A quarterback controversy in the National Football League is when a starter gets hurt or benched for a little and the backup comes in and plays far better. At this point, the coach would have a very difficult decision to make. Either keep the starter or see if the backup can take the team to new levels and recently this issue hit Philadelphia.
Nick Foles was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in the first round of the 2012 draft. His first season as an Eagle was mediocre. According to the NFL, he threw for 1,699 passing yards and only played in seven games.
His stats for the next three seasons only got better and in 2014 he was traded to the St. Louis Rams. The Eagles went through multiple quarterbacks to try and fill the hole that the Foles trade left, but none of them seemed to work out.
The Eagles were able to get the second overall pick in the 2016 draft and with that, they chose Carson Wentz. He was the future quarterback for many years to come. According to the NFL, he threw for 3,782 yards and played in 16 games during the 2016 season. This has been the most games he’s played in and the most yards he’s thrown for in all season as a pro.
After the trade that saw Foles go to the Rams, he was quickly traded again to the Kansas City Chiefs. After spending a year in Kansas City he was traded back to the Eagles to be Wentz’s backup. Things were going well for Wentz in the 2018 season because many believed he would win the Most Valuable Player award until week 14.
While diving into the end zone, Wentz was hit by two Rams players. One hit high while the other hit low. According to many reports, Wentz tore his Anterior Cruciate Ligament and would be out for the remainder of the season.
Foles was ready to step in and at this point in the season the Eagles record was 11-2 so it was clear to see they were going to make the playoffs, but many fans had little faith that Foles could take the Eagles to a championship.
Foles started off slow but was able to take the Eagles all the way to the NFC Championship game where they beat the Minnesota Vikings by a score of 38-7. Foles brought the Eagles to the Super Bowl and he had one challenge in front of him: Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.
The Eagles won the 2018 Super Bowl and Foles did what many believed he could not do. This big win and Foles’s performances throughout the playoffs made people ask themselves who the better quarterback was. Wentz, having only been in the NFL since 2016, would not want to be moved to the backup position.
Statistically, Wentz was the far better quarterback having thrown for more yards in each season and being the younger of the two.
The Eagles had to make a hard decision and that is exactly what they did, keeping Wentz and letting Foles’s contract run down for another team to pick him up.
Photo by the National Football League
Wentz hasn’t been able to reach the heights he did before his knee injury and during the 2019 season has reached his lowest total passing yards since being in the NFL.
Foles has been hurt a majority of the year and is struggling with the Jaguars who will most likely miss the playoffs.
Many Eagles fans have their own opinion on the matter.
“It’s crazy that they let a Super Bowl MVP just leave for nothing,” Calvin Rolland, a freshman computer science major and Eagles fan, said. The team played for him and I don’t see that happening with Wentz.”
TJ Scott, another Eagles fan had this to say, “Wentz is a franchise quarterback and he’s so young. Yes, we haven’t seen the best this season but he still has so many years to develop into the player we saw in 2017.”
