Trying to Make Sense of the Open Animosity Toward Carson Wentz

Let’s start this article off by saying this is not meant to be a debate on Carson Wentz.  There will be no defending his poor play or trying to downplay when he has a great game.  This is simply to analyze why some, not all, seem to despise this man and openly root for him to fail.  So let’s take a deeper look as to why this seems to be the case.

I came up with the idea to talk about Carson and the fans this way because one of my friends at the game said fans in his section were not just booing Carson when he was playing poorly, they were openly cheering and rooting for him to fail.  Why? Aren’t we supposed to be a smart fan base?  Why do some root for our quarterback, and in return our football team, to fail?

A lot of this has to do with Nick Foles.  Nick Foles won the Eagles a Super Bowl and Carson Wentz was hurt.  Then, the next year Carson got hurt again and Nick took the Eagles back to the playoffs.  In some fans minds, that validated Nick as the future and should be starter of this team.  He has proven that he can do it in the biggest moments, while Carson has never even HAD a big moment.  When it became obvious that the Eagles were going to go forward with Carson at quarterback and not Nick, a lot of fans felt like that was the wrong decision and were very vocal about it.  They were a loud minority. Now with Carson’s struggles, some may feel as their side of the Carson/Nick debate is being validated.  They are rooting for the team to fail for the sake of them being correct.

But that doesn’t excuse openly rooting for him to fail.  No matter what you thought the Eagles should do at quarterback, Carson is here now.  He isn’t going anywhere.  So how is rooting against him helping in any way?  It seems illogical to me.

Another reason for this is some people’s unwavering support for Carson.  It can get irritating at times when it seems that some just defend him and defend him and feel as though he can do no wrong.  So the response it to be the exact opposite and take the other side and blame him for all the problems.  We get so emotionally invested as fans that our opinions form our identity.  You are either a Carson guy or you aren’t.  If you are you will defend him till your last breath and if you are against him you will take any opportunity you can get to poke holes in his performances.

I understand.  I have been guilty of this myself.  It is hard when someone questions your opinion on a topic and thinks it’s wrong for you not to vehemently defend yourself.  We’ve all been there, but shouldn’t it stop at openly cheering when a player for us fails just for us to have some points in an argument?

I am not saying that this a fan base issue.  Far from it.  But there do seem to be some out there who openly want Carson to fail.  My question to them would just be one wimple word: why?  When Carson fails the Eagles fail.  So why root against him?  You’re basically rooting against the Eagles in a way.  So to those fans out there who take part in this, again I ask you: why?