Eagles ‘nation’ had a pseudo-meltdown on Sunday morning, when, a few hours before kickoff, Adam Schefter dropped a report at ESPN titled “Sources: Carson Wentz not interested in backup role, will want to leave Philadelphia Eagles if Jalen Hurts remains starting QB.”

On the surface, this seems like a total nothing burger, but let’s explore the story for the most relevant passage, which appears to be this:

“Carson Wentz is not interested in being a backup quarterback and would want to move on from the Eagles if the current situation — with Jalen Hurts starting under center — continues in Philadelphia, sources connected to the team told ESPN.

Although the Eagles’ quarterback situation remains fluid with two games left this season, Wentz is not pleased with the way events have unfolded in the organization, according to sources.”

Yeah? No shit!

Of course the quarterback is disappointed with his benching. Find me anybody on the planet Earth, in any profession, who takes his or her demotion in stride. If you were demoted from your middle manager job at GlaxoSmithKline and replaced by the first-year person who was right underneath you, I’m willing to bet you’d be updating your resume and LinkedIn profile as soon as you got home from work.

That part of the story is absolutely nothing. It’s Captain Obvious from the Hotels.com commercial putting two buns together, with nothing in between.

The relevant questions are this:

  1. Who are these “sources connected to the team?” Is this leak from Wentz’s camp?
  2. Why did the story come out on Sunday morning, hours before a game?

There were some conspiracy theories floating around. Wentz’s people trying to “undermine” Jalen Hurts and divide the locker room, or some other such unprovable nonsense. Maybe you believe in those things based on the prior Josina Anderson leaks and other such reports in which we’d have to trust the media members providing the information via anonymous sources. We had a Nick Foles shrine and Carson responded to the Joe Santoliquito story, so those were other circumstantial tidbits that you can form your own opinion with. Regardless, it’s always going to be impossible to prove that somebody is bad teammate if we are not actually their teammate.

My problem with the Schefter story is that Carson takes a hit to his character based on something we can generally assume that most athletes would want. The VAST majority of football players are going to seek an exit if they feel like they don’t have a future with their current team. That does not make Carson Wentz a bad person. This isn’t the same as him asking for more money, or trying to force his way to the Lakers, or any number of cross-sport examples where the guy acts like a big baby and says “I’m not doing this anymore.” Wentz lost his job and his reaction is appropriate and expected. We’d be more offended if a competitor like him just shrugged his shoulders and accepted it.

Right on cue, to piggyback off ESPN, here comes you-know-who:

The ultimate irony right here. Josina Anderson talking about leaks that make people “appear selfish.”

When she writes, quote, “rather than have stories leak,” she is alleging that Wentz has something to do with this, as though he’s in control of these leaks or his behavior is responsible for other people going to the media.

She says that straight-up right here:

https://twitter.com/JosinaAnderson/status/1340707270682955776?s=20

Yeah, listen, she has no idea what side this is coming from. It could very easily be somebody else’s camp trying to drag the guy through the mud via disinformation. She would know.

Again, the problem with Josina is not that her information is accurate or inaccurate, it’s that the agenda has been there from the beginning. She leaves ESPN, says nothing about the Eagles all season long, and then once Carson Wentz gets benched and Alshon Jeffery starts playing well, she resurfaces with the same anti-Wentz stuff she’s been spewing for two years now.

We as fans can believe whatever we want about Wentz. Maybe he’s a different guy inside NovaCare. He could quite possibly be an asshole in private. He also does a lot of charity work in this region and contributed significantly to the Birds’ Super Bowl season, throwing a touchdown on a torn ACL and leaving the Eagles in a position to claim home field and a first-round bye.

So let’s go easy on the character assassination via “reports” and conspiracy theories. Let’s not rake Carson over the coals and kick him when he’s down. The guy got benched and ALLEGEDLY wants out. You would want the same thing if it happened to you.