When Carson Wentz went down with an ACL tear, every person on the planet knew the Eagles' offense would take a hit. The question was how much of a hit would they take? In the 3 games without him, the offense looked decent enough once, and dreadful twice. You can write off the final game vs Dallas if you want considering the game meant absolutely nothing for either team, the Eagles players knew they wouldn't be playing the entire game, and you had to evaluate situationally based on backups playing significant snaps. So, even at best, you have a split sample size. One, a product quality enough to potentially get you some wins in the playoffs, and another that would make the Eagles one-and-done. It remains to be seen which Eagles team we're going to get on January 13th on Saturday afternoon.
We're going to find out a lot about the Eagles and just how good they are in that game. In sports, sometimes teams have players who are so great, they make the final product look much better than it actually is. And sometimes teams have players who are great, but also have great players and coaching around them which amounts to an elite-tier overall product. All season long most people believed the Eagles were the latter, and in the playoffs we're going to find out which of those is actually true.
The QB position is the most important position in all of sports. When you lose your starting QB to injury, especially one that is league MVP, you are going to take a significant hit. However, there is a difference between taking a hit and turning into a club that goes from being able to score 40 points in 3 quarters to only being able to cross midfield once in an entire football game and spending the entire day punting the football away. One player, even a QB, should not be responsible for that much of a drop-off, unless the QB is truly that amazing. If the Eagles come out on the 13th vs whichever opponent they face, and their offense picks up where it left off the last two games, it will tell Howie Roseman, Doug Pederson, Joe Douglas, and all Eagles fans everywhere two things:
1) As great as everyone thinks Carson Wentz is, he's miles better than even we thought, and has surpassed Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers as the best QB in the NFL.
2) The rest of the talent on offense, and the coaching isn't as good as we realized.
In 2002, Donovan McNabb went down with a broken ankle, and between Koy Detmer and AJ Feeley the Eagles were still able to put together a quality enough offense to lead the Eagles into the playoffs as the #1 seed the rest of the way. The offense even looked so impressive at times, that many Eagles fans stupidly believed that Feeley should be the future starter. As dumb as that notion was, it only existed because the offense was able to succeed at such a level without McNabb. At that point, McNabb to the Eagles then is essentially what Wentz is to the Eagles now. The team MVP, the most important player on offense, and the shining light that produced optimism, excitement around the city to that level for the first time in years. This showed us that not only was the coaching spectacular, and amenable enough to adjust their game plans and system to fit different players, but the team was talented enough to keep winning without their best and most important player.
We will find out if this Eagles team has that caliber of coaching and that level of talent on the offensive side of the ball. An offense that disastrously sputters into oblivion without their starting QB indicates that the final results of the product are significantly skewed in favor of the QB, who was making players around him look a lot better than they are and maybe the the talent level on the Eagles isn't as good as originally thought. Long-term that bodes great for the Eagles. It would be they truly have a transcendent QB capable of keeping the franchise contending for years. Short-term it would mean the Eagles are basically screwed without him and need to bolster the players around Wentz to put less of a burden on him, and make success more sustainable if he were to get injured again, which would be the 3rd time in 3 seasons he suffered some type of an injury. It would also open the door, just a crack, to question a coaching staff that had one of the all-time great Philadelphia sports seasons ever, and maybe cast just a smidgen of doubt on the man who should absolutely win Coach of the Year in Doug Pederson. Not that he is a bad coach by any means, but it would lead to questions the ratio of how much of the team's success was owed to Wentz instead of Pederson.
However, if the Eagles are able to pick up the pieces in the playoffs and continue to put a quality offense out there capable of winning playoffs games, then it would confirm everyone's initial impressions were correct. That the Eagles are truly as good and talented as we thought, and are resilient and well-coached enough to overcome any injury and still compete at a high level amongst the best the league has to offer. The 13th can't get here fast enough. Major questions looming, and we will have our answers... for better or for worse.
