Adrian Fedkiw
With a brim of confidence to go along with some North Dakota swag, the astute Carson Wentz took to the podium for the first time in Philadelphia a day after he was selected No. 2 overall in the NFL Draft. The sharp-witted Wentz calmly took questions from reporters and provided a bright look into his competitive side.
The more he chomped on his gum, the more sucked in Philadelphia got.
The city is mesmerized and excited about the fresh direction.
It was a bold and daring move for Howie Roseman to pull this off. The Philadelphia Eagles were at a crossroads as a franchise, but the trade up to No. 2 and the pick of Wentz has definitely rejuvenated the fan base. The Wentz Wagon doesn’t have any room left, the pressure is going to be immense for the kid.
Wentz might have the right personality to handle the Philly heat. He has officially arrived and he just graced the cover of SI!!!
Wentz donned his new Eagles green, Jared Goff his Rams blue and Paxton Lynch his Broncos orange on three separate regional covers for this past week’s Sports Illustrated magazine. Austin Murphy wrote a piece entitled Art Of The Deals where he dissected the “most memorable first round ever” and called the proceedings not a draft but an “arms race.”
This draft unlike years past had teams willing to move their top picks at the top. The Tennessee Titans had already selected their franchise quarterback Marcus Mariota in 2015, so they weren’t looking for a quarterback. The Cleveland Browns, meanwhile, need one but they weren’t fans of Wentz and have the luxury of waiting for one because of how bad they’ll most likely be this upcoming season.
Why not trade down if you’re the Titans and Browns and jump-start your rebuilding process?
Teams in the top three who normally need a quarterback take one, but that didn’t happen this year. Part of it had to do with a lack of starpower, it’s why the Browns weren’t interested. For the Rams and Eagles, however, they might not see an opportunity like this again. These are franchises that aren’t good enough to contend without a true franchise quarterback, but not bad enough to pick in the top five and improve your chances of getting one every year. This was also a draft class which featured a lot of really good and above average players, but the disparity between the No. 1 and 10th prospect wasn’t drastic. It was easier for a team up top to trade back.
Goff and Wentz might not pan out like Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, at least I don’t think they will, they were still a lot better options than what the Rams and Eagles had not only now but for the future at the position as well. Roseman called the Eagles trading up a “unique moment” for them to make it up there and that it certainly was.
It’s also ironic that the Rams and Eagles were the first two teams picking in the draft and Sam Bradford was complaining about being traded. Murphy gives a late 1980’s movie reference of a move I’ve never heard of, but you’ll get the point at the end.
Early in Raising Arizona the irascible owner of a furniture store berates an employee: “Eight hundred leaf tables and no chairs? You can’t sell leaf tables and no chairs. Chairs, you got a dinette set. No chairs, you got d—!” The Rams have been one chair short of a dinette since Week 7 of the 2013 season, when Bradford suffered the first of two left-ACL tears. Coach Jeff Fisher has sent out a series of well-meaning field generals—Kellen Clemens, Shaun Hill, Austin Davis, Nick Foles, Case Keenum—whose enthusiasm exceeded their talent. As GM Les Snead put it last week with bracing candor, “We’ve been a haven for backups.”
Bradford, for his part, has played well at times for the Eagles, who traded for him before last season. Just not well enough to keep Philly from spending $21 million to sign free agent Chase Daniel and then vaulting six places in the draft, from 8 to 2, for the right to pick Wentz. Bold as that move was, the Eagles’ trade-up paled in comparison with the Rams’ Beamonesque leap from No. 15 to No. 1.
Thus will this draft be remembered for the indelible image of a prospect in a gas mask and for the huge risks taken by a pair of teams determined to find just the right chair.
Without a quarterback, you got d—!
Except don’t tell the Denver Broncos and retired Peyton Manning that. Brock Osweiler took a four-year, $72 million contract and went to Houston, so Memphis Lynch is now Manning’s “successor.” He’s in a perfect situation where he can wait a little bit and has a phenomenal defense that can control the game. He’s a raw specimen who could amount to a dangerous product, we shall see.
