PHILADELPHIA — Carson Wentz sat in front of a deep blue background in Indianapolis on Thursday, wearing a blue-checked suit, and told Colts fans via Zoom, “I’m a competitor. I want nothing here but to win.”
On social media, many Eagles fans took exception, given that their former franchise quarterback was reported to have sought a trade shortly after he was benched in December, Wentz replaced by rookie Jalen Hurts.
Eagles general manager Howie Roseman changed course, after indicating at the end of the season that he wanted Wentz to work to reclaim his dominant role here. In February, Roseman traded Wentz for a third-round draft choice this year and a second-rounder next year that can be a first if Wentz thrives with the Colts. This was much less than Roseman had sought, and it would have seemed a pathetic return had Wentz been traded at any point before his horrific 2020 season. The narrative here has been that Wentz ducked out, unwilling to compete with Hurts.
Yet Wentz, after saying Thursday that this was not “the ending I desired,” and framing the trade as “outside my control,” in his first remarks since the trade, would not say that he wanted to leave Philadelphia. He also didn’t deny it.
“I’m not saying, one way or another,” Wentz said, when asked if he was saying he didn’t seek a trade. “There was a lot of conversations, a lot of things that kind of shook out, and as it played out, you know, this is what went down. I’m excited about it; I’ll tell you that.”
Just before that, asked why he didn’t want to stay and compete, stay and help the team rebuild from a 4-11-1 season, Wentz referred to “conversations that happened at the end of the year,” which he wouldn’t detail. “As far as being a competitor, I’ve never once questioned my competitiveness ... but at the end of the day, this was outside my control.”
Minutes earlier, in a Philadelphia news conference that overlapped with Wentz’s Indianapolis introduction, Roseman referred to “a lot of honest conversations with him and [agent Ryan Tollner] about where he was and the feeling that maybe it was best to kind of move on.”
Roseman declined to discuss what Wentz said that made the Eagles decide they had to trade him, after making him the face of their franchise and granting him a four-year, $128 million contract extension in 2019. The cap-strapped Eagles will carry the largest dead-money figure in NFL salary-cap history this season, $33.8 million, as a result of parting with Wentz.
Wentz, drafted second overall in 2016 after the Eagles traded up twice, said that he appreciated “everything that happened in Philly,” and that “for five years, I gave everything I had, both on and off the field. ... I can sleep well at night knowing I poured my heart and soul and gave everything I had in that city, and we’re excited for a new start and a new opportunity.”
Wentz said he would work to fix the problems that caused his unprecedented regression last season, when his 15 interceptions led the NFL and his 57.4% completion percentage ranked 34th. He also made an oblique reference to reports that he wasn’t close to some teammates.
“I’m going to dive headfirst this offseason into improving those things. ... [As a teammate,] I’m not a perfect human being. I’m going to make mistakes. I’ve made mistakes in the past,” Wentz said.
