One of the main themes of Carson Wentz’s presser on Thursday was getting better.
As a player, as a teammate, as a person.
Wentz spoke about confronting his deficiencies and learning from his mistakes in his new home in Indiana.
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“I’m not a perfect human being,” he said. “I’m going to make mistakes. I’ve made mistakes in the past. I’m going to learn from all of those things and try to be the best man, best husband, father, teammate, quarterback – all of those things that I can be. I won’t be perfect. I’ll tell everyone right now I’m going to make mistakes. I have flaws. But I am going to do everything I can to be the best I can be.”
A lot has been written and said about Wentz not being an ideal teammate or leader during his five years with the Eagles, and he’s heard all of it.
He addressed that Thursday.
“It’s something that anytime you hear those things, you want to play the detective: ‘All right, who said it? Who did what?’ All those things," he said. "But it doesn’t matter. Whether someone feels that way or not, that’s what is out there, so how can I learn from it at the end of the day? I’ve learned in this business and life, you’re just not going to make everyone happy. As much as you want to, you can’t. It’s unfortunate that people have those opinions, but I’m going to learn from it and try to be the best teammate I can be and if any of my teammates out there don’t think I was the best teammate, I apologize. I wish I could be better. … You do everything you can to be the best you can be. When I lay my head on the pillow, I know I’ve given everything I can.
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“At the end of the day, I can’t please everybody, and people are entitled to their own opinion and I’m not going to sit and argue and dispute what people say, write, think, feel. I will never win that game. Obviously, you want everyone to view you in this awesome light and through this perfect lens, but that’s not going to be the case. You take everything with a grain of salt, and you learn from it and try and be better next time.”
Learning from it is the key.
Wentz said that as soon as the trade was worked out last month, he contacted some of his new teammates so they could get together and throw but with the real goal of starting to build the kind of relationships that may have been missing a bit in Philly.
He really does have a clean slate now when it comes to being a teammate.
The Colts don’t see him as the guy who got hurt in 2017 and didn’t play in the Super Bowl or the guy that got benched last year or the guy living in Nick Foles’ shadow.
They see him simply as a new teammate and a pretty good quarterback.
“I am a competitor,” he said. “I’m a competitor and I want nothing but to win. I know that is the culture that has been established here. I hope guys know whenever our careers end or our paths go separate ways that I cared about them and that I’m going to be there for them as a leader, as a quarterback, as a friend, as a teammate – all of those things. I look forward to building those relationships.
“Respect is earned not given, so I look forward to earning a lot of guys’ respect. I’m confident that that will happen.”
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