All signs point to a split between Carson Wentz and the Philadelphia Eagles, the team that only called him overall number 2 just five years ago, only took his MVP candidacy to the Super Bowl, and just two years ago hired him to a $ 128 million Extension. But don’t think that most Eagles fans are ready to say goodbye. Amid reports that Philly is about to replace his much-maligned defender as part of a total rebuild, hordes of Eagles worshipers have begun to flood the Wentz foundation with donations.
On Tuesday, 97.5 The Fanatic’s “The John Kincade Show” kicked off Project 11, urging fans to contribute to the AO1 Wentz Foundation as a way to honor its impact on and off the field for the past five years. Just over 24 hours later, the foundation told CBS Sports that more than 650 fans have already contributed, donating more than $ 9,100 – and counting – on behalf of Wentz.
Founded in 2017, the AO1 Foundation politely declined to give further details about the initiative “because it is centered on the Carson exchange”, a subject on which the foundation did not comment. “We are very grateful,” said a spokesman, “for the support we received from the Project 11 campaign.”
John Kincade, the radio announcer behind the campaign, is happy to explain. Because for him, this is both a celebration of Wentz and a “personal crusade” to change the narrative around Eagles fans. Kincade co-host Jamie Lynch recently mentioned Bills Mafia, Buffalo’s fanatical fan base that “managed to turn disappointment into positivity” by donating en masse to causes related to opposing players like Andy Dalton and Lamar Jackson.
Now, with Project 11, Kincade wants Philly to do the same.
“I am tired of, over the years, having to defend the Philadelphia fan base,” he says. “You are talking about the lunatic fringe, this small portion, which is always portrayed as being the norm. Look, I’m very critical of how Carson handled this situation and how the Eagles handled this situation, but I don’t want to see people burning Carson Wentz shirts and having the idiots of that fan base speaking for everyone. “
Project 11 takes its name from the number 11 on Wentz’s shirt, but also from the 11 wins Wentz started in 2017, when he led the Eagles to an NFC East title and the advantage of playing at home for the only Super Bowl championship in history team’s.
“If the money is tight, donate $ 1.11,” Kincade asks fans. “Donate $ 11.11, whatever. Just tell everyone that when you walk out the door, you are grateful for what he has accomplished.”
At the moment, it is difficult to quantify Wentz’s football career – assuming it has come to an end in Philadelphia – as something more than a bittersweet tale of “what could have been”. Kincade is even more blunt: “Honestly, I think the story ends up being a big failure,” he says. “I think it’s a failure that it didn’t work.” After all, Wentz was once the city’s star. The North Dakota boy who appeared on the scene just a week in advance that he was going to be a rookie. Game creator aw-shucks is on track to be remembered as the biggest QB to grace the franchise’s reins.
USATSI
When the Eagles won everything in February 2018, with backup Nick Foles taking the baton of the fate of the injured Wentz, the question was not, Can they do it again with Wentz? It was, How often can they do this? The organization was so right – so adamant – Wentz was the guy that they allowed Foles to set sail for another team after two consecutive playoff games in place of Wentz. Because they saw the same things that everyone else saw: Carson was the man. He was in the top five, at best; 12 best, at worst. He was the engine of the Eagles. The reason to tune in on Sunday. The reason to believe in each piece.
Now, after Wentz’s unprecedented regression in 2020 in a poorly assembled team, with an already retired technical team, it is clear that the promise of No. 11’s supernatural advantage was just that: a promise. Nothing else. At least in Philadelphia. If the reports are true, Wentz is ready for a new start, and the Eagles have put themselves in such a situation that they must oblige.
“You can’t show me a divorce in life when a person in the divorce is completely innocent,” says Kincade, pointing to Project 11. “But this is about saying that we recognize what the guy did well, what the guy does “The best. Some of his best jobs as Philadelphia Eagle were in the community. We don’t know anyone in the Philadelphia area who believes that Carson is not very civic, that his foundation is not doing wonderful things … And Carson puts on some grease from elbow behind it. “
This he does.
Last summer, as Wentz prepared to fight the perceptions of faltering commitment from an Eagles front office that had just summoned fellow QB Jalen Hurts, he redirected his Philadelphia area food truck to a grocery delivery service in Philadelphia. emergency. With food banks exhausted and families struggling at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, he gave the go-ahead for a $ 100,000 refurbishment of the truck base in New Jersey, turning the AO1 site into a packaging facility that would serve schools , hospitals and local police departments. Before that, his food truck served meals – 100% free – to anyone he met in the Philadelphia area.
Later in the summer, as the nation faced racial tensions and police shootings, Wentz contributed $ 460,000 in donations from the Eagles Social Justice Fund, which supported two dozen nonprofit organizations in the area, specializing in everything from educational equality and relations between community and police mentoring young people. In previous years, he gave hundreds of thousands more, as well as personal time with children and families facing medical difficulties, resulting in a 2018 humanitarian award.
The two times Wentz presented his charity softball game, attracting dozens of teammates and tens of thousands of fans to Citizens Bank Park, he raised $ 1.35 million for other AO1 initiatives: Camp Conquerors, an outdoor children’s ministry free; Mountain Movers, hunting, fishing and youth retreats in small groups; and the Haiti Sports Complex, construction of an 18,750-square-foot multipurpose facility – with basketball courts, soccer fields, dormitories and Wi-Fi park – for underprivileged youth in the Caribbean country. All were designed to “demonstrate the love of God” by feeding people both physically and spiritually.
Wentz’s charity never wavered, see, even when his numbers in the field, his health and his organizational position declined.
This is a big reason why Kincade says Project 11 is about to explode. Corporate sponsors are already lining up to support Wentz in the same campaign. More fans are doing the same. So many, in fact, that Kincade thinks it is “absolutely uninformed to say that Eagles fans are kicking him out of town”, as some national experts have suggested. “This is a dispute within the organization. Incredibly, the fans wanted Carson back … Anyone who says otherwise is using lazy portraits.”
Once again, although the Wentz-Eagles saga finally ends, there will be some tragedy in the story: if he gets back into shape, he will have to do it elsewhere, whether because he fled an open competition in a city that has always loved backup, because the Eagles have undermined their own biggest investment, or both. He is destined, in the field, to be a legend of the franchise even more divisive than Donovan McNabb. If and when he leaves Philadelphia, he will do so as a broken hero or as an involuntary villain – Batman after Bane slaps him on the back, or Harvey Dent after his harshness writhes his own body and allies.
This does not mean that the good will be forgotten.
“I think it will always be part of the greatest Philadelphia sports story ever told,” says Kincade. “He will always be part of that. In the year they won everything, he put the ball on the 25-yard line. And then Nick Foles caught … We love Nick Foles, but we love Carson too.”