When Buffalo Bills star Josh Allen comes across YouTube clips of himself throwing passes for the University of Wyoming, he swears he doesn’t recognize that guy.
“It’s night and day in terms of the type of thrower I am,” Allen said this summer. “Where I held the ball, where I released the ball — it looks like a different guy. It’s kind of gross to look at sometimes. But I don’t think it’s as gross anymore.”
Allen, like many other NFL quarterbacks, spends time each offseason tweaking details of his throwing motion, “just trying to be as efficient as possible,” he said. And efficiency is the specialty of biomechanics experts such as Chris Hess, the founder of the 3D motion analysis company Biometrek.
A quarterback is a “rotational athlete,” one who rotates the body in order to throw, swing or hit. Hess and other specialists in the private sector specifically focus on the kinetic sequence, the transfer of energy during that rotation from the base of the body up through the arm.
An efficient thrower’s accuracy increases, biomechanists say, because his energy travels in the correct sequence: from legs to pelvis to torso to arm, with each reaching peak rotational velocity as the next begins. More efficient throwers also put less stress on their arms over time because the body properly produces and transfers the energy required to throw.
“Accuracy isn’t voodoo,” Hess likes to say, “it’s biomechanical science.”
Allen has worked with Hess and his motion-capture software since 2020 and believes this has helped make him a more accurate, controlled thrower. There is some evidence to support this. Allen’s completion percentage jumped from 52.8 and 58.8 in 2018 and 2019 to 69.2 percent in 2020 and has not dipped below 63 percent since (even while playing through a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow in 2022).
A rising number of NFL quarterbacks rely on independent professionals like Hess to incorporate biomechanics and its corresponding technology into their offseason training. Young stars like Allen, C.J. Stroud, Caleb Williams, Anthony Richardson and Brock Purdy have consulted with Hess to gather vast pools of data that tell them everything about how efficiently or inefficiently they throw using motion-capture technology.
After collecting and interpreting the data, Hess collaborates with physical therapists such as Dr. Tom Gormley to help them make body adjustments while private quarterbacks coaches such as Will Hewlett, Jordan Palmer and Adam Dedeaux fine-tune mechanics and technique. They develop injury prevention and recovery plans, pre-throw and post-throw routines and more — all with the hope of maximizing a quarterback’s arm, the tool that can make or break his career.
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“It’s the most important position in all of sports, so you’re constantly evolving, trying to find ways to get mental reps, physical reps, without overdoing it,” said Bills GM Brandon Beane. “There is so much invested in that position that you are always looking for any area to improve to give your guys even the slightest advantage.”
Each spring, Hess travels the country to put quarterbacks through his motion capture programming at the request of their private coaches and occasionally NFL teams. His pack-and-go equipment, which uses high-resolution cameras to track movement rather than attaching sensors to the player, builds a perimeter of the cameras on a field like a super-sized imitation of a quarterback’s pocket.
The quarterback executes a range of spot throws from inside that pocket to establish a baseline. Once the system is calibrated, Hess has quarterbacks throw to receivers running a variety of routes. The quarterback can bootleg in and out of the perimeter of cameras, as the testing aims to simulate as many football movements as possible.
Streams of data emerge as the quarterback’s movement is translated by a computer into speed and energy outputs from every part of his body at each millisecond of every throw. Hess organizes the data into digestible pieces, including graphs and a visual display of the quarterback’s body as he throws — a skeleton frame with flashing colors that represent his energy transfer.
Hess and the physical therapists and private quarterbacks coaches he works with aren’t looking for massive issues. They emphasize the tiniest of adjustments that, over time, build the most efficient throwing motions possible.
“If you’re calling me, you’re ready for some granular information,” Hess said.