Are NFL fans sleeping on Carson Wentz's potential as the new starting quarterback of the Washington Commanders?
Stepping into a huge prove-it situation on his third team in as many years, Wentz could deliver for Washington in a way that critics aren't properly accounting for, theorizes Dr. Eric Eager, VP of Research and Development for Pro Football Focus.
"I think Wentz will be more successful than people believe," Eager told The Sports Junkies on 106.7 The Fan. "I think Wentz, everybody remembers the bad game against Jacksonville. It takes a level of quarterback play that is non-trivial to go 9-8 in this league and 9-7 before that. He really had the bad year in 2020. But Carson Wentz is gonna get you above a certain range at the QB position."
This falls somewhat in line with a new PFF graph charting NFL quarterback play since 2019, that's intended to show how each passer has performed against ideal and non-ideal defensive coverages. 'Expected Points Added' (EPA) is a results-based metric used as the determining measurement.
Wanted to give a little preview into what we've been working on @PFF which I think is pretty interesting. Here's how QBs perform when facing perfectly covered plays vs non-perfectly covered plays since 2019 pic.twitter.com/SPamCzDo12
— Arjun Menon (@arjunmenon100) June 6, 2022
Interestingly enough, Wentz, Taylor Heinicke and Kyle Allen (now with the Texans) are all grouped in the same quadrant, the one which accounts for positive QB production against 'non-perfectly covered plays' and negative production against 'perfectly covered plays.' Wentz accounts for roughly 0.25 EPA on non-perfectly covered plays and negative-0.39 EPA on perfectly covered plays, which should theoretically represent a slight improvement over his backups on perfectly covered plays.
For some added context, Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes represent the top-two quarterbacks in each category.
Speaking of Wentz, Eager said, "When the defense makes a mistake, he makes you pay, but when the defense perfectly covers a play, I mean you're dropping almost two-fifths of a point on offense and he has a hard time mitigating the disaster there. He's worse at it than all but just a handful of quarterbacks.
"Weirdly for you guys, Kyle Allen is also on that list, to his left. It just hasn't been a great quarterbacking group for the Commanders since Kirk [Cousins] left."
"Jahan Dotson is one of the best wide receivers in the draft," Eager went on to say. "I'm glad that Washington took him high. I wish he would have fallen to the Chiefs at 29 or so, frankly, as a fan, but he ends up there at 16. He's wonderful. [Terry] McLaurin's great as well, [Curtis] Samuel, and you've got a running back in Brian Robinson that I think can make some plays as well."
"So I think this offense is going to be better than what people believe," he added. "I think we underestimate how much Taylor Heinicke was holding that team back last year."
"The doctor and I totally agree," said Junkies host Eric Bickel.
"Doctor, are you ever wrong?" asked Jason Bishop.
"The national writers kill me, though," Bickel said. "Like Peter King did a podcast here with our buddy John Keim, and he was talking all about the defense and how fearsome the front four is, and I'm listening to this going, 'What is he watching?' They're big names, but their production — the defense is what I'm worried about here, not the offense."
"Yeah, there's talent there," Eager agreed. "I mean a lot of first-round picks in the front four. I think William Jackson and Kendall Fuller are good players. Kamren Curl's a nice player as well. You know, the defense last year was hurt because in 2020 they played no good quarterbacks and our expectations for them skyrocketed, and then you looked at the 2021 schedule, it's full of great quarterbacks, and so the regression was very easy to see."
"I think that the truth about that defense is somewhere in between those two extreme outcomes," he continued, "especially now with Covid sort of in the rearview mirror. Theoretically, I think that you're not going to have as many Covid players missing and stuff like that. That hurts defense a lot more than it hurts offense."
"I'm actually fairly bullish on the Commanders this year," he said. "It's a bad division, relative to the rest of the league. It's improving, but it's not a great division. And again, I think Wentz is going to provide a level of stability weirdly that no one is really talking about right now."
