Is John Beck's arm really as weak as everyone says?

[ArmchairRedskin]

I know he kept overthrowing deep balls last year in preseason and that he's been doing the same in camp this year.

[gchwood]

I will be interested in what he can do tomorrow. I was reading further that there are questions as to whether he can throw with enough zip to complete short and intermediate out routes without the ball being picked. I think that is what I will watch specifically for.

[Skins4life88]

We will see on Friday August 19 at 7pm est.

[GaryGreenMonk]

O.k., this obviously got twisted here...

No one has ever questioned Beck's arm strength (outside of ES), as in distance and power with which he can throw the ball.

What is an issue is the accuracy of his deep passes. If you look back through last years pre-season game action and any film on him since he's been in the NFL.. all the highlights, you'll find a total of 1 completed pass that was thrown further than 30 yards.

[Diesel Hog]

Looking forward to watching Beck tomorrow night. If his deep ball isn't good, but he's a really accurate mid range passer, do you think he gets the starting gig? Anyone know if it's gonna be him or Rex next week?

[GaryGreenMonk]

Looking forward to watching Beck tomorrow night. If his deep ball isn't good, but he's a really accurate mid range passer, do you think he gets the starting gig? Anyone know if it's gonna be him or Rex next week?

It's obvious to me at least, that his deep ball accuracy is bad. It has been bad since he left college. Not to say he can't get it back.. but..

Problem being, once defenses figure that out.. they commit everyone up front and we'll get tore up. Everyone remember dink and dunk and getting blitzed constantly? yeah..

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Actually, it's rebutted by the Redskins receivers who, to a man, say Beck throws a harder ball than Grossman and no one thinks Grossman has a weak arm.

Right...I thought I had heard more often than not that Beck has a stronger arm and more mobility than Grossman. Grossman's edge over Beck is familiarity with the offense and NFL playing experience. All the tangibles seem to favor Beck (from what I hear on the radio, read on the Internet, etc...I can't really tell myself since I didn't think to pay much attention to Beck last pre-season).

---------- Post added August-18th-2011 at 09:36 AM ----------

We will see on Friday August 19 at 7pm est.

Not if we kick-off to start the game again.

[Gibbs Hog Heaven]

I guess we'll get to see for ourselves Friday in Indy.

Hail.

[TomE]

That's one hell of a statement. If corroborated, I would even say it's a lights out, end of disscusion, game over, type statement.

Would you be kind enough to provide links to the various quotes by individual Redskins receivers that support this statement?

I've heard similar comments during interviews with recievers.

Here's one from Armstrong, not sure exactly what "a sharper ball" indicates but I take it as a harder ball. http://prod.www.redskins.clubs.nfl.com/media-gallery/videos/Anthony-Armstrong-8-15/affebb38-63f7-4c15-add1-14bf30da79a6

Poke around the other interviews, there should be a few more references on this topic.

[Diesel Hog]

It's obvious to me at least, that his deep ball accuracy is bad. It has been bad since he left college. Not to say he can't get it back.. but..

Problem being, once defenses figure that out.. they commit everyone up front and we'll get tore up. Everyone remember dink and dunk and getting blitzed constantly? yeah..

Recently, I have blocked out and/or erased most of seasons' past, so I have no idea what you're talking about

[Ever202Reyes]

John Beck has the strongest arm in NFL history. He's the future.

[darrelgreenie]

But the questions about his arm strength are more like this; when he's asked to throw the football deep, can he throw it with enough velocity and with enough accuracy to get it in the right place. When he's been asked to throw deep in practice, he either overthrows his intended target, or his receivers has to make a crazy adjustment and come back to the ball. Which is fine in practice, but in a real life game situation, those balls are more likely to get picked off.

It'd be one thing if it felt like the media was just picking on the guy...but this thing with the deep accuracy is something we've heard about repeatedly since the start of camp, and it's come up a bit too often to simply dismiss it. Especially since it's local media, and there's a lot of credible guys like John Keim, Chris Russell and Rich Tandler reporting it.

So I'd say there's legitimate reason for concern, though reports that he's got the arm of Pat White or something are greatly exaggerated.

