There’s no way to replace all the time they’ve missed. No way to squeeze an entire offseason of practice time into just a few days.
The Eagles’ receivers all of a sudden showed up at work on Monday and had a new quarterback, and the transition from Sam Bradford to Carson Wentz is going to take time.
There’s no way around it.
“I remember when I was young, it seemed like things were flying all over the place,” veteran tight end Brent Celek said of Wentz. “So the people around him, we just need to elevate our game and help him in any way possible. Be in the right place at the right time so he can rely on us. …
“It’s hard to give him any advice … because this is going to be his first start in an NFL game, and I know that crowd is going to be roaring, so I’m sure he’ll be amped up a little bit. But after a few plays he’ll settle down and be himself, and we’ve got to have some success, help him out.”
Wentz did not practice from Aug. 12, the day after he broke two ribs in the Tampa preseason game, until this past Monday, when he was cleared medically and also took over the reigns from Bradford.
Now he’s the starter for the regular-season opener against the Browns on Sunday.
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How tough an adjustment will it be?
Jordan Matthews won’t use that word. He doesn’t believe in it.
“I don’t like to say the word tough, you know?” said Matthews, who didn’t practice with Wentz until this week. “You go with what you got. And it happened, so all you’ve got to do is always look at the positives, and the positives are that everybody here believes in Carson. Top to bottom, that’s the feeling.
“You can kind of feel it, Carson’s ready. This game’s not too big for him. We’re excited for him, I’m excited to go out and play with him. It’s shocking because you aren’t ready for it, but at the end of the day, obviously it’s a business and once teams started having some quarterbacks going down, some quarterback issues, you could read the writing on the wall.
“We were the one team that had two quarterbacks who can be looked at as franchise guys and then the thing was we just drafted the guy everybody thought was a franchise guy in Carson. So once he came out in camp spring and showed everybody that he was mentally and physically prepared, then when that situation happened, yeah, you’re shocked but you kind of understand.
“We get a first-round pick, it makes sense. Trust me, I’m the main person who wanted Sam here. I wanted him to come back, and glad I got to spend some more time with him, but you have to still deal with the facts and the facts were that we were able to get a first-round pick out of it and they knew Carson was ready, so when something like that happens, hey, you go with who you got and try to win a game.”
Wentz was working with the third-stringers most of camp when he was healthy, and those guys — Paul Turner, David Watford, Cayleb Jones, Marcus Johnson — are either on the practice squad or no longer with the team.
So the main group of receivers— Matthews, Josh Huff, Nelson Agholor and Dorial Green-Beckham — plus tight ends Celek and Josh Ertz has a lot of catching up to do.
“Get in early and work with him, come in early, stay late,” Huff said. “It’s definitely hard. It’s like you started work for the first time and they gave you a desktop full of work and they expect you to finish it in a week. But that’s something you’ve got to do as a professional. Get down the chemistry and make sure we’re right for Sunday.
“I got some work with him during training camp but after that I really haven’t gotten any with him. Hopefully, we don’t have those growing pains, but if we do, that’s expected. But Carson’s a smart dude. I don’t think it’ll be too much for him to handle.”
Celek has played with Donovan McNabb, Michael Vick, Nick Foles, Kevin Kolb, Mark Sanchez, Vince Young, A.J. Feeley, Mike Kafka, Matt Barkley, Trent Edwards and Bradford.
So Wentz will become QB No. 12.
“It’s an adjustment but I don’t think it’s that big,” Celek said. “We’ve been practicing with him for some time now, and I’m sure he’s getting more and more comfortable being out there with us.
“We as receivers need to be in the right spot at the right time to make it easy for him, and then we’ve got to block for him and keep people off of him so he can make easy throws. Do what we do and do it well.”
For Green-Beckham, Wentz is his third starting quarterback in a month. He was in Tennessee with Marcus Mariota until he was traded to the Eagles in mid-August, and just as he was starting to build up chemistry with Bradford, Bradford was shipped to the Vikings.
“We don’t have too much time, so we have to take advantage of practice and after practice and try to get the timing right,” DGB said. “Not being here during OTAs, it hurts, but after practice is the only time we have to get ready.”
Matthews is entering his third NFL season and already on his fourth quarterback.
He played eight games with Nick Foles, 10 games with Mark Sanchez and 14 games with Sam Bradford.
“It’s different but it’s something I’m used to,” he said. “When I was in high school I played with five different quarterbacks. At Vanderbilt I played with six different and I think this will be my fourth different in three years in the NFL.
“So I still approach the game from the aspect of, I’ve got to make sure I do my job better than anybody so that whatever happens around me, I’m still there for my teammates, whether it’s the quarterback, whether it’s new receivers coming in, whether it’s an o-line that maybe I have to get open quicker because of timing.
“Anything like that I’ve got to make sure I handle my job. So yeah, sometimes it’s a challenge, but at the same time it’s something I’m really used to.
“It does make it exciting when you know you’ve got a guy who is in there who can play and a guy who’s going to be here a long time in Carson, so I’m as excited as everybody.”
