The Cowboys got a head start on scouting this week’s opponent, although when they were looking at Carson Wentz, it was with an eye toward the possibility he might be around for longer than a week.
The guy they coached at the Senior Bowl was taken before they had a chance to draft him, and as you may have heard, they found a rookie of their own they like in Dak Prescott. But make no mistake, they were convinced Wentz had the chance to be good.
“He clearly loves football,” Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said of the Eagles quarterback, via Todd Archer of ESPN.com. “He’s very passionate about it. He’s a smart football player. He’s a talented football player. I thought he grew over the course of the week, a real tribute to the approach that he took. He had a real command with his teammates. I thought he played well in practice, played well in the game. Very impressed by him.”
Wentz was able to go through the week under Cowboys coaches before they knew they’d be facing him twice a year, and he ran a scaled-back version of their offense. And they liked the way he was able to pick up things quickly, which would have made things interesting if he had somehow lasted until the fourth pick in the draft, as he was the highest-rated quarterback on their board.
“I’m not so sure he had ever lost a game, maybe one or two,” Cowboys offensive coordinator Scott Linehan said. “The thing that blew me away was he never made anything lower than like an A in school. I said, ‘Well, you broke my record. I didn’t make it through kindergarten without getting a B.’ But he was really sharp. And he’s a really talented kid. I’m not surprised he’s doing well at all.”
But the Senior Bowl was also when the Cowboys met Prescott, who was playing for the South team that week. And while Wentz got off to the high-profile start, Prescott has shown himself more than able to be a starter, now and in the future.