PHILADELPHIA — Some key veterans on the Philadelphia Eagles threw their support behind quarterback Carson Wentz on Wednesday, a day after rookie Jalen Hurts was named the starter for Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Saints.
Defensive tackle Fletcher Cox stood by his recent tweet in which he cast a vote for Wentz by “liking” his image on a post featuring both Wentz and Hurts.
“Carson is my best friend. He’s my guy,” Cox said. “I’ve always had his back since Day 1. Jalen, he’s my teammate also, so you’ve got to support whoever is in there. It’s the NFL and we understand that things happen. It sucks for a guy like Carson to be put in that position because it never just comes down to one guy; there are 11 guys on the field.
“With that being said, my tweet is my tweet and I stand with it.”
Center Jason Kelce was effusive in his praise of Wentz and expressed bewilderment over how the situation devolved to a point where the QB has now been replaced.
“The moment he came in his rookie year, he transformed our offense, and that’s not just as a player, that’s him as a person, that’s the intelligence he brings, the athleticism he brings, the competitiveness he brings made a tangible difference in practice every day and on game day. So it’s kind of hard to believe we’re at this point, to be honest with you,” Kelce said. “This is ultimately a culmination of a lot of failures on offense.
“This comes down to more of a failure of every position, including coaches, to facilitate a functioning offense. That’s the biggest story here, not that Jalen Hurts is picked and there was some sort of internal battle and struggle going on with Carson Wentz. I don’t buy that.”
Cox and Kelce both said the decision to move from Wentz to Hurts would not lead to a divided locker room.
“The first and foremost job of being a Philadelphia Eagle in to be a good teammate,” Kelce said. “And that entails giving of yourself to others everything you can to help the person next to you succeed. So obviously it’s a bad situation personally for the careers of some guys, but we have a good team here in terms of everybody wants everyone to do well. We have a good culture. In particular, Carson Wentz is an incredible teammate. So I have no doubt in my mind that he’s going to do everything he can to help Jalen Hurts succeed and I think anybody who isn’t doing that for all of their teammates should be on the first ticket out of here because that’s not the culture or the team that I want to be on.”