Eagles failed to play to one of Carson Wentz’s biggest strengths in Week 1

Carson Wentz and the Eagles’ porous offensive line obviously deserve most of the blame for Philadelphia’s Week 1 loss to the Washington Football Team. There’s no doubt about it.

But upon re-watching the game on Sunday evening, I couldn’t help but think more about how the coaching staff further contributed to Wentz’s struggles. The key question I’m left wondering:

Why didn’t the Eagles get Wentz on the move?

I looked back at all of Wentz’s dropbacks and I saw just ONE designed rollout.

It came on Philly’s first drive of the game when Wentz ran right and threw a short pass to Dallas Goedert, who fought through contact to get to the 5-yard line. That 12-yard completion set up the Eagles’ first touchdown.

The only other time Wentz was on the move was when interior pressure flushed him out of the pocket left and he completed an 11-yard pass to Greg Ward on 3rd-and-8.

We have much more data than these two plays to know that good things happen when Wentz is out of the pocket. He was the NFL’s No. 1 quarterback on the move in 2019!

Even more supporting data from The Athletic’s Sheil Kapadia:

So, what gives? Why didn’t we see more of this from Wentz on Sunday, especially as the offense went cold and adjustments were clearly needed?

Could it be that Wentz is still impacted by the groin tightness that caused him to miss the final week of training camp practices? For what it’s worth, he wasn’t listed on the injury report at all leading up to Week 1.

Whatever the reasoning, the Eagles failed to play to one of Wentz’s biggest strengths in an embarrassing loss to Washington. It’ll be hard to be surprised by more offensive struggles if he continues to be stationary.