Eagles-Cardinals PFF Grades: Carson Wentz somehow not among Philadelphia’s top five players

Pro Football Focus releases the top five graded players from each team after every single NFL game. Here’s what PFF had to say about the Philadelphia Eagles following their Week 5 win against the Arizona Cardinals.

CB Patrick Robinson, 91.5 overall grade

DE Timmy Jernigan, 87.2 overall grade

DE Vinny Curry, 85.6 overall grade

LB Jordan Hicks, 85.5 overall grade

S Malcolm Jenkins, 83.5 overall grade

Hmmmmmm ... I feel like someone is missing from that list! You know, that guy who threw four touchdowns and had a 128.3 passer rating on Sunday?

CARSON WENTZ

So Wentz didn’t make the top five, but PFF included a blurb on him in their game review.

QB Carson Wentz, 79.0 overall grade

A near flawless display from Wentz, with the only blot on his copy book a couple of errant throws on the final drive of the first half that saw him first have an interception dropped, before turning it over on the next play. But in the grand scheme of things, minor gripes, and Wentz (who was ably protected, with pressure on just 10-of-35 drop backs), was able to make a number of big plays that the Cardinals never recovered from. He ended the day with just five completions over 10 yards in the air, but his lofted pass to Nelson Agholor demonstrated just how devastating he is when moving the ball downfield.

PFF’s write-up is less critical than the grade might make it seem. With that said, it’s confusing how the grade ends up being what is when you compare it to other quarterbacks.

PFF reserves the right to adjust their grades after watching All-22 and going through a more thorough review process. In the meantime, though, Wentz’s grade just doesn’t seem to match up with what we all saw on the field.

I’m not saying PFF is inherently biased against Wentz, because they’ve been generous to him when I thought they should’ve been harsher (Week 3 review), but this latest grade is a head-scratcher. Wentz wasn’t completely flawless against the Cards but the good so clearly outweighed the bad.

Wentz now ranks ninth out of 32 quarterbacks graded by PFF this season. Eli Manning, Kirk Cousins, and Dak Prescott are all below him. (In more way than one.)

PATRICK ROBINSON

Robinson has now finished in the top five in every week this season except one. He’s been pretty good.

Just imagined what this grade would be if Robinson could catch? Carson Palmer kept testing Robinson, and the former Saint and Charger had no problem passing it. He was thrown at nine times, broke up three balls and surrendered just 80 yards (with the majority of those in garbage time). Just imagine what this grade would be if Robinson could catch? Carson Palmer kept testing Robinson, and the former Saint and Charger had no problem passing it. He was thrown at nine times, broke up three balls and surrendered just 80 yards (with the majority of those in garbage time).

This review didn’t even mention his field goal block, which ensured a 14-point lead for the Eagles heading into halftime.

But indeed, Robinson’s performance would’ve been even better if was able to hold on to at least one of the three interceptions he dropped.

Despite that, Robinson is now PFF’s No. 1 graded cornerback in the entire NFL. That’s pretty crazy. He’s definitely not the best corner in the NFL, obviously, but he’s played pretty well. Kudos to him.

TIMMY JERNIGAN

As I wrote about last week, the man with the gold teeth has been having a great season.

No Fletcher Cox, no problem. Jernigan was particularly disruptive in the first half where no body on the Cardinals interior could handle him. He finished with two tackles for a loss and was constantly disruptive.

Jernigan ranks eighth out of 124 interior defenders this season. He’s been very good in run defense and he’s also able to generate pressure from the interior as well. He might even be more productive when Cox returns. The two of them combine to form a formidable pair of defensive tackles.

They gotta find a way to re-sign this guy.

VINNY CURRY

Curry had four solo tackles, one tackle for loss, one sack, and one QB hit in Sunday’s game. He did a good job of regularly getting pressure on Carson Palmer. This is to be expected since he was going up against a second team left tackle and a third team left guard. Still, he took care of business.

Curry ranks 22nd out of 104 edge rushers this season. He’s generated 13 pressures in 118 pass rush snaps. More surprisingly, he ranks sixth in run stop percentage. That was an area to be considered Curry’s weakness but he’s shown progress there.

JORDAN HICKS

Hicks has quietly had a quiet season — for his standards, at least. He didn’t have a particularly splashy day against the Cardinals (four tackles, three solo) but somehow he ended up in the top five.

MALCOLM JENKINS

I wrote about Jenkins’ performance earlier today:

Corey Graham returned from missing two games and played 67% of the Eagles’ defensive snaps. This allowed Jenkins to move down to the slot to man up against Larry Fitzgerald. Jenkins held Fitzgerald to three catches for 31 yards prior to the Arizona’s final drive, when he had two receptions for 20 yards in garbage time.

Jenkins also had a part in Robinson’s field goal block.

During his press conference last week, Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz was extremely effusive of Jenkins.

I still think that when we get to full strength, that's something that we can benefit from is him playing down because he is good in some of those matchups. With a 3-1 start and everything that's gone on, I think Malcolm's play has sort of flown below the radar. He doesn't have interceptions or sacks and things like that, but he's played consistent football. Early on, talking about some of our positions where we're striving to get consistency, you can scratch Malcolm off of that list. He's played very consistently and he's also had to handle a lot of different situations from, losing his running mate at safety next to him, plugging another guy in, and plugging another guy in. There hasn't -- he's taken a lot on himself to stay productive and I think he's playing at a higher level than I've ever seen him play, and that says an awful lot because he's been a good player in this league for a long time.

HONORABLE MENTION

Eagles starting right tackle Lane Johnson earned a mention in PFF’s recap.

Another good performance from Johnson who turned his 33 snaps into the highest grade on the offensive line. The problem of course was the head injury that saw him leave the game and meant Halapoulivaati Vaitai entered the game. If Johnson is to miss time then Vatai is a guy we’ll be seeing more of, so it was heartening for Eagles fans to see his performance go largely unnoticed (in a good way). He ended the day with no hurries allowed and a 71.7 grade.

Johnson ranks third among offensive tackles in pass protection this season. He ranks tied for fourth out of 69 tackles graded by PFF this season. (Jason Peters, meanwhile, is second.)

It sucks that the Eagles will likely be without Johnson against the Panthers on Thursday night.