The Indianapolis Colts are reportedly looking to trade for Wentz, but only at a certain price. Here’s why that would be a bad move.
The Indianapolis Colts are a really good football team. They have a lot of strong pieces on both offense and defense.
In fact, they are just a quarterback away from being a Super Bowl contender.
The problem is they don’t have that quarterback and don’t have many options left to get a good one.
Carson Wentz would not fit the bill of a quarterback who could push this team over the edge. While Wentz is just 28, his play has fallen off a cliff the last couple of seasons.
He has thrown 28 interceptions over the last two campaigns — and, by the way, he’s only played 28 games in those two years.
Why give up a 1st, 3rd and a player for Carson Wentz and his bad contract when the Colts can have similar QB play for a fraction of the price and keep their picks?
— iuwbb fan account 🇺🇦 (@StP_Colts) February 10, 2021
Source: 2019 stats, https://t.co/hM4SFqb1jx pic.twitter.com/bHMMDPCqK8
Why would the Colts mortgage it all for Carson Wentz?
The Colts did have success with the Philip Rivers experiment. I was pleasantly surprised with his play. I actually thought he was going to play at least one more year, but clearly that is not the case. Trading for a quarterback of Wentz’s level would not be considered an upgrade.
The case for Wentz is that last season should just be a throwaway statistically because of all of the injuries that the Eagles had at wide receiver and on the offensive line. While it’s true that didn’t help, Wentz seems to have lost his confidence and just makes flat-out bad decisions.
In my opinion, the Colts should do one of two things with the quarterback position. They could go in-house and let Jacob Eason give it a shot. The Colts drafted him last year in the fourth round despite having a first-round arm. If they believe in his skills, he could be the answer.
The other viable option would be to trade up in the draft to grab one of the top five quarterbacks in this year’s NFL Draft. They won’t get Trevor Lawrence, but they can move up to take Justin Fields, Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, or Mac Jones. Personally, I think it should either be Fields, Wilson, or Jones.
From @nfldraftscout’s notebook: there is a team that ranks Zach Wilson above Trevor Lawrence pic.twitter.com/IgKXbA4Hv1
— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) February 17, 2021
Chris Ballard loves draft picks. It doesn’t seem likely he would trade a first-round pick down the road to move up here, which is likely what it would take at the bare minimum.
But they really don’t have any better options. It’s either these two options or trade for Wentz or Sam Darnold.
Neither Wentz nor Darnold are good enough to give this team the extra push they need to be real title contenders, nor do they set them up better in the long-term. Trying Eason or using another draft pick should be what they do instead.