Rewind:

Sunday morning, before the Cardinals game, Adam Schefter came out with a report at ESPN saying that Carson Wentz was unhappy with his benching and was not pleased with the way events unfolded in Philadelphia this year. He would seek to go elsewhere if not the starter in 2021.

This was a total nothing burger from the beginning. Of course the guy doesn’t want to be a backup! Most starters aren’t happy with their benchings and demotions.

The problem is that this “report” blew up into some nonsense about Wentz being a selfish prick and a bad teammate. We had Josina Anderson, Rex Ryan, Ryan Clark and other national media types join the pile on. Folks took this story and twisted it into some “Wentz is a terrible person” narrative, for no good reason.

So Wednesday, Schefter clarified his report during his weekly appearance on 97.5 the Fanatic, essentially scolding the people who blew it out of proportion:

“A lot of people have completely taken this out of context and misconstrued it. Let’s be very clear about the story, and we can go paragraph by paragraph – there is nothing in this story that is incorrect. Zero. It is all 100% accurate. There are people stretching it into certain things. Number one, Carson Wentz has been a good teammate. He’s been supportive. He hasn’t publicly pouted. He hasn’t done any of that. But the fact remains, as I wrote, he’s not interested in being a backup quarterback and would want to move on from the Eagles if the current situation (continued). That’s a fact. He doesn’t want to be a backup. He hasn’t complained about it publicly. My job is to talk to people. Carson Wentz didn’t tell this to me. His agents didn’t tell this to me.”

…

“This is all common sense. (Wentz) is not happy that he’s playing backup. He’s playing the good soldier. He’s being supportive. He’s not publicly complaining. But that doesn’t change the way of how he feels. He doesn’t want to be a backup quarterback. Who does? And if he wanted to be a backup you’d question the mental makeup of the man himself. So again, that was the story. Somehow that got turned into, ‘Carson Wentz is selfish, how can he speak out before the game?'”

Everybody said this three days ago. The problem is that the story has spent 72 hours in the news cycle and the damage is already done. If Schefter was truly bothered, he could have come out on Twitter and set the record straight with his eight million followers.

Adam has a right to be annoyed with people taking his report the wrong way, but there was nothing of substance worth reporting in the first place. That’s why he doesn’t get a free pass here. The report was multiple paragraphs and a few hundred words just to tell us that the starting quarterback was displeased with his benching, which we already knew.

So listen, good on Schefter for coming out and clarifying some things on the Fanatic this morning, but he’s still culpable here. He may not have placed the burger in the bun, but he fired up the grill.

Here’s the link to the full interview.