No, this decision wasn’t just about Jacksonville.
And it wasn’t solely about the way the season ended, either.
Truth be told, some inside the Indianapolis Colts’ West 56th Street facility were finished with the
Carson Wentz experiment long before the team’s late-season collapse, according to several recent conversations with sources inside the organization. Consecutive losses to Las Vegas and Jacksonville in Weeks 17 and 18 — punctuated by poor play from the starting quarterback — cost the team a 97 percent shot at the playoffs and led to owner Jim Irsay calling it “an epic shortfall that stunned and shocked and appalled us all.”
The
Colts shipped the 29-year-old Wentz to the
Washington Commanders on Wednesday in exchange for a pair of third-round picks, a league source said, one of which can become a second-rounder if Wentz plays a certain number of snaps next season. The deal was first reported by ESPN. The teams will also swap second-round picks this spring. The deal can’t be made official until the new league year begins on March 16.
The Commanders originally came in offering a fourth-rounder and a sixth-rounder, and talks intensified Tuesday after Washington missed out on
Russell Wilson. Washington will assume all of Wentz’s 2022 salary — roughly $28 million — letting the Colts off the hook for the $15 million they owed him even if they cut him.
As for the Colts, the issues with Wentz stretched back to before the season began, one source said, and over the course of the year, some grew frustrated at what they deemed a lack of leadership, a resistance to hard coaching and a reckless style of play, which had a role in several close losses this year.
But this wasn’t just a football move. Wentz’s play, inconsistent as it was to close the year, wasn’t the deciding factor. Colts’ brass simply didn’t trust him to be the franchise quarterback moving forward, and they weren’t willing to bring him back in 2022 and hope for better. Thus, the decision was made swiftly after the Week 18 debacle in Jacksonville: Wentz wouldn’t return for a second season in Indianapolis.
What was missing, some within the team believe, was the type of direction the Colts got from the quarterback position in recent years, namely with Andrew Luck, Philip Rivers and even
Jacoby Brissett, who despite struggling late in the 2019 season remained a deeply respected voice within the locker room.
In other words, with a QB in place besides Wentz, some believe, the gutting late-season collapse the Colts suffered would have never happened.
Wentz was never the right fit, some were convinced, and the dreadful finish to the season only confirmed it.
While the team’s chief decision-makers know there are issues beyond the quarterback spot that need to be addressed, they felt they couldn’t move forward with Wentz, and they were prepared to eat the $15 million if they had to. (Wentz is due an additional $13 million next week at the start of the new league year.) The
Eagles, remember, took on a league-record $33.8 million dead cap hit last year after trading their former franchise QB to Indianapolis.
According to one source, the Colts’ divorce with Wentz this offseason was only a matter of time. All that needed to be decided was whether the team would trade or cut him.
And the fact that the Colts were willing to move on from him without a viable Plan B in place — not to mention a thin free-agent class and no first-round draft choice — is especially telling. That’s how determined the Colts were in their decision.
They were moving on from Wentz, period.
The quarterback, who learned he was on shaky ground with the organization over the last month, reached out to Irsay in hopes of setting up a meeting to “clear the air,” a source said. Irsay declined the meeting because he was out of town. The two spoke later.
Last year’s trade, then, ends as an abject failure just 12 months in and will go down as one of the worst in the franchise’s recent history. It’s also the most consequential miss of Chris Ballard’s five-year run as general manager: Indianapolis sent first- and third-round picks to Philadelphia for a quarterback who lasted one year with the team and failed to lead them to the playoffs.
Irsay’s furor has waned little since the Jan. 9 loss in Jacksonville, and the fact that the game was never even close — the Colts lost 26-11 only after scoring a meaningless fourth-quarter touchdown — still mystifies him. With so much on the line, his team played its worst football of the season.
Five days later, in front of his private jet, the owner spoke to fans on a video posted to his Twitter account.
“We have allowed — and I have allowed — doubt, fear and a lack of faith to slip into our DNA, and it will not stand,” he said. “Every walking step this offseason is committed to getting the horseshoe back to where it should be.”
In a conversation a week later, Irsay elaborated, if only slightly: “We want more warriors. That’s what it’s about. I don’t shy away from the fact that I’m in this to win.”
In light of Wednesday’s trade, it’s not hard to figure out to whom he was referring.
The move also means the Colts will open the season with a sixth different starting quarterback in as many years come September, and the fifth of Frank Reich’s five-year run as head coach. As of now, the only QBs on the roster are
Sam Ehlinger, a sixth-round pick from 2021 who didn’t throw a single pass in 2021, and
James Morgan, a recent signee who’s spent time on three different practice squads.
The Colts will certainly look to upgrade, via free agency or the draft, limited as their options might be. But, according to one source, don’t rule out Ehlinger getting a chance at the starting job.
