Carson Wentz injured, ex-Jet Josh McCown plays in Eagles' playoff loss to Seahawks

PHILADELPHIA — Josh McCown left a field he did not expect to step on with a result he was not hoping for and emotions he could not contain.

After 17 years in the NFL with nine different teams — including the Jets in 2017 and 2018 — the 40-year-old Eagles quarterback finally got the chance to play in a postseason game. “I’ve chased this my whole career,” he said.

It turned out to be something he gladly would have forfeited.

That’s because Sunday was supposed to be Carson Wentz’s introduction to the playoffs, not McCown’s. This was supposed to be the first opportunity for Wentz, the franchise quarterback, to lead his team on the type of January runs he had to watch from the sideline while recovering from injuries the previous two years.

But Wentz didn’t even make it out of the first quarter, McCown was pressed into service for the first time since Week 6, and the Eagles lost an NFC wild-card game to the Seahawks, 17-9.

After scrambling and while falling to the ground for what would become a sack on the first play of the Eagles’ second possession, Wentz took a helmet-to-helmet hit to the back of the head from Seahawks defensive lineman Jadeveon Clowney. No penalty was called.

“He was a runner and he did not give himself up,” referee Shawn Smith said in a pool report. “We saw incidental helmet contact, and in our judgment, we didn’t rule that to be a foul.”

“It was a bang-bang play,” Clowney said. “I don’t intend to hurt anybody in this league . . . My intention was not to hurt him. I was just playing fast.”

Wentz remained in the game for the rest of the series, but he was in the blue medical tent, back in the locker room and in the concussion protocol by the start of the next possession. McCown took over.

“You’re flooded with a lot of different emotions,” McCown said of talking to Wentz on the bench after the hit, watching him taken aside by the trainers and having to grab his helmet and play. “Obviously, you don’t want to be on the field in those circumstances, but you have to go . . . As bummed as I am for [Wentz], you have to go do your job and go try to help the team.”

Wentz lasted eight offensive snaps.

“I feel for him, I feel bad for him,” Eagles coach Doug Pederson said. “I wanted this for him. A lot of his teammates did, too. He’s battled through a lot.”

So had the Eagles, who limped into the playoffs with a roster duct-taped together with practice-squadders and starters fighting through injuries. They had a history of recent playoff success with backup quarterback Nick Foles, but McCown could not continue that tradition.

McCown was able to rally a bit of hope for the somber and bitter crowd at Lincoln Financial Field. He opened the third quarter with a 32-yard pass to Zach Ertz and a deep throw to Greg Ward that drew a 20-yard pass-interference flag, which led to a field goal and cut the Seahawks’ lead to 10-6.

The Seahawks responded with a 53-yard touchdown pass from Russell Wilson to D.K. Metcalf to go ahead 17-6.

McCown finished the game 18-for-24 for 174 yards. He was sacked six times and ran for 23 yards on five carries.

The Eagles had two chances to tie the score late.

Trailing 17-9, they drove to the 24 with 6:24 left, but running back Miles Sanders dropped a swing pass from McCown on fourth-and-4 to turn it over on downs.

On the Eagles’ next possession, McCown’s deep pass for Shelton Gibson (who was just signed off the Browns’ practice squad) drew a 39-yard pass-interference penalty that brought them to the 13 with 3:56 left.

After a sack, a short run and a short pass set up fourth-and-7 from the 10 at the two-minute warning, McCown was sacked with 1:56 remaining. He had changed the play at the line of scrimmage but not everyone got the alert, which resulted in missed assignments.

Clowney, the same player whose hit ushered McCown into the game 2 1⁄2 hours earlier, sacked him to end it.

The Seahawks will play the Packers in an NFC divisional- round game on Sunday. Might it have been the Eagles doing so had Wentz not been knocked out of the game?

“I would say yes, if he’s healthy,” Pederson said. “But it’s hard to speculate.”

Instead, McCown, who had retired but was lured back to service as the Eagles’ backup this season, walked off the field in tears, consoled by teammates. He paused in the tunnel outside the team’s locker room, squatted and cried some more before joining the stunned team.

He later talked about the finality of the game, not only for himself — “I’ve retired once, I know how to do that,” he quipped without committing to doing so a second time — but the team.

“As a quarterback, you want to do more,” he said. “You feel like you let everyone down, let everyone down in the building, and that’s a sick feeling. It’s a hurt feeling. You don’t want to have that.”

McCown said that at some point, he will reflect on his first and likely only playoff snaps.

“It will probably be with a sour taste, but thankful,” he said, tearing up again while talking about his wife and family and their journey together to Sunday’s improbable appearance. “It was a heck of a ride. I left it all out there, I know that much.”

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.