Darren Sproles Says Carson Wentz Didn't Want to Run the Same Offense After Super Bowl Win, or Listen to Coaching
Darren Sproles was on DeSean Jackson and LeSean McCoy’s podcast and they got into the Super Bowl team, Carson Wentz not wanting to run the offense or listen to coaching, and how Sproles better connected with Nick Foles:
I love that we joked about Wentz’s affinity for throwing the ball to Zach Ertz and Sproles confirms it pissed him off and probably others in the offensive room. Remember the stat that Carson Wentz lovers used to throw out there? The one about him being the first QB to throw for 4,000 yards without a receiver having 1,000? Kind of loses its shine when someone on that team spells it out in black and white that Ertz was the security blanket. That year Ertz and Dallas Goedert led the team with a combined 1,500 receiving yards. Miles Sanders was third and Alshon Jeffrey came in fourth. Ertz and Goedert also had the most targets. Ertz’s 135 was almost 50 more than the next guy. Alshon had the third-most targets and he only played 10 games. Hard to get a 1,000 yard receiver when both tight ends get the most balls and your #1 is banged up.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise that Sproles didn’t particularly care for Wentz. He confirmed he was the one who stepped to him when Wentz had a bad attitude during the Nick Foles run:
It took everything in Darren Sproles to not talk bad about Carson Wentz pic.twitter.com/isBmSk46sw
— Crossing Broad (@CrossingBroad) November 19, 2022
Here’s a little more from Jeff McLane at the Inky:
“Sometime before the championship game, Wentz voiced his displeasure with the Eagles’ success to a group of other injured players, sources with direct knowledge of the incident said. One of the players immediately confronted him and the two eventually had to be separated.”
I’d love to get Shady, McCoy, and Sproles uncensored. It feels like every time Wentz is brought up guys hem and haw about him and avoid the question. Like they want to say something, but then end up backing off and just giving little tidbits. This is the first time I can remember that someone from the team said he didn’t want to run the offense or listen to coaching. I remember reading that John DeFilippo and Frank Reich were the only ones who could get through to him. Once they got other jobs it sounds like he didn’t want to listen to anyone else. Didn’t help they promoted his boy Press Taylor who was more of a friend than a coach. Could you imagine the amount of arrogance you have to have to not want to run the offense that just won your team a Super Bowl without you? Who would’ve thought all the Hoagie Mouths calling into WIP about Foles being the starter were right all along?
Credit to Wentz where it’s due, he did own up to the face he could’ve been a better teammate in Philly a couple years later:
“There’s always things I look back on, ‘Man, I could’ve been better here, better as a person, better as a teammate”
-Carson Wentz says he has grown as a person and he does cherish his time with the Eagles pic.twitter.com/sidfV2GgFm
— John Clark (@JClarkNBCS) September 21, 2022
Kinkead: my biggest takeaway from this is that the three of them keep using terms like “comfort zone” and “comfort blanket” when the phrase they wanted was “security blanket.” Ertz was a security blanket for Wentz.