By Tim Kelly, Sports Talk Philly editor 
Though Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz has displayed some good tendencies through the first three games of his sophomore season, he's left a few big plays (and potential touchdowns) on the field with his inability to connect on deep passes.
That's a rather alarming trend from the former No. 2 overall pick.
The most obvious recent example of this was Wentz failing to connect with an open Alshon Jeffery in the team's Week 3 win over the New York Giants.
On this play, Wentz is given a good pocket to work with. He perhaps looks Jeffery down a bit too much, but when you have a physically dominant receiver in an ideal matchup, you won't always get burned by doing that:
Jeffery eventually does gain a step on Darian Thompson, and Wentz recognizes this and attempts to connect with him:
Unfortunately, Wentz overthrew the ball, sending it too far and eventually out-of-bounds.
Later in this drive, Doug Pederson elected to go on fourth-and-eight at midfield, a move that he deservedly drew much criticism for, especially since the Eagles didn't convert. But Pederson never would have been able to make that decision if Wentz hits Jeffery in stride here, because he would have walked into the endzone:
The good news on this throw is that Wentz missed deep, rather than missing short and giving the defender a chance to pick the ball off. The bad news? This isn't the first time that Wentz has missed an open receiver deep this season, and many of the other examples that he missed on were underthrows.
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When Jay Cutler and the Miami Dolphins held joint practices with the Eagles last month, the former Chicago Bears quarterback had some pretty simple advice for Carson Wentz about his former teammate Jeffery:
"You just throw it," Cutler said. "You just throw it out there and he'll make it right."
On this play in the second quarter of Week 1, Wentz appeared to take that advice:
Had Wentz led Jeffery a few steps further, there's a good chance that he comes down with the ball and the Eagles take a lead into halftime. Instead, the ball was underthrown, leaving Jeffery to fight to assure that it wasn't picked off, which would have cost the Eagles a chance to kick a field goal:
When you have such a physically dominant receiver as Alshon, there's a time and place to take shots like that, even if it does end in a pick. Right before halftime, when you are down and already in field-goal range, isn't the time to take that chance. Still, he elected to take the chance, and had he made a better throw, the Eagles may have ended up with a touchdown.
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Later in this game, the Eagles were pushed into a third-and-long situation, where Wentz again took a shot deep to his most physically dominant receiver:
To be fair, this specific throw probably can't be held against Wentz in the same way as the others. He was flushed out of the pocket, and forced to throw against his body, as shown in the image below:
There is a discussion to be had about whether this throw should have been made, although with the lead, and on third-and-long, if this is intercepted, it essentially amounts to a punt.
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One deep throw in this game that absolutely should have been made was when Torrey Smith burned Josh Norman, only for Wentz to underthrow him for an incompletion:
Carson Wentz leaves a touchdown on the field by underthrowing Torrey Smith pic.twitter.com/Fb9oRt8Psg
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) September 11, 2017
Wentz does a good job on this play recognizing that as Smith's route progresses, he may have a chance to break free:
Smith eventually does break free, and Wentz, who wasn't under great duress, made the throw:
Rather than leading Smith, which would have probably allowed him to walk into the endzone with his first touchdwon as an Eagle, Wentz underthrew the ball. So instead of Norman having to make a last-second attempt to close the cushion that Smith has built over the course of his route, Smith is forced to stop his route and make sure that he closes the cushion and Norman isn't able to intercept Wentz's underthrow:
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As you'll read in all of my weekly breakdowns of Wentz's play during the 2017 season, there have been plenty of encouraging parts about his play. He's so athletically gifted that he's able to extend plays that 90 percent of the quarterbacks in the NFL simply can't. In Week 3, he eliminated the turnover chances that he was creating in the first two games of the season.
But his inability to connect on these deep passes is frustrating. Some quarterbacks simply don't have the arm strength to make these deep passes. That's not the case for Wentz. But as his NFL Draft scouting report noted, Wentz has had issues in his football career with finding the proper touch on deep passes. For him to progress into being an elite quarterback, that's something he's going to have to address.
