphia had to repay Wentz’s unprecedented treachery. The green-clad fans were ecstatic. By halftime they’d taken over rainy FedEx Field. By the fourth quarter, “Fly, Eagles, Fly” was echoing through the stadium.

Consider them all Repaid in Full.

Wentz shined as a rookie and was better in 2017, but injury, circumstance, and his own bad attitude led to regression the next three seasons. He resented the love Nick Foles received for Foles’ playoff success as his backup, and was, inexplicably, incensed when the Eagles drafted Hurts in the second round of the 2020 draft to be a gadget-play backup. The Eagles had given Wentz a $128 million extension before the 2019 season.

Wentz’s meltdown was a slow-motion car crash.

Wentz played horrific football through 12 starts in 2020. He got benched for Hurts, a rookie, midway through Game 12, and not only did he sulk for the rest of the season, he also plotted his trade demand — on the sideline, during the game in which he was benched. He stopped speaking with head coach Doug Pederson in the middle of the season. He had gone rogue, often calling his own plays. He never supported Hurts before the benching, and he became distant, even as the Eagles stayed alive in the playoff hunt. He even leaked trade requests during the rest of that season. After the season, he boycotted his exit interview. His distaste for Pederson helped cost the coach his job just three years after Pederson — with Wentz sidelined by injury, as he so often was — won Philadelphia its first Super Bowl.

» READ MORE: Inside Jalen Hurts’ takeover as the Eagles quarterback and an ‘awkward’ season with Carson Wentz

But even when new coach Nick Sirianni was hired to replace Pederson, Wentz reiterated his trade demand, preferably to Indianapolis, where former offensive coordinator (and Bible study leader) Frank Reich was head coach. The trade left the Eagles with a $34 million salary-cap hit, the biggest in history for a departed player. The cap hit kept the Eagles from adding talent last season.

Nevertheless, they went 9-8 behind Hurts. Wentz started hot for the Colts but fizzled at the end. Finally, unvaccinated, Wentz contracted COVID-19 before the last two games of the season. The Colts lost both games. Wentz was abysmal. The Colts traded him to the Commanders, the most dysfunctional franchise in the NFL.

He’s fitting right in.

Hurts played as well as Wentz played poorly.

He connected with DeVonta Smith eight times for 169 yards, the latter the most of the second-year receiver’s brief career. That included a 45-yard bomb, as well as a thrilling, 2-yard, fourth-down toss that made it 24-0 as the first half ended. Hurts hit tight end Grant Calcaterra, a rookie in his NFL debut, with a 40-yard catch-and-run to open the third quarter. He ran nine times for 20 yards — judicious runs that protected him.

» READ MORE: Eagles’ C.J. Gardner-Johnson gets Malcolm Jenkins’ seal of approval

He showed growth for the third straight game this season. That means everything for a team with Smith, star receiver A.J. Brown, highly paid veterans on the defensive side of the ball, and the best offensive line in the NFL.

The Wentz story is not fully written, of course. The teams meet in Philadelphia in Game 9 on Nov. 14, a Monday Night Football contest, and the prime-time nature of the contest will resurrect all of the points highlighted above.

Given the vagaries of the NFL — players get hurt and benched and traded — there might never be another Hurts vs. Wentz. Then again, since Wentz plays within the division, and since he’s under contract for two more seasons, this could turn into a two-man rivalry.

“It’s a faceless opponent to me,” Hurts insisted.

OK.

So far, it’s Hurts 1, Faceless Opponent 0.