Daily News Agenda: What will the Eagles' record be this season?

I have a feeling there is a reason the Eagles haven't started a rookie quarterback in their opener since Davey O'Brien in 1939. And that reason is not that it's a brilliant new concept nobody ever considered before.

I also have a feeling that the team made that trade with the Vikings, dispatching Sam Bradford to Minnesota, because the Eagles were getting back a first-round pick and a fourth-rounder that can be better if the Vikings are really good. That's at least as much as they'd hoped to get for Bradford at the end of the season, assuming he stayed healthy and played well. (Big assumptions, yes.)

But here's the thing: Despite all the happy talk, I don't think the trade had all that much to do with knowing Carson Wentz is "ready." They can't know that. They can feel confident from having been around him for four months now that he's tough and smart and poised enough not to let booing or struggling destroy him. They can have glimpsed game-changing talent here and there, as the rest of us did during training camp. But the man played 39 preseason snaps, all in the same game. They don't know he's ready. He can't be all that ready, given that he got just 23 starts in college, at the FCS level, then sat three-quarters of the preseason with cracked ribs.

In Donovan McNabb's first start, which came 10 games into the 1999 season, McNabb was 8-for-21 for 60 yards, and was sacked three times. Is Wentz more ready this week than McNabb was in November of 1999? Fans can dream, but doubtful.

And the easier part of the schedule comes early on, at least, based on what teams did last year. With Bradford, I thought this was an 8-8ish team. A little better maybe if Bradford, Jason Peters and Ryan Mathews all managed to stay healthy. Worse if they all missed time or were limited.

Now, I think we're looking at something more like 5-11. I can't imagine the defense will let the Eagles sink to the very bottom of the league, but with the greenest Eagles QB to start on opening day in the modern football era, plus an offensive cast that lacks difference-makers - if the Eagles win more than they lose, Doug Pederson should be coach of the year.

One of my assignments for our Eagles/NFL special section, which will be in Thursday's paper, was to predict, game-by-game, the Eagles' record.

As it so happened, I finished what turned out to be the first of two versions about 30 minutes before the news broke that the Eagles had traded Sam Bradford to the Minnesota Vikings.

With Bradford, I had the Eagles going 7-9, though I thought there potentially could be one or two more wins if they somehow could stay reasonably healthy, which isn't really a reasonable expectation in the NFL. And that was with Bradford having a career year.

Without him, I think the best the Eagles can hope for is five wins.

I know everybody in Philadelphia is hyped about Carson Wentz. He very well may turn out to be everything the Eagles think he can be.

But right now, he's a rookie. A rookie with just 23 starts and 612 pass attempts in college. A rookie who missed three of his team's four preseason games with broken ribs. There are going to be growing pains for him this season. Probably lots of them.

The Eagles are going to try to take the pressure off him by running the ball a lot and throwing a lot of screens to keep pass rushers from teeing off on him. But you're not going to get the same passing efficiency, the same quick decision-making, the same pocket presence, that you would have gotten from a smart veteran like Bradford.

Because of the trade last year for Bradford and the trade-up to get Wentz, the Eagles had just two of the first 152 picks in the draft this year. They tried to use free agency to fill a lot of their offseason holes. But they only had so much spackling paste. And some of the guys they brought in, like wide receivers Rueben Randle and Chris Givens, didn't pan out.

They've got depth issues all over the place. At linebacker. At running back. At wide receiver. At safety. And at offensive line, where, at some point here, they're going to lose right tackle Lane Johnson for 10 games.

So, if you're going to a game this season, wear a hard hat. Because the Eagles are in the midst of a major renovation.

Baseball has the Sally League. The NBA has the D-League, and the professional leagues of Europe to measure and develop their young. The NHL has its junior leagues, the AHL and the IHL, and again, a whole lot of European pro leagues to season prospects.

The NFL? Well, these days, it has something like that, too.

It's called the NFC East.

Think about it. The Cowboys are already down to their draft pick at quarterback, after the latest injury to Tony Romo. The Redskins jettisoned Robert Griffin III once Kirk Cousins won a few games for them in his place, but I share the sentiment that he may be this season's answer to Nick Foles. The Giants have Eli Manning and some good-looking offensive weapons, but the blocking is suspect and the defense appears less imposing than any in the team's recent history.

