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FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Zach Wilson straddled a line of red pads and faced quarterbacks coach Rob Calabrese, awaiting instruction on which way to shuffle his feet. Diagonally, about seven yards away on either side of the field, someone was waiting to catch a pass.
The drill is meant to have your brain and body processing on different levels and is a version of a workout utilized by some of the NFL’s elite quarterbacks. Your feet are shuffling. Your head and your eyes are taking in the instructions (move left, move right) and the relationship between those two needs to coincide at a split second when you are told which direction to throw. While no drill is perfect, it simulates the idea that, in the NFL, nothing is going to look perfectly, your feet won’t always be set and all synapses must fire regardless at the first glimpse of pretty good. Wilson can, like most quarterbacks now, finish a throw with the now standard no-look flourish, beelining a pass over his left shoulder while keeping his eyes toward the receiver on the right-hand side.
