Sam Howell is the starter in Washington for Week 18, but one of the guys he replaced last year will also be starting in his team’s finale…Carson Wentz is starting for the Rams against the Niners!
Unlike last year, when Wentz was benched (and Taylor Heinicke stepped back) to give Howell a start to look to the future, this one is Carson getting the start to rest Matthew Stafford before the playoffs, as the Rams are in the playoffs and the Niners, their opponent, are locked into No. 1.
Not as great of news for Commanders fans as Trevor Siemien starting again for the Jets (meaning an easier path for a Pats win?), but interesting how Wentz has come full circle one year and a few days after his career in Washington ended.
“They may also rest others, and if they do, I don’t like Wentz’s chances very much, but it would be cool to see him go out there with a good team that's playing good football as a favorite this weekend.”
“It’s a heck of a story; as much as he shouldn't have been here ever and everyone who liked him was wrong, he's basically sitting there waiting his turn,” Danny replied. “He went from MVP candidate to out of the league almost an afterthought, and now he might have one more chance in the sun here for a team that's going to the postseason.”
Grant doesn’t think Wentz was so bad he should have been out of the league, but he was until the first week of November, when the Rams cut Brett Rypien (who will be the Jets’ No. 2 on Sunday, ironically) and added Wentz to be their backup.
“It made no sense, but you never know, like what is someone asking for? How much money do they want? What role are they telling their agent to seek out?” GP said. “At different points, players might iew themselves differently than teams, and maybe that was a Carson Wentz issue. Maybe he said he’d wait until later in the year, or wait for a chance to start, thinking of himself as the No. 2 overall pick and No. 3 MVP vote-getter in 2017.”
“That’s where we part company, because it wasn't weird to me. Like, there's no attention being paid to Jacoby Brissett,right? I’m not saying Carson Wentz is a bad dude, but it's the good citizen, good mentor, good leader, uncomplicated idea,” Danny said. “Wentz is complicated, and it takes a good organization to be able to deal with having that guy in the building, the celebrity backup. It's why you don't go get Tim Tebow when he's bouncing around the league; there’s a lot of Carson Wentz baggage and questions, on three teams in three years now. So to me, it's not a surprise, but I don't know. I hadn’t thought about your point, and maybe his demands were delusional?”
GP is “the founder of the “no celebrity backups movement,” so he understands Danny’s point, but he doesn’t agree.
“I don't think there's a faction of fans that clamor for Carson Wentz at this point; I think the narrative on him is mostly everyone thinks he's terrible and hates him,” Grant said. “So, I don’t think there would be like some major movement with every incompletion or interception for Matt Stafford to put Carson Wentz in. I think at this point he's a backup; that’s how people would view him after he basically got run out of Philly and then Indy and then Washington, as a card-carrying member of backup status.”
“It’s less demand to play him, and more like, the air letting out of the place because the narrative you’ve talked about, that he’s a walking disaster, is right” Danny said. “I think he stinks, but like, other people think he literally can’t tie his own shoes, and when he does, he ties them both together and lights them on fire. The narrative more along the lines of, ‘guess which team has this loser now?’ So I see your point, but I wouldn't want to be associated with that.”