I don't think the media is willfully picking on him but they already have a perception bias against him and therefore (imo) look for things that justify their preconceptions.

For example I would regularly read about Grossman getting picked off 2 and 3 times during practice in tweets and read about tweets of Beck being off target on deep balls, which by nature are low percentage throws, yet the training camp report for the day would be that Beck had a bad practice or struggled throwing the ball.

Also, I think throwing during training camp to several different receivers is not ideal.

The passing game is about chemistry.

No disrespect to any one covering practice but I cannot take their word over (a) what i've seen with my own eyes ( reports from his teammates that actually catch passes from him © empirical evidence at the combine.

[Tay]

I've heard similar comments during interviews with recievers.

Here's one from Armstrong, not sure exactly what "a sharper ball" indicates but I take it as a harder ball. http://prod.www.redskins.clubs.nfl.com/media-gallery/videos/Anthony-Armstrong-8-15/affebb38-63f7-4c15-add1-14bf30da79a6

Poke around the other interviews, there should be a few more references on this topic.

Armstrong does say "Beck throws a sharper...stronger ball". I always got the impression that Beck had a weaker arm as well, based on what I've been reading. Hopefully I'm in for a surprise tomorrow.

[skinnyskins]

From what I remember reading from training camp tweets and articles (I don't have time to provide links), it wasn't his arm strength that caused him to under throw on deep balls (this was also much more prevalent when he had his 'tired arm' days early in camp). The problem was that he was throwing ducks on deep routes and those will kill any kind of velocity and distance.

[Gho$t]

I was looking at Madden's ratings and John Beck throw power was like 75 lol.

[darrelgreenie]

Anyways here's AA:

The ever-loquacious Anthony Armstrong had a couple of additional observations from yesterday's practice that seemed worth passing along.

First, on what he thought was the highlight of the morning practice:

"The highlight of practice," he mused. "Hmmm. John Beck was rolling to his left and had a hell of a pass to Brandon Banks. He looks like he's getting pretty comfortable in the offense in the short couple days that he's been here. We've been saying that he does have a live arm, but it's a whole 'nother quarterback so we've gotta get used to him throwing the ball too, and work on it from there."

http://blog.redskins.com/2010/08/11/two-more-practice-notes-from-anthony-armstrong/

First, at the combine, John Beck's ball speed was a tremendous 61.1 mph, according to http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/draft/2007-03-07-john-beck_N.htm"]this USA Today article[/url]. That was second best among all QBs who threw at the Combine (Russell and Quinn did not throw)

http://www.thephinsider.com/2007/5/2/0358/03650

“I think he’s a good guy,” Davis said, which likely isn’t the first sentence of Beck’s resume. “You can tell he’s just really hungry, man. He had an opportunity, I guess, in Miami a few times and then had to wait. And the quarterback position’s hard, because sometimes you’ve got to wait your turn for a while, and sometimes you never get that second chance. And I think right now this is his second chance, and he's been taking it on, working hard. I’ve seen him. He looks a lot better. He’s been throwing with Drew Brees, I think, and he looks a lot better when I’ve seen him the second time.”

thecooleyzone

Just done throwing with beck. Ran about 40 routes at loco high. Put on a little show for the cars on dry mill. http://tinyurl.com/4ywsegq

I thought he looke awesome! Throwing shirtless!

18 Jul

9. Tight end Fred Davis comparing Rex Grossman vs. Beck: “Rex is more comfortable now. He’s been in the offense for so long, you can tell in his poise in the pocket. But Beck does well. He has a strong arm so he can make plays too. Hard decision.”

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/nfl/2011/08/redskins-notes-beck-update#ixzz1V8Y16as4

---------- Post added August-15th-2011 at 05:54 PM ----------

I've been keeping track of the players that comment on Beck, but especially about arm strength since the media reports seem to contradict the player comments.(not to mention the radar gun)

[Champskins]

Who's arm are we comparing him to? There's a youtube video of Beck throwing a ball 70 yards down field to a receiver. He might not be the most accurate, but he's got a laser for an arm, no less than Grossman, from what I saw in TC

[gchwood]

And this is what I don't get. The media and madden are saying he has an abysmally weak arm, but fan and player accounts say that he has a strong arm, just little accuracy in the deep throws. I just want to know if his passes to the outside are going to get jumped.

