The roller coaster that was the Carson Wentz experience in Philadelphia has come to a halt.
The Eagles on Thursday reportedly agreed to trade Wentz to the Indianapolis Colts in exchange for a pair of draft picks. The deal comes less than five years after Philadelphia used the second overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft on Wentz.
The Wentz trade once again highlighted the difficulty of drafting a quarterback and keeping him around for the long haul. As ESPN NFL analyst Field Yates pointed out not long after news of the Wentz trade broke, there are now zero QBs drafted in the first round from 2009 to 2016 who still play for their original team. All 22 of those signal-callers either have found new homes or are out of the NFL entirely.
Two first-round quarterbacks who fit in that time frame relocated via the same trade earlier this offseason. Jared Goff, drafted one pick prior to Wentz in 2016, was sent to the Detroit Lions in a deal that saw the Los Angeles Rams acquired Matthew Stafford, the No. 1 overall pick in 2009.
The list soon could add quarterbacks from even more recent drafts as well. Mitchell Trubisky and Deshaun Watson, two of the three QBs drafted in the first round in 2017, both could be donning new uniforms in the 2021 season. We have a feeling the other member of that group, Patrick Mahomes, probably will stay put in Kansas City, however.
Anyways, good luck to the franchises thinking about drafting a signal-caller this April. They’ll need it.
