Brian Baldinger On the Eagles

On December 10th, 2017 Carson Wentz tossed his 33rd TD pass of the season to Alshon Jeffrey to take the lead over the LA Rams in the LA Colosseum.

Unbeknownst to most people watching that day, he tossed the Eagles record-setting TD passes on a torn ACL injured four plays prior to that throw.

Equally unknown to most was the severity of the damage.

On December 13th, Carson had the Steelers team doctor, Dr. James Bradley, do extensive surgery to repair his torn left ACL, a partially torn IT band, and had some meniscus damage cleaned up.

In other words, the damage suffered by Carson that day was worse than initially diagnosed.

It is unheard of to do this type of surgery only three days after the injury is suffered. Normally, there is at least a week that would go by so that the swelling caused by the injury has time to recede.

But Carson pushed to have it done ASAP to give him as much recovery time to prepare for the start of the 2018 season. It is commendable on his part and not surprising at all.

The timetable on recovery was set at 9-12 months by Dr. Bradley. Conservative is the smart way to go when you are dealing with a young franchise quarterback coming off a MVP-type season. Play in 13 games, he left No. 1 in the following categories: TD percentage (7.5), yards/completion (13.5), total QBR (74.4) and 4th in QB rating (101.9).

When training camp starts at the end of July, Carson will have had 7 1/2 months of grueling recovery time, well short of the 9-12 months given to make the full recovery.

When the Eagles open up the 2018 season on September 6, it will be right at nine months of post operation. There is no need to push this time-line to get him on the field knowing his value to this team.
I think Carson understands this as much as he wants to lead the team onto the field at Lincoln Financial Field on that Thursday night in September.

Reason for optimism is that Carson is very young and was very healthy and an elite athlete. He attacked his rehab the way that he attacked NFL defenses on third down where is was the most feared dual threat QB in the league in 2017.

When I last saw him in June at one of the Birds final mini-camp practices he took part in all individual drills and some 7-on-7 passing drills. When the team went to total team drills he was seen doing laborious rehab drills.

Long figure 8’s covering 3/4 of the field where he would run that pattern over and over again. I could still see a limp from the surgery that was noticeable. That will go away with more strength from more time. But he clearly had work still to do.

I do not believe that he will start training camp ready to go 100 percent.
He will practice daily and go through many drills but I think cautious will be the the approach of both Carson and the Eagles.

In 1980 I had reconstructive surgery on my torn right ACL at Duke Hospital, on December 20 as a junior at Duke. I was able to begin practice in August as a “full go participant” and started all 11 games my senior season without any ill effects.

In fact over the next 13 college and NFL seasons I never missed a day of practice due to my surgically repaired rt knee. I was very fortunate.

In one year HOFer, Rod Woodson, tore his ACL in training camp and made a return to the lineup that year for the Steelers in the playoffs. I mention these two examples of a player to make a full recovery of an ACL tear because every case is different.

If Carson is to make it to the starting lineup on September 6 he will have to be healthy enough to play in at least two preseason games and take a lot of practice time to be sharp and ready for the Falcons.

Only Carson will know if he is ready, physically and psychologically, for those important repetitions.
It helps that somehow, the Super Bowl MVP, Nick Foles, is still on the roster. It will make the decision easier for everyone as to when Carson is ready knowing that the team has total confidence in Nick.

While everyone will watch Carson intently in practice trying to decide for themselves when he should get the calling to start, there are other players to pay attention to. There are many many new faces to this team so there are many many stories to follow. Let me give you two new faces and the return of a familiar face that I am excited to watch.

With the departure of Beau Allen to free agency and the off season surgery to Tim Jernigan, I am excited to watch Haloti Ngata put on an Eagle uniform. I think he has plenty football left in his massive body and Jim Schwartz will be careful in how he uses him. But he can help form maybe the best interior defensive tackle tandem in the league along side of Fletcher Cox.

Sydney Jones made it back last year from a torn Achilles tendon to play in the week 17n finale against the Cowboys. He was held out of the post season but will he win a starting CB position with his enormous talent he exited U of Washington with prior to tearing his Achilles in that pro day workout.

Darren Sproles hasn’t been seen since his early season injury in 2017.

But that doesn’t mean the Eagles haven’t been monitoring his progress. The video I have seen from his workouts in San Diego says to me that he is fully recovered and maybe quicker than ever.

There are countless other stories to get you excited about the Eagles road to repeating as Super Bowl Champs. It hasn’t been done since the ’03-’04 Patriot teams lead by Tom Brady and Belicek. If it is to be done then Carson Wentz is going to have to not only return to form but he will need to take another step in his development. He has that next step in him.

The only question that remains is when will see him begin competing to take that next step? My prediction is we will see him start at some point in the month of September.

Cant wait. I know you can’t either!!!