The Flaw In Wentz's Passing Mechanics Was Supposed To Be Fixed

[drawandstrike]

...during this season as SOMEBODY ELSE started for the franchise.

But as this article reveals, that timetable was scrapped due to a changing situation and so Wentz was put out there as a starter his rookie year.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/theres-so...-and-much-of-nfl-has-caught-on-011427565.html

But a handful of personnel evaluators who spoke to Yahoo Sports over the past week about Wentz’s mechanics said his throwing motion is showing up prominently on film. They also believe it’s leading to some accuracy issues and mistakes. Two issues in particular are sticking out to those who have viewed the rookie quarterback: a long-armed looping windup that needs to be more compact; and an awkward arm position in the middle of his throwing motion that is slowing down his delivery.

One NFC East source likened Wentz’s arm positioning to something from a baseball pitcher. Another evaluator said the rookie displayed “bountiful bad arm angles” during his throwing motion.

“[The] ball is dropped down, turned out, then looped back around,” one evaluator said. “With his long arms and that motion, [it’s] very hard to be accurate. Especially on the move. … [The] inability to get the ball out quick and on time is key.”

The motion was also something that concerned the Cleveland Browns in their scouting evaluations of Wentz, prior to their trading of the No. 2 overall pick to the Eagles. A Browns source told Yahoo Sports Wentz’s motion was noted in draft evaluations – though he also maintained trading the No. 2 pick was more about netting draft picks than not liking Wentz.

Interestingly, a league source told Yahoo Sports that restyling Wentz’s throwing motion was an important bullet point on the Eagles’ offseason docket, but that the team was able to make only marginal progress before the start of the regular season. According to the source, those efforts were spearheaded by Eagles head coach Doug Pederson and offensive coordinator Frank Reich, both former NFL quarterbacks.

As the process moved along, there was a hope to continue developing Wentz during a “redshirt” rookie season. However, that timeline changed when Wentz was elevated from No. 3 quarterback to starter following the Eagles’ trade of Sam Bradford to the Minnesota Vikings. The source said the Eagles realized at that point that any serious strides to refine Wentz’s motion were likely going to have to wait until next offseason.

In essence, this was supposed to be the season when the Eagles drilled down on his mechanics and worked the kinks out. That was taken off the table, and now evaluators are attributing some of his struggles to that reality.​

This helps explain some of the struggles he's had since that hot 3-0 start. Teams got more film on him, and DC's noticed he telegraphs a lot of his throws.

This is why Wentz is struggling with longer throws. He can get away with mechanic problems in his throwing motion when the target is 10 yards downfield and in. When he's sending the ball 15 yards or more downfield though this is where a slower release will get you into trouble. It wouldn't matter all that much in college since 95% of the secondary players in college won't make the NFL.

You could telegraph where you're going with the football or release the ball a bit slowly and it won't matter since most CB's and safeties aren't fast enough to take advantage.

In the NFL everybody is an athletic freak. That flaw in your throwing motion that the 5 foot 9 185 lb kid playing CB for Podunk U couldn't take advantage of will be eaten alive by the 6 foot 3 225 lb physical marvel who's been starting for his NFL team for 5 years and easily sees where you're going with the ball and is fast enough to make a move on it.

I've watched the Eagles/Bengals game and the flaw in Wentz's throwing motion is readily apparent on the 2nd Vontaze Burcifit interception.

We're talking less than 3/10ths of a second here. The difference between somebody with a super-fast release and what Wentz is doing here is less than .03 of a second. But that's all it takes at this level.

You give a veteran NFL LBer that extra .03 to see where you're about to throw the ball, he'll have time to react. That's exactly what happens here as Burcifit easily picks Wentz off.

Here's the video I just made pointing this out:

 

[sbark]

Appears he had it thru college as stated. Funny a former proQB and Bison Qb coach Randy Hedberg didnt correct it during his F and Soph years as he sat behind Brock Jenson.
https://www.google.com/search?q=car...0ahUKEwjl4b_T5t_QAhWJJ5oKHR0WCdcQ7AkIJg&dpr=1

 

[drawandstrike]

All the pre draft hype for the kid and only now that his team has gone into the cellar does all this stuff come out about how his throwing motion was going to need work.

You never heard this stuff back in April.

 

[Idgit]

People in PHI were talking about this in preseason, too. It's been a known issue the whole time, as you say. That's why I was surprised they leapt over Daniel when they traded Bradford. With what they paid Chase, and his familiarity with Peterson's offense, I thought he'd get at least half a season, if not the whole year, to prove himself a capable starter while they developed Wentz for the long haul. Wentz is a heck of a prospect if they can develop him without ruining him along the way. They weren't going to be really competitive this year no matter what, and they'd given Daniel $21MM. I don't understand why they didn't play him. Rookie HC, too, so he's got a bit of rope to swing from.

Now that's all shot. You can't sit the Golden Boy, and fans are switching to blaming the play calling because it's obvious the problems aren't just with receivers and drops. Dumb.

 

[Future]

All the pre draft hype for the kid and only now that his team has gone into the cellar does all this stuff come out about how his throwing motion was going to need work.

