Nick Piccone
The last Eagles’ franchise quarterback was a bit skeptical of the Birds deciding to draft Carson Wentz in 2016 with the second overall pick in the NFL Draft. However, it sounds like Donovan McNabb has changed his tune a bit and thinks Wentz certainly can play the game in NFL speed, and in turn, thinks that Wentz is in a good position now to prove he can be the team’s franchise quarterback sooner than later.
In an interview with BGN Radio at this year’s draft in Philly, McNabb sounded a bit more open to the idea that Wentz will be the Birds’ new franchise quarterback before long. But he still had some reservations.
“I know it’s going to come off bad, but no, not yet. And these are the things that I had to go through, being an early draft pick because the expectations are high. You just don’t know until Year 3. You have to allow these guys to develop into the guy you want, which Doug Pederson has an idea of what he wants from Carson. Now [that] he’s starting to build around him a little bit, you’ll get to see more. How he’s going to develop after the first year, in year two, and then year three.
“I think so many times we automatically pin-point a guy a franchise quarterback. Which I hate that term anyway. That’s just like the term “elite.” We always see a guy have one good season, all of a sudden he’s an “elite quarterback.” And then the next year it’s like, well, what happened? Well, he’s not elite. How do you go from elite to not elite? It’s just like a franchise quarterback. You see guys get drafted, à la Johnny Manziel, Teddy Bridgewater was a late first round draft pick, the list goes on of guys who have been drafted early, or even in the second round, because of a need that they had. And so, we kinda put so much into it, and then year two, year three, you’re like ahh … well you’re starting to hear they’re thinking about drafting another quarterback.
“I think Carson eventually will be because I love the direction they’re going in of trying to get him some help. But my thing, like I was just talking about, with this 14th pick, if they stay at 14, I think they should go after a defensive player. They need help on defense to get the ball back for the offense, and then all of a sudden the process goes.”
Having weapons certainly won’t hurt Wentz’s game in 2017. But now the expectations are a lot higher, and I’m not sure that’s entirely fair to the team at this point. And hopefully, I’m just worrying about nothing. The Phillies really need to win more.
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