“Pressing” is one of those buzz words that’s more prevalent in sports these days. When a guy is struggling, or his team isn’t getting the job done, you end up trying too hard and you force a play. Maybe you stuff a throw into a tight window, or do something you wouldn’t normally do in order to try to break out of a rut or get the gears turning again.

It’s an ideal word to describe what Carson Wentz is doing right now. He’s more or less trying to play hero ball instead of toning it down a notch and taking what’s being given to him.

Case in point, Sunday’s brutal end zone interception, which was intended for J.J. Arcega-Whiteside, a sequence that head coach Doug Pederson said his quarterback “flat out can’t do” –

“I’ll just say that that’s a play that I think Carson would like to have back, we’d all like to have back and I think the execution of the play would be a little bit different,” Pederson said during his weekly Monday morning call on 94 WIP. “Those are one of those things that we can’t do, we flat out can’t do. We can’t put ourselves in that situation when we’re coming out of the locker room. We just stopped them, right? We forced them to punt, we take the ball. I think we started on our 14-yard line and we’re moving the ball down the field with a chance to score and go ahead in the game and who knows what happens after that. For me, as the head coach, as bad as plays like that are, those are also teachable moments. Those are learning lessons for us. I use the phrase a lot around here, ‘pain instructs.’ And those are one of those painful moments that’s going to instruct us and we’re going to have to learn from that, coach that, teach that, and prepare our players that way.”

You’ve probably seen the broadcast angles of the pick a few times now, but here’s the back side, via the Rams’ Twitter account:


It’s a nice play by the defensive back and a bad throw at the same time, and JJAW isn’t exactly the ideal receiver for a throw like that. Wentz admitted Sunday that he tried to aggressively shove the ball into a window that wasn’t there.

“You don’t want him to press or try to force plays or do anything (that’s not within himself),” Pederson said on Monday. “Sometimes you think you have to take things over and do things yourself. It happens. It naturally happens. Especially when you struggle or the turnovers that we’ve had in the couple of weeks. It’s something that we’ve got to continue to work through. We all have to do our jobs and focus on that. Carson is no different. I just want Carson to focus on his job and doing his job. We’ll coach him and the other 10 guys that are out on the field together. That’s where we’re headed.”

Every once in a while, the QB experts in the Philadelphia sports media join with fans on Twitter to talk about mechanics and footwork, which admittedly needs to be looked at on a throw-by-throw basis. Wentz is sometimes guilty of planting his feet in the pocket and has tweaked his throwing motion in the past. This season, Pederson doesn’t think those are the issues.

“I don’t think it’s the mechanics; I just think it’s something we’re continuing to work through,” the head coach explained. “There are some new faces on offense. We missed five, six-hundred reps of the offseason with guys like Jalen Reagor and John Hightower. And not just those guys, but even having time with DeSean Jackson, Zach Ertz, Dallas Goedert – our veteran players. That’s valuable time for those guys to build chemistry we need. We have to continue to plug away and grind and that’s what we’ll do.”

If it’s not mechanics, then the only explanation is that the quarterback is just making bad throws and bad decisions. He’s inaccurate, even if the footwork and movement and balance is there.

After two weeks, Wentz is tied at the top of the league with Kirk Cousins, who has also thrown four interceptions. He also joins Joe Burrow, Drew Lock, Tom Brady, Josh Allen, Dwayne Haskins, and Ben Roethlisberger as the quarterbacks who have fumbled more than once. His QB rating of 64.4 is second-worst in the NFL and if you like ESPN’s QBR metric, he’s also second-worst, ahead of Haskins only.

Pederson was also asked about the defense and reiterated what most of the team said yesterday – that they felt prepared for the Rams’ motion and misdirection, but just didn’t do a great job executing on the field. Nothing LA did was surprising, or went un-scouted. They just kind of stunk up the joint.

Full audio here: