Putting Carson Wentz's Fumbling Into Perspective

[RandyMossIsBoss]

If there's one fair knock against our sweet prince, it's his propensity to put the ball on the turf.

 

 

 

Whether he's being hit, mishandling a snap, or making a reckless play, there's no doubt that Carson has a fumbling problem. He's fumbled 15x in 2019, a number that would usually be good enough to lead the league if not for Danny "Butterfinger" Dimes. His 24 fumbles since 2018 on the other hand, now that leads the league.

He's lost 7 of these fumbles, and recovered the other 8 himself (impressive tbh). Including his 7 INTs, he has 14 turnovers on the year, and a turnover in 8 out of 15 games this year. So the fumbling is a problem, and something you would certainly hope changes... but what if it doesn't? What are we looking at? Well, a lost fumbled isn't much different than an INT. The fact that a QB fumble usually occurs behind the LOS, while an INT occurs ~20 yards beyond the LOS, makes the lost fumble more harmful than the INT at first glance, but the returnability of an INT might even it out? Let's say it does.. so lets treat INTs and lost fumbles equal, and count them as on:  A TO.

 

1. Carson isn't a turnover machine, even with the fumbles.

2. There's reason to believe the fumbles can be "fixed"

 

1. Here is a look at QB TO rates over the past 2 seasons:

"Adjust Lost F"- The average fumble recovery rate for the offense hovers around 57%. I will use that figure and apply it to ALL fumbles for "adjusted lost fumbles". For example, if a player fumbled 10 times and lost all 10, it will only be recorded as 4 turnovers. If they fumbled 10 times and lost none, it will still be recorded as 4. Why? Well fumble recovery is very random, so QBs should be punished for fumbling equally on a per fumble basis. They shouldn't be rewarded for luck or punished even more for bad luck in regards to recovery. Of course not all fumbles are created equal, the bad snap that the QB quickly falls on is not his fault, but will be counted here nonetheless, as I am not going to go through every QB's fumble.

 

 

 

So here we see Carson at #9, around average. This is despite fumbling at a torrent pace, thanks to his safety through the air. First off, I think you can win in the NFL if your QB is going to be around the middle of the pack (top 10, in fact, granted 7-13 separated by <0.3) in terms of TO rate. It's not a dealbreaker, that being said, I believe there is much more reason to believe Carson stops fumbling at such a high rate than to believe he won't sustain his low INT%. 

 

2. Can it be helped?

• Fum% by year: 17.7%, 9.8%, 13.8%, 15.8%
• INT% by year: 2.3%, 1.6%, 1.7%, 1.2%

The INT% rate is easy to see, it started low, and has only gotten lower as he gained experience. I wouldn't expect this number to jump.

For fumbles, we see a huge leap from year 1 to 2, but since then its only gotten each worse each year. What happened in between those years? Well there was a torn ACL in between seasons 2 and 3, and then a fractured back between (and in...) seasons 3 and 4. Is this all to say injuries are to blame for the fumbles? Of course not, all indications show Carson came into this season fully healthy, with a healthy camp, but the injuries certainly could have put a stop to whatever focus was being done on ball security.

Only 8 QBs have fumbled 40+ times in their 1st 4 years, unfortunately for most of them, they didn't get much time after their 1st 4 years (partly thanks to the fumbling), so we can't get a clear idea of whether they were able to "fix" their issue. One we can look at is Culpepper.

• Culpepper didn't see much time as a rookie, so we're looking at years 2-5 (which also put him at same age as Carson). His fumble rates went as so: 
  • 8.9%, 15.4%, 15%, 14.5%
• His next 3 years he would see playing time drop as he got hurt and then never again reclaimed a full time starting role, but his rates did improve
  • 6.7%, 9%, 9.7%

Another to look at is Warren Moon, the most storied QB on this list. Unfortunately this gives us a bad sign as his fumble problem never went away. Did he ever see as bad a 4 year stretch as his first 4 years? No, but he still had years here and there leading the league in fumbles.

Kerry Collins is the last QB we can really look at here, and more bad news. His fumbling never got better, if anything it got worse.

 

Hmm, so this isn't very promising. The fumbliest QBs, tend to keep fumbling. What if we just look at some great QBs today w/ low fumble rates now and see if they were born that way, or did they improve?

• Tom Brady in his first 4 years starting had a fumble rate of 14.7% (note 1: this is higher than Carson's through his 1st 4 years) (note 2: Brady won 3 SBs in this stretch). Since? He's cut it down to 10%, and it's even lower the past few years.
• Aaron Rodgers had a fumble rate of 10.5% in his first 5 years. Since then he's trimmed that figure to 6.9%

QBs such as Brees have never had any fumbling issue, while Russell Wilson has yet to fix his. There's certainly randomness to the fumble stat itself, it often means getting hit at a specific time while your arm is in a specific position. Sometimes it happens 15x in a season, and then the next it happens 5x. I poured through the data of several QBs, and almost all have outlier seasons fumbling spread throughout their year by year log. Of course, that outlier comes in the form of a 12 or 13 among 6s and 7s, not 15s among 9s as is the case in Carson's brief career. With Carson, the biggest issue is holding onto the ball too long when trying to make a play, this can  easily be fixed with more experience. He does have a propensity to just flat out DROP the football, or mishandle this, and that is something you'd hope can and will be fixed. As for blind side hits while his arm is cocked? Well that's just the nature of football, and only a select few QBs are able to consistently protect the ball on those kinds of hits. 

 

 

TL;DR- Does Carson have a fumbling problem? Yes. Does he have a turnover problem? No. Can we win with this fumbling? Yes. Can the fumbling be fixed? Yes. Will the fumbling be fixed? Maybe, but more often than not it doesn't.

 

[Daimonas]

I don't think his fumbling problem will ever be fixed, mitigated maybe, but never fixed. His problem is too ingrained with his attempts at playing hero ball, and he will never stop playing hero ball. It's just something we as fans have to live with as long as his upside outshines a fumble.

[EaglesPeteC]

Dak sucks 

[nlesthought]

I wonder what are the numbers on how he fumbles? 
We’ve seen him fumble it with two hands around the ball. Ways to eliminate fumbles get rid of it if there’s nothing there. I rather see him complete a low 60% with fewer TOs than 65% because he wants to hold onto the ball to make something happen, the route concepts aren’t taking that long imo. Most play designs are get rid of it when you get to the peak of your drop. 

The scrambling trying to make a play has to be corrected. Yes that’s part of what makes him exciting and compelling, I think the trade off is the same as when we had Vick. TOs & hits on the QB. Carson is way better at finding guys downfield than Vick was but you still have your QB likely taking those hits. 

The one-offs; snaps, handoff exchanges, running downfield with it can be fixed. 

[DeJack_10]

I'm genuinely curious to find out how many of those fumbles were caused by Kelce's occasional bad snaps...

[Nabbs4u]

1 hour ago, DeJack_10 said:

I'm genuinely curious to find out how many of those fumbles were caused by Kelce's occasional bad snaps...

For as Great of a Center as Kelce is, he does have way to many horrific snaps year in and year out??

[Kiltman]

Relevant for Carson stuff, figured I’d post here

*Goedert and Ertz do though

[AZ_Eaglesfan]

1 hour ago, Kiltman said:

Relevant for Carson stuff, figured I’d post here

*Goedert and Ertz do though

Still insane that he has played as well as he has(outside of three bad games) with such awful weapons.