Holiday Turnovers: Why do the Philadelphia 76ers keep turning the ball over?

Holiday Turnovers: Why do the Philadelphia 76ers keep turning the ball over? by Ethan Carpenter

Carson Wentz has been an absolute revelation for the Philadelphia Eagles, but should the team attempt to draft his cousin, NDSU fullback, Connor Wentz?

For the Philadelphia Eagles, two Wentzes may be better than one.

After having so much success with Carson Wentz, the team’s second-year franchise quarterback, the Eagles will have a unique opportunity this offseason to add a player at a position of need, who just so happens to also have Wentz’s championship DNA.

Connor Wentz, the cousin of Carson, followed in this cousin’s footsteps and has carved out a nice niche for himself at North Dakota State as the team’s fullback.

Yes, a fullback.

For some Philly fans, the fullback is like the team’s white whale, a position that they seemingly irrationally covet, yet somehow always eludes them.

After fielding some incredible fullbacks like Kevin Turner and Jon Ritchie during the Andy Reid era, Chip Kelly practically ran the position out of town, with only James Casey even remotely resembling the position over his three-season tenure in Pilly.

But when Doug Pederson was hired to replace Kelly and return the team to its former glory, many had hoped that the elusive lead blocking fullback would once again have a chance to shine.

But alas, so far that simply hasn’t been the case.

Though the Eagles have flirted with the position during Pederson’s tenure, by signing former North Dakota State fullback Andrew Bonnet to their practice squad in 2016, whenever the team wanted to deploy a lead blocker they would instead deploy a player like Trey Burton, Isaac Seumalo or even Beau Allen in the backfield, a creative situation to say the least.

With Burton an unrestricted free agent after this season, and more likely than not going to test the open market for his first chance at a big contract, the team could be in serious need of both a backup tight end and a more permanent lead backer.

Now Wentz hasn’t exactly put up prolific numbers at NDSU over his four-year tenure, but the impact of a fullback often doesn’t show up on the stat sheet.

While splitting time between the backfield and as an inline blocker, Wentz helped North Dakota State field 1000 yard rushers in three of his four seasons with the team, and actually played fairly well as a receiver when his number was called.

In the Bisons’ recent game against the Wofford Terriers in the FCS Championship quarterfinals, Wentz scored an incredibly impressive 48-yard touchdown on his lone reception of the game, putting the Bison in the lead only minutes into the game. While the Bison run a very traditional, pro-style offense similar to that of the Wisconsin Badgers, their tight ends typically don’t get an opportunity to shine in the offense like they would at say Penn State. Even though Wentz has only hauled in 27 passes in his college career, nine of those went for touchdowns, an incredibly impressive ratio.

Adding a player like Wentz to the Eagles roster could not only help to fill out the team’s depth chart on the offensive side of the ball but may also give the team a viable replacement for Burton on special teams.

The Eagles special teams unit has established themselves as one of the best units in the entire league under coach Dave Fipp, and a big reason why they’ve been so successful is consistent investment in the team’s third unit.

Over the last couple seasons, the team has invested serious capital, both financially and in the form of draft picks, in special teams aces players like Mack Hollins, Chris Maragos, Corey Clement, Kamu Grugier-Hill, and the aforementioned Burton, and adding a player like Wentz to their special teams unit would add some much appreciated size, speed and youth to the grizzled unit.

And the best part?

Wentz is going to come incredibly cheap.

With the fullback position seriously devalued in the modern day NFL, and small school prospects seemingly always at a disadvantage in the talent evaluation process, Wentz will more likely than not go undrafted in the 2018 NFL Draft, and will likely be forced to sign on with a team as a mid-tier priority free agent.

If the team feels strongly about adding Wentz, in a move that would probably pay serious dividends with their young, franchise quarterback, they could always invest one of their two seventh-round picks in the fullback, a fairly low-risk investment.

While Connor Wentz is far from a household name, so much so that Getty Images doesn’t even have a picture of the fourth-year player, he does offer some serious versatility that could entice the Eagles front office in a similar way to how Burton did four short seasons ago. We may never know how high of a priority adding a fullback to the roster is for Doug Pederson, Howie Roseman, and company, but needless to say, adding the younger Wentz would be an incredibly popular move in both the locker room and in the City of Brotherly Love.