The Rams and Eagles might be determined to find the “right chair,” but both franchises are in different circumstances. The Rams just made the move to Los Angeles, Jeff Fisher is about to coach his fifth season with the team and the franchise has pieces in place. The Eagles, meanwhile, fired Chip Kelly and have more holes to fill.
Roseman signed a lot of younger free agents like Brandon Brooks and Rodney McLeod, Fletcher Cox is still on 25 and he extended the Eagles’ young core of Zach Ertz, Lane Johnson, Vinny Curry and Malcolm Jenkins. They’ll still be in their primes when Philadelphia gets its draft picks and money back. By then Wentz will be ready to go.
Goff went to Cal so he’s from the state and considered more “pro ready” than Wentz, who is perceived to be a signal caller that might sit out most of the season. Fisher doesn’t have time to waste. He has his running back in Todd Gurley and a stout front seven led by Aaron Donald and Robert Quinn. The Rams could be competitors in the NFC real soon if they’re right on Goff.
Five teams were keenly interested in taking a QB in the first round: Cleveland at No. 2, Dallas at 4, the 49ers at 7, the Eagles at 8 and the Rams—although L.A.’s draft position, 15, made it an unlikely candidate to land either Wentz or Goff. Or so it seemed. While the Titans were linked to Tunsil for weeks, Tollner believed they would deal the top pick rather then use it on a non-quarterback. Tennessee’s first-year GM, Jon Robinson, had holes all over his roster; it made sense that he’d entertain offers.
And it made sense for the Rams to take a serious run at that No. 1 pick. They needed an upgrade at quarterback and, with their relocation from St. Louis to L.A., a new face of the franchise. They could afford to part with some draft picks this year and next; they were still living off the fat of the lopsided deal they’d cut with Washington four years ago. The team from D.C. had coughed up one second- and three first-round picks to the Rams for the right to move up to No. 2 and select Robert Griffin III.
Two different situations.
Two perfect destinations.
Murphy elaborates on Wentz.
If Goff is the Natural, as Tollner refers to him, Wentz is the Prototype. At 6’ 5″, 237, he’s got 20 pounds on Goff, as strong an arm and more foot speed. The pride of Bismarck, N.D., has spent far more time than Goff under center, running coach Chris Klieman’s pro-style offense at North Dakota State. Wentz’s game tape overflows with Wow! throws. Sure, scouts would’ve liked to see him completing those passes against, say, Alabama, rather than Weber State and Western Illinois. But at a certain point a throw speaks for itself.
Wentz secured legendary status in North Dakota in January when he led the Bison to their fifth straight FCS championship, 11 weeks after having surgery on his broken right wrist. He could’ve bailed on the team to be fully healed in time for the NFL combine. Instead, his loyalty and grit sparked a dramatic rise in his stock, which continued to soar at the Senior Bowl. Says Howie Roseman, the Eagles’ executive VP of football ops, “I was struck by the presence he had, the leadership he showed in a setting with all sorts of guys from bigger schools.”
I couldn’t helped but be wowed by the tape as well, then you realize how large and gaping the windows are he’s throwing too. But then he’ll have these lasers down the seam and beautiful touch throws into tight windows in the corners of the end zones. Roseman brings up the word presence and it’s something I noticed with Wentz very early on. He seems to have the leadership qualities, but can he really make this drastic leap?
He was a late first-round pick prior to his Senior Bowl and Pro Day. What an unprecedented climb.
Is he the right chair?
Oh jeez, the Goff nine-inch hands thing. Arkansas’ Brandon Allen started this whole thing because he wanted to stretch his 8 1/2 inch hands to nine inches. I just thought about how raunchy this might sound if it wasn’t football related. Anyway, Allen was getting treatment and had actually been successful in making his hands bigger.
By the time the combine rolled around in late February, Wentz had pulled slightly ahead of Goff in most mock drafts. It didn’t help Goff that in the all-important rubric of hand size—we are only half-joking—his mitts measured nine inches from thumb to pinkie. Anything less would’ve been a red flag to teams worried about his ability to hold and throw a wet ball.
