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What if Carson Wentz was locked down in 2016? Agent says pre-draft work ‘made all the difference’ for Eagles. | Marcus Hayes

The Wentz Wagon wouldn't have rolled until 2017, if it ever even made it to Philadelphia ... which means there might have been no "Big Play" Nick Foles, no Philly Special, and no Super Bowl title.

With City Hall in the background, Eagles quarterbacks (from left) Nick Foles, Nate Sudfeld and Carson Wentz show off the Vince Lombardi Trophy aboard the bus they shared with Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie.
With City Hall in the background, Eagles quarterbacks (from left) Nick Foles, Nate Sudfeld and Carson Wentz show off the Vince Lombardi Trophy aboard the bus they shared with Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie.Read moreMICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer

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.

All in on Wentz

Without Wentz’s post-combine explosion there’s no way the Eagles would have traded a king’s ransom to move up from No. 8 to No. 2 just before the draft. Because, after the combine, Wentz was anything but a safe bet.

Wentz was slated to become the first quarterback from an FCS (I-AA) school drafted in the first round in eight years, but just where he’d go was uncertain.

His predecessor, Joe Flacco, had gone just 15th in 2008, but Flacco had transferred down a level to Delaware from Pittsburgh. Thirteen years before that, Steve McNair landed in Tennessee from Alcorn State third overall, but McNair was one of the greatest college players in history. He’d won the Walter Payton Award as the best I-AA player and he’d finished third in Heisman Trophy voting.

Wentz certainly was no McNair — not after the combine, and not even after two more months of sparkling NFL auditions.

Teams universally considered Wentz a project. That included the Eagles, who signed Sam Bradford to a two-year, $36 million contract March 1 — six days before they traded from No. 13 to No. 8. Bradford was going to be their starter, period.

The Eagles were one of 14 clubs that missed Wentz’s pro day March 23 at North Dakota State because of a snowstorm — a workout that several scouts called one of the best pro days they’d ever seen.

Missing it might have been a blessing. A week later, on their way home from working out Goff at Cal (and late-round prospect Kevin Hogan at Stanford), Lurie, general manager Howie Roseman, coach Doug Pederson, offensive coordinator Frank Reich, and quarterbacks coach John DiFilippo stopped at Fargo for their private, Eagles-specific, half-hour session, then grilled Wentz in front of a white board for 30 minutes more. Then they all went to dinner.

“They knew before they made the trip to Fargo they were onto something special,” Tollner said. “Once they were there, that solidified it.”

And still — still — it wasn’t until Wentz visited Philadelphia a few days later that the entire brain trust settled on Wentz, after they’d also hosted both Goff and Prescott, according to Pederson.

Even so, they didn’t think he would start right away, but they knew now Wentz wouldn’t last until No. 8. So, on April 20, they traded five picks — two first-round picks, a second-rounder, a third-rounder, and a fourth-rounder — to climb six more spots. To begin the wait.

A fast learner

The pundits agreed. Profootballfocus.com said Wentz was an eventual “starting quarterback” — a long-term project with a high ceiling but with lots of “warts,” chief among them deep-ball accuracy and inability to quickly progress through reads. NFL.com was a bit more impressed with Wentz’s arm strength, athleticism, and intelligence and considered Wentz a “future franchise quarterback.”

During the second session of OTAs, in late May, Wentz struggled with elementary balance and footwork and threw wobbly passes.

Wentz didn’t take too many more missteps in the spring of 2016. Most significant, Wentz mastered Pederson’s offense faster than Bradford. That was the main reason the Eagles felt comfortable trading Bradford eight days before the season started for first- and fourth-round picks, even though Wentz had played just one preseason game, in which he broke his collarbone.

Yes, the Vikings were desperate, having just lost starter Teddy Bridgewater to a catastrophic knee injury, but the Birds weren’t looking to move Bradford. They wouldn’t have traded him if they didn’t think Wentz was ready. He was.

This year’s class includes another Tollner client, Washington senior Jacob Eason, a second- or third-round project whose value could increase with a slate of strong post-combine workouts followed by a full menu of preseason instruction. But Eason won’t have the same chance to change teams’ minds.

One scenario

It’s inconceivable that Pederson and Reich would have trusted their first season in Philadelphia to Wentz if he hadn’t steadily improved from January through August. Pederson had been hired for a job for which few believed him qualified, and Reich had just been fired as San Diego’s offensive coordinator.

Assume, then, Wentz would have entered 2016 as the No. 3 quarterback. Assume, too, that Bradford would have played 15 games, as he did in Minnesota. Assume, finally, that Wentz became the starter in 2017, as planned.

The Eagles wouldn’t have had a 16-game starter to run their club in 2017; they’d essentially have had a rookie. Superimpose Wentz’s first 13 games in 2016 over the 13 games he started in 2017, before he was injured. In 2016, Wentz passed for 3,215 yards with 13 touchdown passes, 12 interceptions, and an 80.7 passer rating.

Would Wentz have been better in 2017, having watched and learned in 2016? Certainly. But would he have had 3,296 yards with 33 touchdown passes, seven interceptions, and a 101.9 passer rating? Would he have been the leading MVP candidate? Would he have been good enough to lead the Eagles to an 11-2 record, which helped them secure home field throughout the playoffs? Certainly not.

The Nick of time

There are other plausible scenarios that could have played out.

If Bradford played well as an Eagle in 2016 — say, for instance, Bradford led the Eagles to a playoff berth (he did, after all, put up great numbers in Minnesota) — Bradford almost certainly would have started for the Eagles again in 2017, and he’d have been a bargain at $18 million.

If Bradford hadn’t taken the Eagles to the playoffs, and if the Eagles traded or released him after 2016 to allow Wentz to ascend, would the Eagles have been comfortable cutting backup Chase Daniel? Remember, Pederson brought Daniel with him from Kansas City to serve as a locker-room lieutenant and as a mentor for Wentz.

Would the Eagles have released Daniel so they could sign an oft-injured, oft-benched retread named Nick Foles?