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DN Agenda: How many games will Wentz start this year?

In the Agenda, the Daily News examines a major issue of the day in Philadelphia sports. We frame the question and look at it from multiple angles, bringing you opinions from a sports staff unmatched in its experience. The Agenda runs every other week, only in the Daily News.

In the Agenda, the Daily News examines a major issue of the day in Philadelphia sports. We frame the question and look at it from multiple angles, bringing you opinions from a sports staff unmatched in its experience. The Agenda runs every other week, only in the Daily News.

Les Bowen

What the heck. Three games.

To give an answer that's more than a blatant guess, I'd have to know what's going to happen with Sam Bradford. If Bradford is gone when the season starts, and it's Wentz and Chase Daniel, my estimate goes up. Maybe way up.

The Eagles' plan to keep pressure off Wentz, let him learn while Bradford plays, is a good, prudent one. It might not be workable, if Bradford continues to not be interested. It also might not end up being what Doug Pederson finds he wants, regardless of what the Eagles' coach says right now.

There are good reasons to take it slow with Wentz. Only 23 games of college experience, that at the FCS level. His first full-squad workouts with the Eagles are going to be a shock to his system. Everything is going to be happening faster. The guys in his face are going to be bigger. The receivers aren't going to be as wide open.

But the more I talk to people who have been around Wentz, the more I hear about what a quick study he is, how driven he is. He did play in a pro-style system at North Dakota State, reading protections, dropping back. Those are big hurdles for most young NFL QBs that Wentz ought to clear easily. He probably won't be ready when the season starts, but halfway through? Three-quarters of the way through? I wouldn't bet against him.

Obviously, if Bradford is playing, and healthy, and the Eagles are winning, Wentz continues to watch and learn. If they aren't winning, all bets are off. I guess if they're winning with Daniel, Wentz also just keeps watching, but I haven't seen Daniel throw a pass yet, or even talked to him for longer than five minutes, so I'm having trouble envisioning that scenario.

As long as Wentz is on the bench, there will be a drumbeat - soft, if the offense is in good hands without him, much louder if the quarterback who's playing struggles. It's hard to imagine fans won't see Wentz at some point, under some scenario. Everybody is going to be curious - coaches, fans, teammates. He'll have to really look overmatched in practice for that not to be the case.

I don't think Wentz is going to look overmatched in practice. At least, not for long.

Paul Domowitch

So, the way this half-baked investing-in-quarterbacks plan of Howie Roseman's was supposed to work is Sam Bradford spends the 2016 season as the Eagles starter, leads the Eagles to the NFC East title and plays so damn well that there is a line of suitors around the block willing to give the Eagles a big pile of draft picks for him.

While Bradford is completing pass after pass and helping the Eagles make the playoffs, Chase Daniel, who reminds Doug Pederson of himself, which is to say he knows the game better than he plays it, unselfishly spends the season whispering pearls of wisdom in Carson Wentz's ear until, finally, the student is able to snatch the pebble from the teacher's hand.

Eventually, Bradford gets traded for a king's ransom and Wentz takes over as the starting quarterback in 2017, right after rescuing a family of six and their two dogs from a burning building, and goes on to win more Super Bowl titles than Tom Brady. Did I mention the part about Howie being inducted into the Hall of Fame?

But The Great Quarterback Investment Plan went off the rails before Wentz even officially became an Eagle, when Bradford, through his agent, asked to be traded and informed Howie and Doug that he won't be attending the team's voluntary offseason program and workouts.

Bradford will return at some point, probably for the mandatory minicamp in early June. He won't poison the locker room like some people who know better have suggested. He'll be welcomed back.

He, like Wentz, never got a B in school, so I suspect he won't have much trouble getting up to speed on an offense that is very similar to the one he ran for Pat Shurmur as a rookie with the Rams.

Wentz will see a lot of action in the preseason, and if he plays well, Eagles fans will fall in love with him even more, and their dislike for Bradford will grow even more intense than it is right now.

Barring an injury, Bradford still will be the season-opening starter. But this team still has a lot of flaws. There is a four-game stretch in late November and early December where the Eagles play Seattle, Green Bay, Cincinnati and Washington.

If the Eagles' season is going to come apart, it likely will be then. I can envision a scenario where the Redskins beat the Eagles at the Linc, and Bradford struggles against an improved Washington defense, and the "We want Wentz" chants get louder and louder.

And sometime early the next week, Pederson will announce that Bradford has been benched and Wentz will be the starter for the final three games of the season.

