2 Often overlooked areas in this Carson Wentz regression
By Joe Walls
Carson Wentz needs to re-establish some muscle memory.
Carson Wentz averaged 35 pass attempts per game in 2020. That means 35 times per game, he needs to make split-second decisions, and one thing you can be assured of is he isn’t thinking about his muscle memory.
Mechanics and muscle memory go hand in hand, and Carson Wentz’s mechanics took a beating from fans and the media as the season progressed. As mentioned, he bulked up to 250 pounds in the off-season. He was restricted from practicing and perfecting his timing, which would have needed to be adjusted with his newfound strength.
Touch and timing are everything for a quarterback and a bulked-up ‘Wentz Wagon’ was completely off in both respects. We saw him miss routine passes this season which was shocking at times. A couple of his screen-passes landed closer to North Dakota than they did Miles Sanders. 11 was profoundly inaccurate. Clearly, body and mind were not in sync.
15 pounds of muscle is nothing to scoff at. It’s a significant amount of strength to add when throwing a 14-ounce pigskin. Four years of repetition in throwing a ball at the NFL level creates hardened muscle memory. With the exception of a few rough outings, Wentz had no problem making contested tight-window throws that had him flirting with elite status.
Tack on fifteen pounds of muscle in his fifth year and forget about those tight-window throws. Wentz couldn’t hit the glass at a Pella Showroom. All that sweat-equity built up over his first four seasons was tossed aside. He had the same muscle memory with inflated muscle strength. Simply put, Wentz would throw the ball the same way he always has but it would land somewhere else. It was an added variable that disrupted his rhythm, timing, and eventually his mechanics.
Quarterbacks should not tinker with their arm strength unless they have an abundance of practice availability with teammates to nail down timing. The pandemic did not allow for typical off-season practice time. This is the least talked about possible regression theory that has been put out there and it is the most obvious. It is the only real change that occurred in the off-season for number 11.