By Patrick Del Gaone, Sports Talk Philly staff writer 
Doug Pederson sat down with his starting quarterback over the past few days and delivered a straight forward message: limit the noise, let’s just focus on football.
After a few days to digest the season-opening win against the Browns, Pederson took to the podium on Thursday to discuss their upcoming primetime matchup against the Chicago Bears. To no surprise, the main topic at the press conference quickly became Carson Wentz and the pandemonium surrounding his efficient NFL debut.
“He’s handled it fine,” Pederson said. “He and I have had conversations the last couple of days, I just wanted him to be aware of, and limit the noise, let’s just focus on football. That’s the one thing about him and his maturity level, is how well he does balance work with some of the outside influences. He’s handled it really well, and again he was in here early, him and Chase and Aaron, and getting onto Chicago.”
Wentz’s jerseys have become the NFL’s best seller since his 278-yard, two touchdown performance against Cleveland. The rookie quarterback is so popular at the moment that even the President chimed in on Wentz during his recent visit to Philadelphia.
"Some of you may have seen Joe Biden at the Eagles game," President Obama said. "He told me, 'Barack, you gotta get on the Wentz Wagon. We got a new quarterback. We got hope in Philly.' I am a Bears fan, we play Philly next Monday night. So I got to stick with my team but I am going to scout out what all the fuss is about."
Pederson acknowledged that there is a groundswell going on around Wentz, and he believes this is a good opportunity for him to step in and shield his young signal-caller from the outside distractions.
"This is where I can step in and help him and protect him," Pederson said. "If I can keep him in the building as long as I stay in the building then were gonna be okay. The more success he has on the football field, all of that off the field stuff will take care of itself.
"Being around him as much as I have, and to see the time he’s spent studying, preparing himself. Listen, he’s been playing football a long time, and he’s been very successful at it. He’s won a lot of games, and he’s won championships. You can’t take that away from anybody, at any level of competition. Hopefully you saw it last Sunday, his ability to lead the football team and make plays. He hates to lose. That was really the deciding factor to say you’re our guy now, and let’s go."
Wentz will lead the Eagles into Soldier Field on Monday night for their first road test of the season. The Bears defense yielded a 65 percent completion rate to Houston quarterback Brock Osweiler in the Texans 23-14 win last Sunday. This morning, Pederson gave the media some insight into the challenges that John Fox’s defense presents to his team.
"Their pass rushers on the outside, Young, Ocho, guys like that," Pederson said. "It’s a different animal than we had last week. I think they can really bend and attack the quarterback. It’s a very similar scheme to what we faced against Cleveland. The one thing that stands out on film is their ability to rush. We kept Carson relatively clean last week, we did miss a couple of protections and he got hit a few times, but this group can get after you. That’s the challenging side of each week, each week is a different animal."
You can watch the full press conference from Pederson below.
