If there's pressure on Carson Wentz to reinvent his career and become a franchise quarterback again, the newest Indianapolis Colts quarterback isn't feeling the heat. Wentz has been praised by his Colts teammates for taking command of the locker room and becoming the leader the offense needed since Phillip Rivers retired.
After a disastrous 2020 season that led to his ouster from the Philadelphia Eagles, Wentz is getting a fresh start in Indianapolis with a franchise that believes it can "fix" the issues that made Wentz one of the worst quarterbacks in football. Wentz is vowing to correct those issues as well.
"I wouldn't say 'fix' but every year you go into this mode in the offseason," Wentz said on a conference call at Colts minicamp Wednesday. "A), you get away. You take a breather and B), you reflect and say physically, where can I get better? Mentally, where can I get better and emotionally how can I get better?
"It's nothing crazy but it's just little things of fundamentals and different things in how I see the game, processing, all that stuff. Within this new offense, talking through a lot of those things with the new coaches and everything working together and working through those things, it's been really good."
After last season, things can only get better for Wentz. Of the 35 qualifying quarterbacks in major passing categories, Wentz was 34th in completion percentage (57.4), 33rd in yards per attempt (6.0), and 34th in quarterback rating (72.8). He tied for the NFL lead in interceptions thrown (15) and was sacked the most of any quarterback in the league (50) -- despite playing in just 13 games. Wentz's bad throw percentage (what qualifies as a poor throw to a receiver) was second-highest in the league for quarterbacks that attempted over 400 passes (21.7%).
There's pressure on Wentz to perform well in indianapolis, or his days as a starting quarterback are numbered in the league. Wentz was unaware of those circumstances, but he's okay with trying to live up to those expectations.
"It's something that – this is the game we play. This is the position that I've chosen. There's always pressure. There's always going to be pressure, there's always going to be expectations," Wentz said. "Those things are always going to be there.
"For me, it's been the same thing throughout my whole career, just go to work. Go to work, get better every day and block out the outside noise – good, bad or indifferent. It doesn't matter. I've felt a lot of excitement around here and obviously we have high expectations and all of those things, but just the culture and how it's just one day at a time mindset, that's the mindset of this team and that's the mindset I'm going to take every single day I come to work."
