Philadelphia Eagles: Is the Carson Wentz benching causing a locker room divide?

The Philadelphia Eagles quarterback decision has ruffled some feathers within the locker room.

In any sport, benching a star player is hard. Coaches and teammates alike are typically immensely invested into said star, and the general pushback from the fanbase can be borderline nuclear. When it comes to quarterbacks in the National Football League, the controversy is doubled – and this is a lesson that the Philadelphia Eagles are becoming all too familiar with as of late.

After a miserable 3-8-1 start to the 2020 season, Doug Pederson and the Eagles pulled the plug on their franchise quarterback, benching Carson Wentz in favor of second-round rookie Jalen Hurts. This decision obviously sent shockwaves through the local and national media, and the team’s fanbase wasn’t shy in expressing their opinion on the matter either.

If were being completely honest, most of this stuff doesn’t matter to the Philadelphia coaching staff. Their job is to win football games – not please the media/fans. However, when a hyper controversial decision like this starts to bleed into the locker room, in turn affecting some of the team’s best players, questions have to be asked in regards to what a decision like this will do to the organization’s overall culture.

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Following the announcement that Wentz would remain on the bench for this weekend’s game against New Orleans, two specific veterans stepped up to voice their frustration: Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox.

Widely regarded as two of the most respected individuals in franchise history, Kelce’s and Cox’s opinions hold some serious weight. Kelce dropped a WWE-style promo on the entire Philadelphia Eagles team, making the claim that Wentz was being scapegoated for a lot of the offense’s issues. Cox on the other hand liked a tweet conveying that Wentz should be the starter moving forward, and he had no problem doubling down on that stance come media time.

Cox’s exact words on the matter were, “My tweet is my tweet and I stand with it…Carson, he’s my best friend, he’s my guy. I’ve always had his back since Day 1.”

On the flip side, younger guys like Jalen Reagor and Greg Ward Jr. seemed more open to the idea of Hurts taking the reigns at QB. Both receivers had a relationship with Hurts prior to joining the Eagles, so there’s definitely some level of added chemistry there.

Ultimately speaking, having the locker room “split” on who should be their starting quarterback is a completely disastrous situation. The Eagles lived through this experience once before in 2018 with Nick Foles, and it took Wentz close to a full calendar year to regain the support of the entire locker room (minus Alshon Jeffery, probably).

We obviously haven’t seen Jalen Hurts play a full NFL game yet, but his performance might not really matter all that much when it comes to structuring this roster moving forward. Even if he’s really good, there’s clearly some players that would rather rock with Carson. This all leaves the front office in a tricky situation, and it’s one that they completely instilled on themselves upon drafting a backup QB in the second-round.