And the Eagles? Well, we all know that narrative.

A couple of weeks ago I laid out a scenario by which the Eagles could win their division with nine or even eight wins. A lot of it was based on Jim Schwartz's acumen as a coordinator complementing an offense that could operate efficiently with Sam Bradford getting in and out of plays efficiently, and minimizing mistakes.

That's hard to imagine now, especially at the beginning. Carson Wentz may very well be the real deal, but the idea that he is going to learn on the fly without the sort of excruciating mistakes that so often negate the spirited effort by your defense is a naive one.

You want an example? Try 1999, Andy Reid's first season. Doug Pederson finally got his chance to start, Duce Staley was his running back and Jim Johnson's defense, full of players Ray Rhodes had drafted, would go on to lead the league in turnovers with 46.

Largely due to three interceptions of Jake Plummer, Pederson was staked to leads of 21-0 and 24-6 in Reid's first game as coach. But Pederson was 12-for-26 for just 91 yards, threw two picks, and the Cardinals rallied back to win, 25-24. The following week, the Eagles lost, 19-5, to Tampa Bay, and the week after that they were shut out by the Bills, 26-zip.

Pederson was bad and his rookie replacement, Donovan McNabb, not much better. The Bills and Buccaneers were 11-win teams that season.

The good news now is that three of the Eagles' first four opponents owned losing records in 2015 and do not appear to be much improved.

And learning curve or no learning curve, Wentz is better now than Pederson was then. Or should be. But given his recent injury history, the questions along the Eagles' front line, and the nature of the league in general, it is also naive to believe he will not miss games. Anyone who has watched Chase Daniel consistently throw it to the other team this preseason has to feel a little uneasy about that.

So let's say 6-10, the bulk of the wins coming against teams from that Sally League they play in.

Oh, and circle Oct. 23 on your calendar. That's when Sam Bradford's Vikings come to town.

With the last-minute trade of veteran quarterback Sam Bradford and the fast-forwarding of the plan for rookie Carson Wentz, perhaps the more appropriate question is how many games the Eagles will lose this season.

Bradford never has proved to be more than an adequate NFL quarterback, but the number of wins the Eagles would have gotten with him at the helm was not contingent on him suddenly realizing the potential that made him a No. 1 overall draft pick.

Bradford is what he is, but his experience as an NFL quarterback should have allowed the Eagles to have won from seven to nine games. That would have been based on the play of the defense, special teams, and an offense that would have been limited but not made too many game-altering mistakes.

Wentz throws a monkey wrench into those moderate expectations.

No matter how the coaching staff tries to spin it, Wentz is not properly prepared to step out Sunday against the Cleveland Browns as a starting NFL quarterback.

The Eagles surrendered a bounty of draft picks to move up to No. 2 overall in the draft because they believe Wentz is their quarterback of the future.

The Eagles were going to ease Wentz in slowly until the Minnesota Vikings made an offer too good to refuse - especially since Bradford was a temporary fix.

That doesn't change the fact that Wentz played collegiately at North Dakota State against lower-level competition.

Naming him the starter over journeyman Chase Daniel does not erase the fact that Wentz missed valuable practice time and preseason-game experience after hurting his ribs in the first preseason game.

Just because Eagles Nation is more excited about the beginning of the Wentz era than the continuation of the Bradford era does not alter the reality that Wentz has never played a snap in a real NFL game.

In the long term, Wentz starting sooner rather than later is in the best interest for the Eagles, but he is every bit a rookie quarterback.

Making mistakes is inherently part of the learning process for a rookie quarterback. The Eagles aren't built to withstand a lot of mistakes.

Wentz's presence will translate into two or three more losses, leaving the Eagles 6-10.

Ed Barkowitz...6-10

Les Bowen...5-11

Bob Cooney...6-10

Doug Darroch...7-9

Jim DeStefano...7-9

Paul Domowitch...5-11

Sam Donnellon...6-10

Marcus Hayes...6-10

Rich Hofmann...6-10

Dick Jerardi...5-11

Mike Kern...5-11

Drew McQuade...6-10

John Smallwood...6-10

Bob Vetrone Jr....3-13

Deb Woodell...6-10