Poor Carson Wentz just isn't meant to play in the postseason. The Philadelphia Eagles quarterback took the field for his first career playoff game on Sunday, only to leave with a concussion in the first quarter after taking a hard hit from Seattle Seahawks defensive lineman Jadeveon Clowney.
He would not return, and the Eagles would ultimately lose the game.
It was a gut-wrenching way to end what has been a, well, gut-wrenching 2019 campaign for Philadelphia, which won the incredibly weak NFC East division with a 9-7 record in spite of rampant injuries up and down the roster.
For Wentz, it was a roller-coaster year full of criticism.
The 27-year-old threw for 4,039 yards, 27 touchdowns, and seven interceptions while completing 63.9 percent of his passes and posting a passer rating of 93.1 in his first full 16-game campaign since his rookie season in 2016.
Those are respectable numbers, but they are not what most expected from the signal-caller who is just over two years removed from being an MVP frontrunner before a torn ACL ended his 2017-18 season.
Back then, Wentz was the toast of Philly. Now, he is a lightning rod for harsh judgment, particularly after Nick Foles led the Eagles to their first ever Super Bowl title during that aforementioned 2017-18 season.
The bar has been set for Wentz, and it's a very high one.
So when the former No. 2 overall pick doesn't consistently post terrific performances, he is going to hear it from fans and media members alike.
In a way, it's the nature of the sport, but it's also pretty unfair, especially given what Wentz had to deal with this year.
DeSean Jackson missed just about the entire season. Alshon Jeffery ended the year on injured reserve. Nelson Agholor was out for an extended period of time. The offensive line had injuries.
Basically, Wentz was playing without a full team, which has to be taken into consideration when evaluating his performance.
Yes, it is fair to say that even when Wentz had a mostly healthy roster, he didn't play all that well, but he also didn't get much of a chance to turn things around with an injury-free group.
On the other side of the coin, I'm not sure how much we can read into Wentz's final stretch of the regular season when he led the Eagles to four straight wins, because two of those victories came over the New York Giants and one came at the hands of the Washington Redskins.
At the very least, Wentz took solid care of the football for most of the year and had flashes of brilliance, but those flashes were sandwiched between head-scratching moments of near ineptitude that made you wonder if that was the same guy wearing the No. 11 jersey.
All of that being said, Wentz did a fine job handling all of the extenuating circumstances surrounding the club this season, and he has seemed to buck the narrative that he wasn't well-liked in the locker room.
I'll give Wentz a B-minus for his play in 2019-20.
He wasn't great, but he also had to brave a sticky situation, and that cannot go unnoticed.
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