A lot of times when people talk about the top quarterbacks in the NFL it’s limited to a couple guys. Mahomes, Brees, Jackson, Wilson, Watson, etc. A guy you never hear about in that conversation is Carson Wentz. And that right there is no fault of his own. He’s simply the most hated player in the National Football League. He is. Wentz could literally win MVP and he wouldn’t be in the top QB conversation because of his unlucky injury history. Let’s dive into some stats to back up my point. Carson Wentz is extremely underrated and one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL.
A QB who Wentz is often compared to is Texans QB Deshaun Watson. Watson is considered a different tier than Wentz by uninformed and ignorant NFL fans despite having similar and slightly worse stats in 2019 than Carson Wentz.
Carson Wentz finished the 2019 season with 27 touchdowns and 7 interceptions in 16 games. Deshaun Watson finished the year with 26 touchdown passes and 12 interceptions. Let’s now compare the kinds of supporting casts these two QBs had. For most of the year, Carson Wentz had to deal with an aging Alshon Jeffery, a horrible Nelson Agholor, and practice squad receivers. With this he still managed to throw for slightly over 4000 yards. The first QB in NFL history to throw for 4000 yards with no wide receiver with over 500 yards receiving. That is unprecedented. And to also manage to throw 27 touchdowns with those same wideouts is absolutely unbelievable. Now let’s see what Deshaun Watson had. His top weapons were one of the top receivers in the league in Deandre Hopkins, an excellent deep threat in Will Fuller, and other solid pieces such as a thousand yard rusher in Carlos Hyde. How can you have these weapons and not outperform somebody with the worst in the league and be considered better? It’s not discrediting Deshaun Watson, he has excellent talent, but we have to call out ignorance when we see it. Carson Wentz should not be shoved aside because of injury history in the elite QBs conversation. Statistically he matches and sometimes outperforms the so-called elite QBs, and he has earned respect because of that.