Count the Browns among the worrywarts. At the end of Goff’s Pro Day on March 18, Cleveland associate head coach Pep Hamilton had him throw a half-dozen balls that had been doused with a water bottle. Goff threw ropes, easily passing the test. (“I don’t know if you noticed,” Goff confided last week, “but when [Hamilton] was soaking the ball, I would turn it upside down”—to keep water off the seams and his fingers.) Somehow his hands measured 9 1⁄8 inches that day. Asked to explain the disparity, Goff deadpanned that he’d used a “special measuring tape for small-handed people.”
You know what they say about quarterbacks with big hands right? They need big gloves. But seriously, is there any merit to the hand size argument? Of the 21 first-round quarterbacks since 2008, only Ryan Tannehill’s hands measured smaller than Goff’s. Out of the current starting quarterbacks, only Tony Romo’s hands are smaller (8.88 inches).
Teams want quarterbacks with big hands so they’re able to grip and hold the ball in inclement weather. Quarterbacks with larger hands also tend to hold onto the ball better. Goff fumbled 23 times in college, that’s a lot, but only four last season. Wentz has 10-inch hands and Lynch has mammoth ones, measuring in at 11 1/2 inches.
The claim is that quarterbacks with hands less than 9 1/4 inches historically don’t pan out. Don’t tell that to Romo, Teddy Bridgewater (9 1/4-inch hands) and Derek Carr (9 1/8 inches) though. Here are some other quarterbacks and their hand sizes: Russell Wilson (10 1/4 inches), Drew Brees (10 1/4 inches), Cam Newton (9 7/8 inches), Aaron Rodgers (9.4 inches), Colin Kaepernick (9.1 inches) and Michael Vick (8 1/2 inches).
The man with the monster hands, Lynch, was apparently the quarterback Dallas was targeting, which is why Denver traded up to No. 26.
The Cowboys were in an interesting position at No. 4, high enough to potentially get a quarterback, but it wasn’t enough of a need to trade up for. Jason Garrett coached Wentz at the Senior Bowl and apparently liked what he saw. He might’ve been an option for Dallas to stash while Romo played out his career. Ezekiel Elliott turned out to be quite the consolation prize.
Shortly before the Jets went on the clock with the 20th pick, Steinberg summoned his client from the lanes, preparing him for his close-up, just in case. When the Jets spent the pick on Ohio State linebacker Darron Lee, Lynch wasn’t discouraged. He’d been told that the Cowboys, who had taken Buckeyes running back Ezekiel Elliott with the fourth pick, were trying to claw their way back into the first round to scoop him up; Jerry Jones was anxious to start grooming a high-end replacement for the brittle 36-year-old Tony Romo. Dallas found a willing trade partner in the Seahawks, sitting at 26. But the figurative envelope they offered to Seattle—second- and fourth-round picks—was light. Dallas was outbid by the Broncos, who were feeling a certain urgency themselves, having recently watched their supposed quarterback of the future, Brock Osweiler, bolt to the Texans.
Lynch had left the building by the time the Broncos called: He and some Tigers teammates were throwing a football around in the parking lot. Steinberg had to run outside and shout, “You just got drafted by the Denver Broncos!”
…
It’s been three years since Lynch worked out of a huddle, he rarely called pass protections or controlled the game at the line of scrimmage, and has seldom taken a five- or seven-step drop, but the Broncos brain trust reportedly had Lynch ranked behind Wentz, but slightly ahead of Goff. That’s at least in part because Lynch, an exceptionally athletic 6’ 7″, 244 pounds, is ideal for Denver coach Gary Kubiak’s system, which emphasizes stretch plays, rollouts and play-action. That said, he’s no threat to be a starter anytime soon. “I love the kid and I believe in him,” said the NFL Network’s Mike Mayock, moments after the pick, lauded by many as the most inspired of the evening, “but he’s got a lot of work ahead of him.”
So how did this draft class, which seemingly lacked star-power at quarterback, still manage to have them go No. 1 and 2 for a second year in a row? It’s because it wasn’t a class with a star player at the top. Maneuverability was therefore allowed for desperate teams who needed a franchise guy to snag a potentially perceived “very good” or “great” but not an “elite” prospect. Accumulating more picks in a draft like this was the smarter option for the Titans and Browns and both the Eagles and Rams needed quarterbacks.
It was the right play all the way around.