[Champskins]

This video may help a little, he's kind of got that Michael Vick "whip" throw even under pressure... (Warning: the song is pretty homo)

[GboroGator]

Is the best way I can describe it

That's my opinion too.

[GaryGreenMonk]

This video may help a little, he's kind of got that Michael Vick "whip" throw even under pressure... (Warning: the song is pretty homo)

He had an o.k. deep ball in college.

For some reason though, it has not followed him into the NFL. HIS ARM IS NOT WEAK.... I REPEAT, HIS ARM IS NOT WEAK.. and no one outside of ES has really said that.

Where this all came from is his DEEP ACCURACY has been bad since he's been in the NFL.

Again, if you watch all his highlights since he's been in the NFL, you will only find 1 completion where the ball went more than 30 yards in the air.

This has also been seen in practice. It is an issue that needs to be fixed.

He had it once.. it's just missing now.

[KCClybun]

I don't think the media is willfully picking on him but they already have a perception bias against him and therefore (imo) look for things that justify their preconceptions.

For example I would regularly read about Grossman getting picked off 2 and 3 times during practice in tweets and read about tweets of Beck being off target on deep balls, which by nature are low percentage throws, yet the training camp report for the day would be that Beck had a bad practice or struggled throwing the ball.

Also, I think throwing during training camp to several different receivers is not ideal.

The passing game is about chemistry.

No disrespect to any one covering practice but I cannot take their word over (a) what i've seen with my own eyes ( reports from his teammates that actually catch passes from him © empirical evidence at the combine.

Again, I don't think anyone is saying he has a weak arm. I think people have legitimate concerns about his deep ball accuracy, and when it comes to our local guys...they know what they see, man. To say "well they're not out there catch passes from the guy", I think, is unfair to the fact that they're at practice almost every day watching him. I don't think it's media bias to be a Redskins Park nearly every day, watching practice, and see the same problem, with the same guy, several times a day.

Every practice report I see says the same thing; Beck is great on the checkdowns, the short and intermediate stuff. But when asked to throw deep, his guy has to either adjust to the football, or he's overthrowing them. Some days he's better than others, but it's hard to ignore someone saying the same thing over and over and over again. And I think it's implicitly implied that, if Rex is throwing three picks in practice, that he didn't have a good practice. It's not that he doesn't have the arm to deliver the football; is that he has the arm, but he can't control it.

To paraphrase the Katt Williams joke, how are you going to say the same thing almost every day about someone in training camp unless it's true?

It's not the arm; it's the accuracy. I know he can throw it deep. I just want to know that if we have to stretch the field and take a shot, he's going to complete the pass regularly. Over and underthrowing the ball was a problem with McNabb last season that more or less screwed up some surefire touchdown passes. I'd rather not see Armstrong running wide open and then have to slide down and adjust to the ball or seeing it land five yards in front of him anymore.

The discussion shouldn't be whether his arm is strong enough. It should be about whether he can contain it.

[addicted]

Actually, it's rebutted by the Redskins receivers who, to a man, say Beck throws a harder ball than Grossman and no one thinks Grossman has a weak arm.

There everyone is the answer to this question

Once again Art thanks for posting

---------- Post added August-18th-2011 at 11:18 AM ----------

This video may help a little, he's kind of got that Michael Vick "whip" throw even under pressure... (Warning: the song is pretty homo)

"The Book of John" is pretty ghay too (no offense to alternative lifestyles either)

Cool video just mute that mess

[Pedro]

This throw is about 65 yards, and was when he was in college. His arm will be stronger now.

[Art]

That's one hell of a statement. If corroborated, I would even say it's a lights out, end of disscusion, game over, type statement.

Would you be kind enough to provide links to the various quotes by individual Redskins receivers that support this statement?

The last mention of Beck's arm in practice was Anthony Armstrong on Redskins.com video a couple days ago talking about the differences between Beck and Grossman. Each time a receiver discusses that topic it's the same answer and it's usually a 5 second assessment in interviews throughout camp.