Betting on Carson

When the Eagles traded up for the #2 pick in the NFL Draft a few weeks back, I have to admit being a skeptic. The price was quite high, and giving up a potentially high pick in the 2017 draft was a real concern for me. To top that off, the player they wanted so badly, Carson Wentz, was hardly the kind of major D-1 household name that perhaps we are used to picking that high on the board. Couple all of that with general skepticism with the front office and franchise in general, and the whole thing made me nervous.

The draft has now been over a week though, and I'm going to say something I haven't said about the Eagles in a long time- I'm buying into Carson Wentz. Part of this is the reality that he is who we have to buy into, or we're stuck despairing about this franchise for the next half decade. A bigger part though is that Carson seems like a good bet to me. Two national titles at the FCS level, plenty of size, good reviews on the football side, and good reviews on the personal side all moved me into the "pro" Wentz camp. He seems like quality to me, and I'll bet on quality.

To be clear, I do think that if I were the GM, I would have picked an offensive lineman at #8 and drafted a Hackenberg type in the third round, at a lower risk, but that's not how the Eagles went. Carson Wentz is the future now, and he will be the Eagles quarterback in due time. It doesn't matter that he didn't play at a Michigan or Ohio State (neither did Ben Roethlisberger, and he clearly sucks, right?). What matters is that he has the talent and the make-up to be a big time QB.

Will Carson Wentz lead Philadelphia on a Broad Street parade? Time will tell. I'm buying in though that we just hit a home run- like I did in 1999.