On The Move: Breaking Down Carson Wentz On The Commanders

The Washington Commanders have been criticized this offseason for sending two third round picks, one of which can become a second, for Carson Wentz, whom two teams have now excitedly ejected from their buildings. While Wentz’s reputation is in the gutter, are the harsh words really fair? And can Wentz be a sneaky fantasy value with his third franchise?

While Wentz didn’t set the world on fire in his lone season with the Colts, and the lasting memory of his short tenure is absolutely short-circuiting in the biggest game of the season vs. the Jaguars, he actually wasn’t horrific during the season. He finished with 3,563 yards and 27 touchdowns while only throwing seven interceptions. Those numbers don’t quite hold up against the best he’s shown us when he was the future of the Eagles, but they’re also perfectly usable both in real life and in fantasy. It’s fairly clear that Wentz isn’t the superstar a team expects when they spend a second overall pick on a player, but Wentz shined in 2021 for fantasy purposes against the right matchups. Wentz threw for three touchdowns three times last season, racked up 402 yards and two touchdowns against the Ravens, and threw for multiple touchdown passes in more than half his games. He also posted a better QB DVOA (1.8%) per Football Outsiders than Jalen Hurts and Lamar Jackson.

Washington also may be a surprisingly good fit for Wentz, even though the perception is that he’s leaving one of the NFL’s best offensive lines. While the Colts line did grade well, the positivity stems from their dominance as a run-blocking unit. As noted here when Matt Ryan’s prospects were broken down, the Colts were actually a fairly poor unit in pass protection. Wentz departs that situation for the Commanders, who graded as the NFL’s fourth-best pass blocking unit. That should highlight how awful the QB play was in 2021 for them. Should Washington’s line remain in the upper echelon of the league, we could see a spike in Wentz’s stats. He posted the NFL’s seventh-highest average depth of target (31.1) behind shaky protection, and earned a strong 90.7 PFF grade on deep throws. That pairs well with what No. 1 WR Terry McLaurin brings to the table, as well as Curtis Samuel, whom the Commanders hope will be healthy in 2022. Lastly, Wentz has a horrible rep for costly turnovers, but he only made 18 “turnover worthy plays,” fewer than Kirk Cousins, Joe Burrow, Tom Brady, Kyler Murray, Aaron Rodgers, Justin Herbert and Russell Wilson. To be fair, most of those QBs threw many more passes than Wentz, but that’s just some context to the perception of Wentz as a mistake machine. While he has a knack for crushing, real-life errors, fantasy managers of Wentz are actually getting a player who doesn’t often harm his own production.

None of this means fantasy managers should be targeting Wentz as a league-winning value at the position. He’s not that, especially with the proliferation of legitimate two-way QBs on the rise. However, if you subscribe to the strategy of totally punting at QB until the ends of drafts, Wentz is a player with back-end QB1 upside who will likely be available for free. Most are laughing at the Commanders, but it’s hard to overstate what an upgrade he is on their 2021 group, and what he could mean for Washington’s pass catchers.