Commanders Release Carson Wentz One Season After Trading For The Veteran Quarterback
The Carson Wentz era in Washington is over. The Commanders officially released the veteran quarterback on Monday, just one season after acquiring him in a trade with the Indianapolis Colts last offseason.
At the time, Washington gave up multiple Day 2 draft picks, including a second-rounder last year, in hopes of solving its quarterback problem, but that never came to fruition as Wentz continued to struggle and started just seven games for the franchise.
This move was looked at as a formality as the team had been rather public with their intention of moving in a different direction at quarterback for 2023. That’s also not to mention that by releasing Wentz the Commanders have cleared $26.17 million in salary cap space.
Wentz was looking at a base salary of $20 million next season and a cap charge of roughly $26.1 million, so it was unrealistic to expect that he’d remain on the roster at that figure.
Wentz started the first six games of the season for the Commanders in 2022 and the club got off to a 2-4 start. Over that stretch, the 30-year-old had middling numbers, completing 62% of his throws with an 84.1 passer rating while tossing 10 touchdowns and six interceptions.
WAS • QB • #11
CMP%
62.3
YDS
1755
TD
11
INT
9
YD/ATT
6.36
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On top of a lukewarm start to the year, Wentz suffered a fracture to his ring finger on his throwing hand in Week 6 against the Chicago Bears, which sent him on injured reserve. That paved the way for Taylor Heinicke to start for the bulk of the season and Wentz would only garner one more start, which was a Week 17 loss to the Browns where he threw three interceptions.
From here, the plan for Washington, as previously reported by CBS Sports NFL Insider Jonathan Jones, is to go forward with Sam Howell as the team’s starter entering the offseason in recently-hired Draft: Colts, Bucs trade up for QBs
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