Colts QB Carson Wentz – Media Availability – September 19, 2021
COLTS QUARTERBACK CARSON WENTZ
How do you feel and just kind of walk us though what happened? Defenders were on you and ankle kind of got twisted up.
“Yeah, ankle got twisted up. I felt it right away – it did not feel good. I tried to tape it up, spat it up and do everything I could to get out there and finish the game. It’s a bad feeling to not be out there, especially in that situation. Kind of feel like you let the team down a little bit so it’s definitely frustrating, but it’s football.”
Is there any concern that it’s broken or do you know at this point?
“I’m not sure at this point, honestly. I don’t think so, but we will find out. I’ve sprained my ankle 100 times probably since I was a kid, this one I just couldn’t play through it at the end of the game. We’ll evaluate and do everything we can to get this thing ready to go for next week.”
When you tossed your helmet, could you kind of feel getting up on it that it was a bad one?
“Yeah, I could feel it underneath the pile right away. I think the guys around me could hear me yelling. It was rolled up on pretty good so it’s definitely frustrating and obviously shouldn’t have thrown my helmet like that, but I knew at that point I was probably not going to come back out this game.”
You said you’ve sprained your ankle lots of times and you know how they can be tricky and the range of options, what’s your level of concern?
“For sure, at this point I am frustrated about the loss. There’s a lot of emotions going on and I’m going to go get a scan as soon as I can and pray. Pray a lot that God can heal this thing and heal it quickly so we can be out there next week.”
How do you feel you did before that?
“As a team, I thought we did some good things and some encouraging things. Obviously being down inside the five (yard line), twice, and walking away with no points is definitely a tough one to overcome, especially against a good team like that. Shoot, we still had a chance. We still found a way to overcome that almost and battle and rally back. There’s a lot of good to build on and encouraging things, but when you play good teams like that, you have to capitalize on those opportunities.”
You have to score, obviously, touchdowns especially when you are down inside the five-yard line long term in order to be a successful team.
“100 percent. 100 percent – and those are things that we are going to study long and hard every week and find a way of, ‘Where did we make this mistake? How do we fix it?’ Figure out what’s our identity down there, all those types of things and I’m confident that we have the right group of guys from both players and coaches to get it right, but again there were encouraging things but just not enough.”
What’s it like? I mean you have Aaron Donald in your face like every other play. It was a crazy game – you had the block punt, you guys come back, it wasn’t always perfect and you had a chance to win at the end and then the ankle injury happened and you have to watch. You’re standing there on the sidelines, watching.
“Frustrating. That’s kind of what I said when I came out there at the end that I was very frustrated. Part of you kind of feels like you kind of let the team down, especially the way we were rallying – kind of felt like a little momentum there. Like I said, I taped it up, I tried and there was not enough stability to get out there and go. It was definitely not fun to watch the last two-minute drives, but at the end of the day it is what it is.”
I saw you had your cleat off, you had it taped, you got back up and tried to throw a couple times. Was it just like I cannot?
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ve played with a lot before and this one I just couldn’t play through today.”
You’ve talked a lot about taking shots down field this week and that being a point of emphasis. Was it at least encouraging that you were able to generate some of those today?
“Yeah, I mean we hit a couple and we had a couple more that we were close on or just maybe didn’t get the pass off, didn’t get the right looks, but we did had some good opportunities. Hit on a couple, hopefully hit on some more as we go, but there are things, some explosive shots down the field that we are going to have every week. Sometimes the defense just isn’t going to give it to us, but it was encouraging to capitalize on a couple today.”
You picked your spots in terms of when to scramble and try to get some yards with your feet. What kind of lift do you think that gives the offense, especially on third down situations?
“Yeah, I think at the end of the day when it’s third down, by any means necessary convert whether that’s me scrambling or finding the checkdowns or whatever. Just find a way to stay on the field and convert is kind of my thing. I think it was good for us to use some of that, especially against a good defense like they were. Penetrating style defense up front so it allowed me to find some lanes to take off and scramble and convert a couple times.”
The shovel – you were basically letting the ball go as Jack Doyle got knocked down, right? Is there any way to avoid that?
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s a bad feeling (laughs).”
So, you saw that happening?
“Yeah, I thought when I went to flip it I thought we had a walk-in touchdown, and he just ran into the guy. I don’t really even know what happened, I just know that it didn’t end up in Jack’s hands. Wrong guy so bad, bad feeling for sure.”
Is it a different game if the red zone goes differently? Is it that simple?
“Could be, definitely could be. I mean you never know how – you could play the what if game all day long. But it was encouraging the way we went down there early a couple times. We just have to walk away with points at the end of the day and we didn’t today, but it can definitely have a huge impact on the outcome of this game but games going forward.”
How does the ankle feel right now?
“Sore, definitely feels sore. We’ll see how it reacts this week and figure out from some scans overnight and everything and kind of go from there.”