Eagles bench Carson Wentz during game against Seahawks

PHILADELPHIA — Carson Wentz’s continuing struggles as the Eagles’ starting quarterback led the team to make a change during Sunday afternoon’s game against the Green Bay Packers.

Wentz was pulled after the first series of the second half in favor of Jalen Hurts, a rookie second-round draft pick who had thrown just three passes this season entering Sunday’s contest. Hurts threw his first touchdown pass midway through the fourth quarter, hitting Greg Ward to cut the Packers lead to 23-10.

Wentz is in his fifth season. He had thrown 15 interceptions, fumbled nine times and absorbed 46 sacks entering Week 13. He was 6 of 15 for 79 yards Sunday vs. Green Bay, and had been sacked four times for 22 yards.

After a sensational 2017 season that ended for him with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in December, Wentz’s record has been 17-21-1. That includes his only playoff appearance last January, when he was knocked out of a 17-9 loss to Seattle with a concussion in the first quarter.

Hurts resurrected his amateur career at Oklahoma after losing his starting job to Tua Tagovailoa at Alabama. In 2019, Hurts completed 237 of 340 pass attempts (69.7%) for 3,851 yards and 32 TDs against just eight interceptions. He also ran for 1,298 yards and another 20 TDs and caught a TD pass for a total of 53 TDs.

As a result, he finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting before being drafted by the Eagles, who were widely blasted by analysts for taking a quarterback with such a high pick when they had to many other immediate needs.

But the Eagles, despite having given Wentz a $128 million contract extension in the 2019 offseason, were concerned about his ability to stay healthy, especially in the playoffs, in which he missed all five of their games following the 2017 and 2018 seasons before lasting less than two series against Seattle last season.

Wentz’s struggles have been exacerbated by a rash of injuries that has forced the Eagles to use 10 starting offensive line combinations in 11 games this season and saw them lose multiple running backs, tight ends and wide receivers to injuries over the last three seasons.

After a 22-17 loss at Cleveland in which Wentz was intercepted twice and fumbled once, coach Doug Pederson repeatedly was questioned about Wentz’s job security. Pederson insisted that benching Wentz was not in his thinking and that it would be his call, not owner Jeffrey Lurie’s or general manager Howie Roseman’s, to make.

Morning Call reporter Nick Fierro can be reached at 610-778-2243 or nfierro@mcall.com.