With the Eagles drafting of Jalen Hurts, there has been much talk throughout the league and fans about Carson Wentz and how he is “injury prone”. Injury-prone in sports usually means when a player hurts a certain area of his body and continues to be injured there or in other parts related to that area. Carson Wentz during his NFL career has been never injury-prone like described above but the media has fans convinced otherwise that their franchise QB is at risk. This is overall not true and just an example of the media trying to create controversy in Philadelphia.

Who is Injury Prone?: 

There are so many players throughout sports that are injury prone to help put this into perspective but I think the one that is most popular and easy to explain this idea is Detroit Pistons guard Derrick Rose. In 2012 against the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA playoffs, Rose tore his ACL while attacking the rim.

D Rose has been through so much.
2011 – MVP
2011 – Signs huge contract
2012 – Tears ACL in playoffs
2014 – Tears meniscus
2016 – Traded to the Knicks
2017 – Signs w/ the Cavs

He deserves every second of this moment. #AllEyesNorth pic.twitter.com/AtGOfLRquO

— Justin Walters (@JustinWaltersTV) November 1, 2018

Rose was out for the rest of the playoffs and returned 2 seasons later in 2013. Early into the 2013/2014 season against the Portland Trail Blazers, Rose made an awkward cut and tore his meniscus. For the next several years Rose had several knee and leg related injuries that changed him from the star athletic player he was to just a normal Point Guard once healthy. The ACL tear made it more likely that he would re-injure his knees and he became prone to many more of these injuries. This is a prime example of injury-prone because the injuries he sustained led to more injuries as a result within the same area. 

Bad Luck:

Torn ACL’s are usually from an awkward turn an athlete makes, or sometimes a bad landing from going for a dunk or a deep pass. For Carson Wentz in 2017, he was running into the end zone and got a helmet directly to the knee causing the tear. This ACL tear kept Carson out of the Eagles 2017 Super Bowl and he eventually returned in 2018.

The #Eagles fear that Carson Wentz tore his left ACL on this rushing touchdown 🙁 pic.twitter.com/hM7RIN3Bz1

— Roto Street Journal (@RotoStJournal) December 11, 2017

When Wentz returned in 2018, shortly after he began to have back issues. By week 14, Wentz was yet again, out for the rest of the season and underwent back surgery. Most recently, during the Eagles playoff game against the Seahawks, Wentz was hit defenselessly by Jadeveon Clowney and suffered a concussion which ultimately led to an Eagles loss.

Here's the NFL Films close up shot of the Jadeveon Clowney on #Eagles Carson Wentz hit. pic.twitter.com/gPQvdqrmZz

— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) January 11, 2020

While all of these injuries came at the wrong time, they shouldn’t be defined as “injur-prone” but simply bad timing and flat-out bad luck.

If Wentz tore his meniscus or his other ACL before that day in 2017 that would mean he was prone to an ACL tear but a helmet to the knee is tearing anyone’s ACL.

If Carson had lingering back issues in college or a previous strain he would be more likely and at risk to reinjure his back but that never occurred.

And lastly, if Carson Wentz was like Jordan Reed and Luke Keuchly and had suffered concussions before, he would be at risk of receiving another. Let’s get real; that helmet shot would have given anyone a concussion.

People have seemed to have mixed up bad luck and being injury prone. Your knee, back, and head don’t have any injury history that relates to one another and they have just been bad injuries that Wentz has received. Now if Carson were to tear his other ACL or receive more concussions down the road that would be a valid point for being injury prone but we aren’t at that state and the reports of him being injury-prone are incredibly overstated. 

2 Different Stories:

For argument’s sake, let’s take a look at another Philadelphia athlete in 76ers’ Point Guard Ben Simmons. While Ben has been in the league for the same amount of time as Carson Wentz, they have much more in common than that. Ben his rookie season broke his foot and never saw a single game until the 2017-2018 season. A very major injury one would think for the future star of the 76ers in terms of long term health.

In 2020 Ben hurt his back against the Milwaukee Bucks and was out indefinitely and looked to be missing playoffs before Corona.

There is "a real level of concern" about Ben Simmons' back injury. @wojespn with the latest on the Sixers star: pic.twitter.com/udziIscEHH

— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) February 24, 2020

Now let me ask this question, has anyone ever called Ben Simmons injury prone? Both Ben and Carson have had a major lower body and upper body injury occur once in the same set time period but one is seen as perfectly fine and the other is being called injury-prone all the time. This again is purely from fans and media members trying to find a storyline to wedge in that isn’t true that fans have started to believe when another franchise cornerstone has encountered the exact same thing and there has been no comment on his injury history. 

Neither of these players are injury-prone as they have yet to have multiple injuries occur from previous injury history from the same area of the body. Hopefully people will soon realize that this and appreciate what is here and stop dwelling on stories that are fully fabricated and have no truth to them.