Mike Kern

In 1999, the last franchise quarterback the Eagles took with the second overall pick played in 12 games as a rookie. Six of those were starts, after he took over for the guy who is now the team's new coach.

Back then, that was the plan. Not much was expected, and the Birds finished 5-11 by winning their last two games. The next season they would go 11-5 to make the playoffs, then win a wild-card game. And for the next decade they were mostly near the top of the NFC.

These Eagles are trying to do something that's hard to pull off, which is maybe win a weak division while at the same time transitioning to the future at the most essential position. And there are more questions about Carson Wentz than there probably were about Donovan McNabb, for whatever that means. Starting out under Andy Reid, people knew the first season was going to be rough. Starting out under Doug Pederson, that's not necessarily the consensus thinking. Especially after they went out and signed a bunch of their young pieces to long-term deals.

A lot of this obviously depends on whether Sam Bradford can force his way out of town or not. If he's gone, then I'm assuming the expectations go down with Chase Daniel in there. And that might change the way they approach Wentz's development. If Bradford is still here and doesn't get injured and performs at a respectable level, Wentz might never get off the bench. And that would be fine with everyone, as long as the team is legitimately contending for a postseason berth. The moment it starts to look like they aren't, the patience factor will quickly evaporate. Ready or not, the city will want to see Wentz. Because he's the hope for 2017, and maybe even well beyond. Hey, it happened once upon a time.

In his first season McNabb passed for eight touchdowns, with seven interceptions, completing 49.1 percent of his throws. That was for a team that started 0-4 and later lost seven of eight. So the productivity didn't really matter much. If you think these Eagles will be somewhere around .500, which seems to be the conventional wisdom, then the only way Wentz should see much action is more or less in an emergency. So I'll say he doesn't get a start until 2017. OK, maybe the finale at home against those dreaded Cowboys, if the Birds are finally out of the playoff conversation. It could be Pederson's New Year's gift to Philly.

Bob Cooney

Ideally? Zero.

Possibility? Two.

Reality: More than two.

If there was ever a quarterback who would seem ready to prosper from being the clipboard and baseball hat guy for a season, it would be Carson Wentz. Coming from North Dakota State, Wentz possesses all that is needed for today's NFL quarterback as far as height (6-5) and size (237 pounds) and his strong arm and competitiveness are why he was chosen with the No. 2 overall pick.

But the NFL game, as we all know, is about 50 mph faster than major college football. When Wentz sees his first bit of live NFL action, he may think he was playing in a league with speed bumps at NDS. That's why taking it all in for a year isn't such a bad idea, with limited appearances here and there.

Of course, we all know how rare it is for a quarterback to start every game, especially if his name is Sam Bradford (no Eagles QB has started every game for the past seven seasons). The 28 year-old has played in 16 games in two of his five seasons (He sat out 2014 with a knee injury). He has played in 63 of a possible 96 games during his career and he asked to be traded after the Eagles drafted Wentz and isn't participating in voluntary workouts. Let's just say he eventually does come to camp and does get that starting role. How many times have you seen it happen where a guy has a problematic training camp and then gets hurt early in the season? Bradford wasn't in training camp before last season as he recovered from his second ACL surgery and he missed two games. So making it through a full season would seem iffy, at best. And that's if he's still even on the team.

So let's move on to Chase Daniel, he who has put up numbers equivalent to two full games in his six seasons (50-for-77, 464 yards, one touchdown, one interception). If Bradford is here, expect Daniel to get a handful of starts because of the reasons stated above. If that's the case, the 29 year-old who stands just six feet and weighs only 225 pounds will be subjecting himself to the kind of punishment he's just not used to. Inexperience doesn't just lead to questionable play, it also puts a player in position for injury, simply because he is not used to positioning himself to stay out of trouble. Surrounded by new teammates, an unfamiliar role as a starter and limited size certainly wouldn't bode well for Daniel staying healthy.

Which leads to Wentz. If Bradford is here, expect Wentz to get three or four starts because of possible health issues to those in front of him. If Bradford is dealt and Wentz is the backup to Daniel to start the season, expect those numbers to double. Either way, anticipate seeing the rookie on the field probably more than Howie Roseman and company would care to witness.

Daily News staff poll

Ed Barkowitz...10

Les Bowen...3

Bob Cooney...2

Doug Darroch...2

Jim DeStefano...6

Paul Domowitch...3

Sam Donnellon...0

Marcus Hayes...0

Rich Hofmann...9

Dick Jerardi...3

Mike Kern...1

Tom Mahon...0

Drew McQuade...7

John Smallwood...5

Bob Vetrone Jr....4