Crossing Broad
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a repost of a February, 2021 story, following news that Carson will start for the Vikings against the Eagles on Sunday.
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Recency bias is a simple concept.
As a cognitive function, human beings typically favor recent events over past ones, and that’s especially true in knee-jerk Philadelphia, where the only idea that emotional sports fans subscribe to is “what have you done for me lately?”
There’s nothing wrong with that, not necessarily. The Super Bowl was three full seasons ago and Carson Wentz was utterly terrible in 2020, looking like a shell his former self en route to a benching. The offensive line was beat up, the receivers weren’t very good, and the head coach took significant steps back as a play caller and game planner.
That’s not really the point of the article, the myriad Eagle issues, but when evaluating something at its conclusion, it’s important that we consider the entirety of the situation.
And now I’ll ask a rhetorical question –
Which Carson Wentz will you remember?
I can only speak for myself, but it’s the latter all the way.
Nothing can take away from Carson Wentz’s incredible 2017 season. His year ended with 11 wins, two losses, and MVP consideration. His final act was to throw a touchdown pass on a torn ACL, which left Nick Foles in a position to win that Rams game and carry the torch into the playoffs. His efforts on the offensive of the ball were a significant reason why the Eagles had home field advantage and a first round bye and ultimately made it to the Super Bowl.
There is no Lombardi Trophy without Carson Wentz.
For that reason, his time here was a success. That’s the take I’m going with, and it’s not even very hot. If you ask any Eagles fan who suffered through the mid-eighties and into the Chip Kelly era, most would give a figurative arm and leg to win the Super Bowl. That’s all it ever was about, and even if Carson bombed out in 2020, I’d trade a four-win debacle for a shiny ring 100 times out of 100. If every Philadelphia sports championship was followed by five years of dog shit, I’d buy the pooper scooper right now.
Maybe you wouldn’t, and that’s alright. People have different opinions on Carson’s time in Philadelphia, though it was disappointing to see so much low-level discourse surrounding the player. You didn’t have to pick between Wentz or Foles. You could support both guys! You didn’t have to pick between Wentz and Hurts or Wentz and Doug Pederson or anything like that. You can admit that he was good in 2017 and awful in 2020. Sports fans are not very good at practicing the concept of “more than one thing can be...