You never heard this stuff back in April.

Sure you did. There were questions about his mechanics from Day 1 and its why most people figured he'd need to sit, despite his draft status.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

All the pre draft hype for the kid and only now that his team has gone into the cellar does all this stuff come out about how his throwing motion was going to need work.

You never heard this stuff back in April.

I've been saying this since I watched him against Montana State in December.

I've been saying that the Eagles are making a huge mistake in starting him when they named him the starter.

My viewing on the subject is that there is usually footwork issues or throwing motion issues with a QB. And footwork issues tend to take less time to fix than a throwing motion issue. That's unless you have bad footwork and are now thrust into a WCO where the footwork is very detailed and it ties into the entire offense. But in a Zampese/Coryell or Arians/Perkins style offense, footwork can be correct fairly quickly with some diligent work.

The throwing motion issue seems to be very difficult for QB's to overcome. If they have a windup style of motion, they may never improve it. Leftwich, Jason Campbell, Randall Cunningham, etc....all windup motions and never corrected it.

Romo supposedly had a similar motion, but he spent 3+ years on the bench and could work on it diligently. David Lee kept a careful eye on working on his motion and he also received tutelage from Vinny Testeverde. Testeverde may be a lot of negative things as a QB, but his throwing motion and ability to purely throw a ball is about as good as it gets. Romo could learn from Vinny and it's something that dopes like Larry Lacewell never understood.

But the big thing is that Romo had 3+ years on the bench. Leftwich, Campbell, Cunningham and Wentz started pretty much right away.

There's a good book call On the Sweet Spot by Dr. Richard Keefe that discusses this. While there are better ways to practice to ingrain a new throwing motion, in essence the key to ingraining that new motion is 'perfect practice.' Keep doing the motion correctly, even if it's in slow motion, and you'll ingrain it more quickly. It would be like the golfer who goes to the driving range and uses slow motion to ingrain a new golf swing and only hits 100 balls while doing the mechanics 'right' each time in slow motion. He'll get that new motion more quickly and permanently than the golfer that takes full speed swings and hits 1,000 balls and does half of the 'right', but the other half 'wrong.'

The big issue is when the athlete takes this into competition. It's a new environment. The speed of the game is different, the pressures are different, the coverages, wind becomes a factor, etc. And when one gets into a game environment, they'll resort to their old mechanics because their brain goes into survival mode. The key is to fight thru the game environment and focus on the mechanics and worry less about the outcomes. Dr. Fran Pirozzolo calls this the 'interleaving process.' For a football QB, you would do this thru preseason games, scrimmages and more serious practice sessions where the result doesn't matter much. Wentz had virtually no preseason experience.

Compare that to Dak who had a good throwing motion and footwork issues. He was able to get preseason experience and we still see some bad footwork from him from time-to-time. But, he seems to be very focused on getting the footwork right, even in games.

I remember when Parcells was asked about why he doesn't start Drew Henson and Parcells replied that he wasn't ready and then a reporter asked what we had to lose and Parcells rebutted 'well, you can lose your Quarterback.'

It was such an astute observation by Parcells because researchers have found that confidence plays a large role in a person's ability to pick up new motor skill patterns. Wentz is young, so he has a great amount of neuroplasticity (the ability to pick up new things more quickly), but his confidence which is really instinctual (something we can't force ourselves to be confident) is hurting and that will impede his learning progress.

And he's still having to get used to the speed of the game which is light years faster than what he faced in college. I remember on one of the first plays against us Wentz started to scramble and Hitchens who has pretty good speed (but he's not Derrick Brooks) chased him down pretty quickly. I'm guessing he didn't see that speed from players Hitchens' size in college.

It's really a whole new ballgame and I know the media loves the Eagles, but they need to face the facts that they screwed the pooch with their handling of Wentz.





YR

 

[drawandstrike]

Sure you did. There were questions about his mechanics from Day 1 and its why most people figured he'd need to sit, despite his draft status.

I missed all that then. I just watched the draft specials and the media coverage, and from what I saw, nobody was saying "Oh by the way, this kid's passing mechanics are going to need a lot of work. It'll probably take a season or two for the NFL coaches to fix his throwing motion."

They made it sound like Wentz and Goff were just about the best thing to hit in the NFL in a good long time.

 

[sean10mm]

I agree that guys only seem to fix their throwing mechanics if they have years on the bench like Romo did. Guys who become starters with busted throwing mechanics stay busted.

Another example of a QB who fixed their mechanics after years on the bench was Aaron Rodgers. He came out of college with infamously busted mechanics, in his case directly taught to him by Cal head coach and infamous source of NFL quarterback flops Jeff Tedford. It's why he fell below Alex Smith in the draft - people were openly talking about how Tedford ruined him by making his mechanics awkward to the point of looking robotic.

 

[remdak]

Love this "business decision" by Ertz on a Wentz run

 

[Yakuza Rich]

I agree that guys only seem to fix their throwing mechanics if they have years on the bench like Romo did. Guys who become starters with busted throwing mechanics stay busted.

