PHILADELPHIA _ The next wave of NFL talent will be woefully under-scrutinized. The nationwide coronavirus lockdown forced the NFL to cancel the annual post-combine courtship between teams and prospective draft picks: pro days, private workouts, visits to NFL cities, classroom work. It is a dance that can turn a pauper into a prince.
That's what happened for Carson Wentz.
"It made all the difference in the world," his agent, Ryan Tollner, said Wednesday.
What came next for Wentz was just as crucial: hands-on coaching from April through August that transformed Wentz from a raw, small-school project to a viable NFL starter. This year's rookies probably won't experience in-person coaching until training camp.
In a locked-down world, the Eagles might have missed out on Wentz, and they surely wouldn't have prepared him to start in his first season, so his development wouldn't have begun until 2017. Which means the Eagles might never have made their run to the Super Bowl LII title.
In the spring of 2016, Wentz's stock was rising faster than Netflix's. He'd missed the second half of his senior season at North Dakota State, an FCS (I-AA) school, but he returned from his wrist injury in time to win a second straight national championship game.
He then played well during Senior Bowl week and shone at the NFL draft combine, but those performances had elevated Wentz only from being an early second-round pick to projecting somewhere in the first round. It was the next seven weeks that cemented his status as a franchise quarterback.
But what if Wentz had been "socially distanced" in Fargo? Things would have been drastically different for Philadelphia.
There would have been no eye-popping pro day; private workout at North Dakota State on March 30 and the classroom session that followed, which Wentz aced. There would have been no steak dinner in Fargo that night with Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, where Wentz's Midwest charm left Lurie smitten.
"They came away from there blown away," Tollner said; "like, 'This guy's exceptional.' "
There would have been no trip to Philly a few later, when Wentz's confidence and character ultimately sold the Eagles over other quarterback candidates. They'd also entertained Jared Goff, another Tollner client, and Dak Prescott, whom the Cowboys drafted in the fourth round.
And we never would have seen the Philly Special in Minneapolis on Feb. 4, 2018.
