Way back in May 2016, shortly after the Philadelphia Eagles traded away significant draft capital to move up to draft Carson Wentz number 2 overall, I wrote some immortal words “…the Eagles made the wrong decision and doomed the team for the next 5 years. Thanks.” I have never been more happy to be wrong.

Much of that opinion was based on the expectation that they would sit him for a year behind Sam Bradford and would miss out on a future 1st round pick that would be valuable in building the team. Instead, they traded Bradford, gained a 1st round pick from the Vikings and used it to snag Super Bowl fumble recover Derek Barnett with the selection. Not bad! So in a way…I was technically correct.

One thing I am also correct about regarding that season is that Carson Wentz deserved to win the MVP that year, even though he got hurt and missed the last few games. What surprises me most is that no one at the time even sought to make the argument for him. Instead, 2017 is regarded as Wentz “playing at an MVP level” and there’s a general consensus that had he not gotten hurt, he would have won. In fact, if he’d stayed healthy, they could have lost the final three of the year with him playing QB at a sub-par level and he still might have ended up winning the award and might still have deserved it too. All it comes down to was the fact he tore his ACL, which somehow invalidated his accomplishments up until that point.

To be clear, I’m not arguing that he should have won based on the stats and wins he was forecast to achieve over those last few games that he missed, I’m arguing that he achieved enough during the games he played to have won the award.

He Clinched The NFC East and Got Them The Number One Seed In 13 Games Started

First of all, its made into a big deal that he missed a large chunk of the season, when realistically he started 13 games out of a possible 16. He missed three games, one of which is Week 17 that top players tend to rest in anyway. So really, he started 13 out of a possible 15 games. He played over 80% of the season.

Here’s an interesting hypothetical: what if he missed the first game of the year because he was holding out for a better contract, came back week 2 and then played every game but sat for week 17. He was the best player on his side of the ball during that time and helped his team to a playoff berth and a division win. Games started 14 out of 16. Would we disregard that person from an award? The answer is no, because that exact same scenario happened with Aaron Donald who won Defensive Player of the Year in the exact same season! Donald started 14 games and at no point did anyone claim this wasn’t enough. Wentz started 13 and gets taken out of all awards considerations!

Why does it matter then that he started 13 games instead of 14? Beating Donald’s team in the process? He clinched the NFC East that day when the Eagles went on to win, guaranteeing them a playoff spot. Due to a Vikings loss on the same day, the Eagles moved into the number one seed in the NFC and valuable home field advantage.

Wentz Was The Player You Remember From That Year

Wentz’s last play of the season was a 2-yard TD to Alshon Jeffrey to give the Eagles a 31-28 lead on the road against a LA Rams team that would go on to win 11 games themselves. The fact that he was able to stay on the field and make that play is impressive itself. In fact, he made a lot of incredible plays that season. He was perhaps the most memorable player in his 13 games started during 2017, making Houdini-like escapes seemingly every week to complete huge plays, passing a TD on a torn ACL and leading game-winning drives. Don’t take my bias for it, the NFL put together its top plays of the regular season and Wentz was featured three times, more than any other player. Brady featured once. There easily could have been at least two more plays from him on that list.

Stats-wise, he wasn’t really even that far behind Brady despite playing 3 less games than him, he even beat him various categories. Wentz threw more TDs that year than Brady! 33 to 32, good enough for second in the league and only one behind Russell Wilson with 34. He also had the best QBR in the league that season and TD Rate, ahead of Brady. The only category Brady led the league in was yards, throwing for 4,577. Brady and Wentz stats are very similar in areas like Interceptions, Int Rate (%), Yards/Attempt, Adj Y/A, Sack Rate (%), and other QB Rating stats. The Patriots ended up with the same record as the Eagles and needed the last day of the year to clinch the 1 seed in the AFC.

Wentz was THE player of the 2017 season and he did it all in fewer games played. He was robbed of the MVP even though he got hurt and I will stand by this opinion for the rest of my life.