Another example of a QB who fixed their mechanics after years on the bench was Aaron Rodgers. He came out of college with infamously busted mechanics, in his case directly taught to him by Cal head coach and infamous source of NFL quarterback flops Jeff Tedford. It's why he fell below Alex Smith in the draft - people were openly talking about how Tedford ruined him by making his mechanics awkward to the point of looking robotic.

Rodgers didn't have terrible mechanics. His throwing motion was pretty tight as well. He just had some goofy things that Jeff Tedford taught like keeping the ball close to your ear. Rodgers' ability to supinate his right wrist and get it into extension was excellent coming out of college.

The issue for Rodgers coming out of college was the system at the time was very short throw oriented. Lots of WR screens. Even still, I don't think Tedford was the reason why his QB's failed in the pros. Detroit was a mess and Joey Harrington started right away. Akili Smith was in Cincy and they were a mess. The offense in Baltimore was a mess and Kyle Boller wasn't ready to start right away.

Compare that to Dak who had to deal with top, fast defenses in the SEC on a team that had inferior offensive talent and he played in a pro style passing offense. In many ways he was suited to go right away. From reading scouting reports it seemed like many scouts just assumed he was in a college gimmicky offense because they always used shotgun and they overestimated the talent around him.

Another big thing is that scouts often overestimate high school studs in the draft. Regardless if the guy showed he can't play in college, if he was a stud in HS, they tend to favor them. Dak wasn't a stud player in HS.





YR

 

[xwalker]

...during this season as SOMEBODY ELSE started for the franchise.

But as this article reveals, that timetable was scrapped due to a changing situation and so Wentz was put out there as a starter his rookie year.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/theres-so...-and-much-of-nfl-has-caught-on-011427565.html

But a handful of personnel evaluators who spoke to Yahoo Sports over the past week about Wentz’s mechanics said his throwing motion is showing up prominently on film. They also believe it’s leading to some accuracy issues and mistakes. Two issues in particular are sticking out to those who have viewed the rookie quarterback: a long-armed looping windup that needs to be more compact; and an awkward arm position in the middle of his throwing motion that is slowing down his delivery.

One NFC East source likened Wentz’s arm positioning to something from a baseball pitcher. Another evaluator said the rookie displayed “bountiful bad arm angles” during his throwing motion.

“[The] ball is dropped down, turned out, then looped back around,” one evaluator said. “With his long arms and that motion, [it’s] very hard to be accurate. Especially on the move. … [The] inability to get the ball out quick and on time is key.”

The motion was also something that concerned the Cleveland Browns in their scouting evaluations of Wentz, prior to their trading of the No. 2 overall pick to the Eagles. A Browns source told Yahoo Sports Wentz’s motion was noted in draft evaluations – though he also maintained trading the No. 2 pick was more about netting draft picks than not liking Wentz.

Interestingly, a league source told Yahoo Sports that restyling Wentz’s throwing motion was an important bullet point on the Eagles’ offseason docket, but that the team was able to make only marginal progress before the start of the regular season. According to the source, those efforts were spearheaded by Eagles head coach Doug Pederson and offensive coordinator Frank Reich, both former NFL quarterbacks.

As the process moved along, there was a hope to continue developing Wentz during a “redshirt” rookie season. However, that timeline changed when Wentz was elevated from No. 3 quarterback to starter following the Eagles’ trade of Sam Bradford to the Minnesota Vikings. The source said the Eagles realized at that point that any serious strides to refine Wentz’s motion were likely going to have to wait until next offseason.

In essence, this was supposed to be the season when the Eagles drilled down on his mechanics and worked the kinks out. That was taken off the table, and now evaluators are attributing some of his struggles to that reality.​

This helps explain some of the struggles he's had since that hot 3-0 start. Teams got more film on him, and DC's noticed he telegraphs a lot of his throws.

This is why Wentz is struggling with longer throws. He can get away with mechanic problems in his throwing motion when the target is 10 yards downfield and in. When he's sending the ball 15 yards or more downfield though this is where a slower release will get you into trouble. It wouldn't matter all that much in college since 95% of the secondary players in college won't make the NFL.

You could telegraph where you're going with the football or release the ball a bit slowly and it won't matter since most CB's and safeties aren't fast enough to take advantage.

In the NFL everybody is an athletic freak. That flaw in your throwing motion that the 5 foot 9 185 lb kid playing CB for Podunk U couldn't take advantage of will be eaten alive by the 6 foot 3 225 lb physical marvel who's been starting for his NFL team for 5 years and easily sees where you're going with the ball and is fast enough to make a move on it.

I've watched the Eagles/Bengals game and the flaw in Wentz's throwing motion is readily apparent on the 2nd Vontaze Burcifit interception.

We're talking less than 3/10ths of a second here. The difference between somebody with a super-fast release and what Wentz is doing here is less than .03 of a second. But that's all it takes at this level.

You give a veteran NFL LBer that extra .03 to see where you're about to throw the ball, he'll have time to react. That's exactly what happens here as Burcifit easily picks Wentz off.

Here's the video I just made pointing this out:

It was amazing that they got a 1st for Bradford but they might have screwed up Wentz by making him the starter too soon.