Is it time for Eagles and Carson Wentz to get a big road win? | Bob Ford

What might be most impressive about the Eagles as they have compiled a 4-1 record heading into Thursday's game against the also-4-1 Carolina Panthers is that their wins were accomplished with a minimum of drama.

That includes a game in which the winning field goal came as time expired, and two others that were still one-score contests late into the fourth quarter. There have been close games, certainly, but no games in which the Eagles were running around in fire drill mode. Even if the wins weren't entirely casual, they have been achieved calmly and professionally.

For a team with a second-year quarterback running the offense, that's pretty good, and Carson Wentz is looking like more than just your average second-year quarterback.

"He managed the game very well," Arizona cornerback Patrick Peterson said after Sunday's 34-7 Eagles win.

There might be higher praise from an opponent for a young quarterback, but not much. A lot of guys can throw the ball. A lot have pocket awareness and can read defenses. A few can escape pressure as well as Wentz. He's got all that, but through the first five games of this season, an admittedly small sample against mostly so-so competition, Wentz also has the ability to make his team feel settled.

"He's so even-keeled through the highs and the lows," tight end Zach Ertz said. "We love playing for him. We're excited with where we're at."

A measure of how the Eagles are controlling games for the most part is their time of possession, which leads the league at 35 minutes, 32 seconds. That's been done because the defense is doing a good job of getting off the field, because the Eagles running game has found life behind LeGarrette Blount, and because Wentz is keeping drives going on third down. His third-down completions are at 71.2 percent, the highest in the NFL.

"I'm not a big time-of-possession stat guy," center Jason Kelce said. "I want points first and foremost. But when you're doing both, that's good."

The Eagles are tied for fifth in points per game (27.4), and have really done that without being overly explosive, which accounts for the longer drives and better time of possession. When Wentz threw touchdown passes of 72 and 59 yards against the Cardinals, those were his first TD passes of more than 20 yards since a 58-yard strike to Nelson Agholor in the offense's first series of the season.

Time of possession can be a faulty way to measure efficiency – Chip Kelly actually coached to ignore it – but there's something to be said for keeping the ball away from the opposition. At the moment, of the 15 teams that have the ball for more than 30 minutes each game, only three have losing records. Of the 17 teams that have the ball for less than half the game, only five have winning records. None of that is coincidence.

"The biggest thing with Carson is that when he makes good decisions, he really controls the game," safety Malcolm Jenkins said.

Thursday against Carolina will be a good test of maintaining control. The Panthers are themselves second in the league in time of possession (32:16), and their third-ranked defense will measure whether Wentz can manage the league's third-ranked offense on the road against a good opponent. The previous such test, in Kansas City, didn't go that well.

While the Eagles haven't beaten a team that currently has a winning record, the Panthers have three of their wins over Buffalo, New England and Detroit, all of which are 3-2. The only Carolina loss was a stinker, though, a 21-point beating in Charlotte against New Orleans on a day in which quarterback Cam Newton threw three interceptions and gifted the Saints two touchdowns. Otherwise, Newton has also been an effective game-manager and is ranked eighth in the league (98.5), one spot ahead of Wentz (97.7).

Wentz will try to stay in control and keep things calm against a defense that is tied for third in the league with 17 sacks. It's not really a good week to be without Lane Johnson at right tackle, and that will add to the degree of difficulty.

Already this season, Wentz, who was sacked 33 times as a rookie, is on pace to take 41 sacks, and, after having to scramble or run 46 times in 2016, is headed for 83 rushes this year. Staying upright to the end of the season under those circumstances will be a challenge, and the most important drama the Eagles need to avoid is the drama of waiting to see if Wentz keeps getting up.

Truth in the NFL isn't revealed against the layups on the schedule, even though a team that can calmly make those has to be consistent and pretty decent. The reality is that games such as the one Thursday separate the good from the great. Twenty-one games into Doug Pederson's coaching career here, the Eagles haven't won a road game against a strong contender yet. That means Carson Wentz hasn't done so, either, and if it's really time to say all the positive things being said about him right now, then it's probably time for that, too.