“You
gotta be right,” general manager Chris Ballard said earlier this month, asked about the team’s unending quarterback dilemma. “And even if you might not be right all the time, that’s the one position you gotta keep firing (at) until you get it right.”
In other words: The Colts missed on Wentz. They’ll keep firing. They have to.
Money was never the primary factor in the decision to move on from him, nor was the unenviable reality the team now finds itself in: looking for a new starting quarterback for the third straight offseason. Reich, who originally pushed for the trade to acquire Wentz last winter, apologized to Irsay after the season, according to a source. The coach believed he could resurrect Wentz’s stalled career and solve the Colts’ quarterback conundrum.
“I stuck my neck out for him last year,” Reich admitted earlier this month.
Twelve months later, the Colts are again starting over at the most important position on the field, a stunning turn of events considering where they sat in mid-December. After a terrific game-sealing touchdown throw from Wentz on Christmas night in Arizona, the Colts were 9-6 and one of the hottest teams in the league, destined for a third trip to the playoffs in Reich’s four seasons.
All signs, at that juncture at least, pointed to Wentz returning for a second year in Indianapolis.
But the year instead ended in unimaginable disappointment and furthered some of the decision-makers’ simmering unease with their starting quarterback. Needing just one win over their final two games, the Colts lost both, and Wentz’s regression in Weeks 17 and 18 cost the team dearly. The passing game stalled, and Wentz played his worst football of the year — his 4.3 QBR in Jacksonville was nearly 20 points lower than any other start he made in 2021. He routinely played worse in the second halves of games last season; six of his seven interceptions came after halftime, and he didn’t lead a single game-winning drive all year.
That the Colts were 2-5 in one-score games last season wasn’t all on Wentz, but he certainly played a role.
“It’s a bad feeling, knowing that, you know, we were in control, being in control of our destiny last two weeks and, I mean, we just couldn’t get it done,” Wentz said after the Jacksonville loss. “It’s definitely left a bad taste in my mouth and a lot of guys’ mouth. (It’s) not where we want to be and not what we expected either. You know, we expected to finish stronger than we did. And we didn’t get it done. It’s a bad, bad, bad feeling.”
Wentz’s body of work as a whole wasn’t nearly as bad as the finish: His completion percentage improved by five points from 2020, his final season in Philadelphia. With the Colts, he threw for 27 touchdowns (tied for the second-most of his career) and cut his interception total in half. And it was obvious, especially late in the season, how much the Colts’ lack of depth at the wide receiver and tight end positions were hindering the offense.
No, it all wasn’t on the quarterback.
But after the season ended, neither Reich nor Ballard offered much of a public endorsement of their embattled QB, stopping well short of saying Wentz would return in 2022. This came in sharp contrast to their statements in a similar setting a year prior, when both publicly advocated for Philip Rivers’ return. Rivers’ retirement last January paved the way for the Colts to trade for Wentz a month later.
“Next year’s roster will be next year’s roster,” Reich said the day after the 26-11 loss to Jacksonville. “I don’t want to open it up about one player and then start talking about all of them.”
Ballard offered much of the same three days later.
“Sitting here today, I won’t make a comment on who’s going to be here next year and who’s not going to be here next year,” he said. “That’s not fair to any player. I thought Carson did some good things, and there’s a lot of things he needs to do better. Our passing game has to be better.”
In reality, both he and Reich already knew that Wentz wasn’t coming back.
Ballard, instead, revealed some of what he talked with Wentz about after the finale. “Make the layups, just make the layups,” he told the quarterback in a meeting two days after the Jacksonville loss. Later asked if a quarterback six years into his career could change his style of play, and improve in areas he’s struggled — namely accuracy and decision-making — Ballard offered a telling assessment of the QB.
“I do think accuracy can get better, and you can drill it, drill it, drill it, but usually when you get into the game, you usually revert back,” he said.
Seven weeks later, speaking at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, Ballard said the team didn’t yet have an answer. “Ultimately, we’ll do what’s best for the Colts, both in the short-term and the long-term,” he said.
Pressed on why the Colts’ belief in Wentz had waned — they wouldn’t be in this situation otherwise — Ballard’s response spoke to the hesitation within the building of moving forward with Wentz under center.
“Not saying we don’t (believe in him),” Ballard said. “But in the long-term best interest for us … we’re not there yet. I’m not there yet.”
Reich supported his QB but seemed to hint at the resolution that was soon to come.
“I believe he’s going to continue to have a lot of success at quarterback,” Reich said. “That might be here. It might not be here. That decision has yet to be determined. But I still believe in him as a person and player.”
The move to cut ties with Wentz just a year in wasn’t just about his play on the field. Some knew long before the finale in Jacksonville he wasn’t the Colts’ answer at QB, and thus the decision was made: instead of running it back with him, and hoping for better, the team would eat its losses and embark upon another quarterback search.
Maybe one of these years they’ll get it right.
