Philadelphia Eagles brass emphasizes desire to fix Carson Wentz despite reported trade request

Carson Wentz

Philadelphia Eagles' Carson Wentz walks the field before an NFL football game against the Washington Football Team, Sunday, Jan. 3, 2021, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Derik Hamilton)AP

PHILADELPHIA — Howie Roseman and Doug Pederson reiterated their desire to work with Carson Wentz to help the Eagles quarterback through the struggles that plagued his 2020 season despite an ESPN report Sunday that Wentz would request a trade this offseason, the two men said Monday morning.

And right now, Roseman, the team’s executive vice president/general manager, said trading the 28-year-old is not something the team is interested in.

“That is not anything we are talking about right now,” Roseman said on a Zoom call. “We are talking about a guy that’s immensely talented, has a great work ethic and doing whatever we can to put him in the best possible situation to be successful.”

Read more: Eagles’ Doug Pederson responds to report Carson Wentz wants out of Philadelphia

The 2020 Eagles season wrapped up less than 12 hours before Roseman and Pederson, who just finished his fifth season as the team’s coach, met with reporters for an end-of-season Zoom call. Roseman said three times the end of the season was “so raw,” which made it difficult to get into specifics when evaluating the team.

But both Roseman and Pederson spoke highly of Wentz despite the report that Wentz’s relationship with Pederson was “fractured beyond repair.”

Roseman leaned on the fact the Eagles invested significant resources to draft Wentz with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft. In June 2019, Wentz signed a four-year contract extension worth $128 million with the Eagles despite the fact he ended two of his first three seasons on the sideline with injuries. That extension begins in March.

“I don’t think it’s a secret that we moved up for him because of what we thought about him as a person, as a player,” Roseman said. “We gave him that extension because of the same things. And so, when you have players like that, they are like fingers on your hand. You can’t even imagine that they are not part of you; that they are not here. That’s how we feel about Carson.”

Read more: Zach Ertz, Carson Wentz and Jason Kelce take one last moment before Eagles enter offseason of uncertainty

Wentz declined to speak with reporters on Zoom during locker cleanout Monday.

Wentz regressed mightily in 2020. He was one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL this season. He completed 57.4% of his passes for 2,620 yards, 16 touchdowns, 15 interceptions and a 72.8 passer rating. He was sacked 50 times, and he was ultimately benched in the third quarter of the loss at the Packers in Week 13 for rookie Jalen Hurts.

Despite sitting out the final four-plus games of the season, Wentz led the NFL in interceptions and sacks.

Sunday was the second time in the past month an ESPN report suggested Wentz wanted out of Philadelphia. Those reports have been counterbalanced by others that state the Eagles are planning to have Wentz in the fold in 2021 in some capacity. Tight end Zach Ertz, one of Wentz’s closest friends on the team, said he takes those reports “with a grain of salt” and added that reports that Wentz would not want to be a backup quarterback are “so obvious to me.”

No one, Ertz said, wants to be a backup.

Read more: Eagles rewind: Doug Pederson’s message entering an offseason of uncertainty, stock watch, injury updates and more

Roseman said he would keep any conversations between the team and Wentz and his camp private, but he expressed confidence in the ability for Pederson and Wentz to continue to have a working relationship.

“We have a lot confidence in his ability and his relationship with Doug and to get it back to the place we need it to get to be a successful team,” Roseman said.

“Listen, I’m not going to speak for Carson, obviously but I can speak for myself and say that, yeah, the relationship is good,” Pederson said. “It’s fine. It’s something that we’re going to continue to build upon, and listen, I know Carson’s disappointed. It’s not the season that he had anticipated. It’s not the season I had anticipated as the head coach. There were a lot of moving parts. It’s not about one guy here. It takes all of us and that’s something that we’ve stressed a lot here.”

Pederson has been only complimentary of Wentz since his demotion, and he’s said he views his main job this offseason is getting Wentz, Hurts and the quarterback position in general to return its previous level of play. Roseman complimented Wentz’s recent work, too.

“Well, I think the things that you’re seeing every day when he walks in this building is his work ethic, his leadership,” Roseman said. “He comes on the practice field when he was running the scout team and he’s trying to destroy those defensive players. Those competitive juices are there and he’s out there after practice, before practice, working on his craft. Those are things that you never take for granted when you talk about Carson.”

Read more: Washington 20, Eagles 14: Season ends with loss to NFC East rival

The first dominoes of the Eagles offseason started tipping over during the weekend with reports that both Pederson and Roseman would come back in 2021 and that defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz would not be back. There are likely to be changes on the coaching staff. Wentz’s future is something else that needs to be sorted out, too.

For now, though, the Eagles are operating as if their franchise quarterback will be back again next season, trade report or not. And Roseman echoed a sentiment expressed by Pederson over the past month or so that the Eagles’ struggles went far beyond Wentz, despite his dismal play.

And so the solution for the Eagles this offseason goes beyond just developing the quarterback position, whether that’s Wentz or Hurts or someone else, and bolstering the full supporting cast.

“I think Carson, anyone who knows Carson, knows how strong of a person he is and knows how much he believes in his own abilities,” Roseman said. “In terms of why we didn’t have a good season, it’s not just on one player, and I think that when you look at it, the team as a whole didn’t perform up to expectations. The moves that we made didn’t perform up to expectations, and to put it on Carson isn’t fair.”

Read more: Eagles’ Doug Pederson reacts to criticism after pulling Jalen Hurts for Nate Sudfeld: ‘Yes, I was coaching to win’

Daniel Gallen covers the Philadelphia Eagles for PennLive. He can be reached at dgallen@pennlive.com. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Follow PennLive’s Philadelphia Eagles coverage on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

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