2 Often overlooked areas in this Carson Wentz regression

Well, Carson Wentz threw us all a curveball in 2020, didn’t he? 

The Philadelphia Eagles entered the 2020 NFL campaign with a lot of uncertainty, as did every team due to COVID-19 training camp stipulations. One thing they probably didn’t expect, however, was their star quarterback, Carson Wentz, using his first healthy off-season since his rookie year to add around fifteen pounds of muscle.

Curls for the hurls was his off-season motto. Accuracy may have been the collateral damage that came along with his new Fire Engine frame.

John Clark of NBC10 Philadelphia even joked about it during training camp.

https://twitter.com/JClarkNBCS/status/1295053269031673865

Playing quarterback in the NFL, or at any level, must be considered one of the toughest positions to play in all sports. Sometimes adding muscle when you play a sport makes a lot of sense. If you are a young hockey player with a slight build adding fifteen pounds of muscle can make the difference in jumping up to the big club.

On the other hand, if you are a power-hitting 1st baseman, adding fifteen pounds can be the difference in crafting an all-star caliber season. Offensive linemen are tasked with adding fifteen pounds all the time after they are drafted for obvious reasons. They’ll be blocking guys who are six-foot-five, tip the scales at 265 and run the 40-yard dash in five seconds.

For a quarterback, muscle memory is everything when one plays a position where precision and accuracy are critical. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers paved their way to the Super Bowl with pinpoint passing from their ageless wonder at quarterback. Scott Smith, who writes for Tampa’s official website and nextgenstats.nfl.com put it this way in a story he penned recently.

"Brady’s most stunning deep ball was the 39-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Scotty Miller, who scored with one second left in the first half. That pass traveled 54.1 yards in the air, and Miller has now been the target on four of Brady’s six deepest passes and five of his six most difficult passes this year, according to Next Gen Stats. In terms of the difficulty of the pass, Next Gen Stats gave the play a 25% chance of being completed. Miller beat cornerback Kevin King in one-on-one coverage on the play and the difference was sheer speed. The Buccaneer receiver got up to a top speed of 20.64 miles per hour while King topped out at 19.19 miles per hour."

If you are still reading this article after I used noted enemy and Nick Foles hater, Tom Brady, as an example, pat yourself on the back. A football is thrown 54.1 yards through the air. A receiver is running 20.64 miles per hour. A cornerback is draped over his shoulder. A pass rush is storming in and giving him mere seconds to make a decision.

So what do the Tom Brady reference and all of this have to do with Carson Wentz, you ask? It’s simple. These are problems that occur during every passing attempt, but they all help us better recognize some of the reasons for 11’s regression. Here are a few thoughts on two of them.