It was an interesting video, but the thing the first guy said about preferring talent is completely wrong.
When a QB repeatedly hits WRs in stride 40 yards down field, people say “Wow that guy’s got a heck of an arm! Look how many passing yards he has!” This is erroneous. Every QB in the league can throw 40 yards. Heck, if you can’t throw 50 yards, you probably get cut in minicamp. Thats not arm talent, that’s learned skill from repetitions and experience.
When Tom Brady came out of college, he may have been the least gifted QB in draft history. He was skinny, weak, can’t run, and he did not have a great arm. It was probably about league average. Over time he built it up and people may remember how impressive he looked in the later 2010’s when he was firing howitzers to Gronk and Edelman and Evans.
One of the most weak-armed QBs in recent memory is Matt Ryan. League MVP Matt Ryan. And a guy who was even worse than Matt Ryan was Drew Brees. One of Brees’ negative coming out of college was his substandard arm strength. This was Mel Kiper’s mockup of Drew in 2001 before the combine:
“I like the way Brees went about his business and managed the Boilermaker offense, but during a structured individual workout he'll have to prove that he has the necessary arm strength to shine in any pro system.”
And then he had a nasty shoulder injury in SD, before he went to New Orleans. What a lot of people don’t know is Drew never fully recovered from that. His arm was worse in New Orleans than in San Diego. He was throwing for 5000 yards with a pool Noodle. Today he can’t even lift his arm over his head due to that injury that never got fully fixed.
Now let’s talked about Physically talented QBs: Cam was league MVP, and completely toast at 31. Daunte Culpepper had a monster arm and was a wrecking ball when he took off, couldn’t even complete 60% of his passes by the time he was 30. Michael Vick was a perennial pro bowler in the 20’s, career backup by just 33. Joe Flacco might have the strongest arm we’ve ever seen, last time he started double digit games was at 32.
What is my point? Matt Ryan completed 65% of his passes for 4500 yards at 37. Drew Brees threw for nearly 30,000 yards(!) after his 35th birthday. Tom Brady was a pro bowl player at 45. Having the talent Joe has is almost a negative in NFL, because he will rely too much on that talent, and when it doesn’t serve him the way it need to or it’s gone due to age, it’s a problem. But the less talented QBs have to do more to compete with the talented ones. Hone the skills, watch more tape, stay after to work on the small stuff. This is why they’re still good when they get old, because skill stays, and they already know how to succeed when athletically disadvantaged.
Which brings up 2 big points: how many people here knew Peyton Manning did not have a super strong arm coming out of college? As pointed out before, just because he’s hitting Marvin Harrison in stride over and over again way down field does not mean his arm is great. But the media touted that it does, when Peyton will be the first to tell you Eli always had a way better arm than he did. And then Peyton had the bad neck thing and lost all his arm strength in 2011. Over the next 3 years he had a historically great statistical stretch in Denver that blew away anything he did in Indianapolis…. With what resembled a broken lawn chair hanging out of his shoulder joint.
The second point is Dak Prescott. How many here can tell me what velocity Dak threw at the combine? Ready?….. 54 MPH. Not bad. Carson Wentz was 57 MPH the same year and Patrick Mahomes hit 60 MPH the year after, to show the scale it lands on. Guess what Jalen Hurts threw for in 2020; ready?……….. 54 MPH. Jalen Hurts and Dak Prescott, at least as rookies, had similar arm talent (at least in that specific test). 2 major differences between them: Dak is 5ish years older, so he’s far more developed and has improved his arm strength like Brady did, and Jalen has always ran a lot in college and the NFL, so his attempts metric is far lower than Dak’s…. Meaning Dak has far more experience and skill behind his throwing, and it reflects on the field. You can compare Jalen’s now to maybe 2018 Dak. 2026 Dak is probably not a realistic thing he may ever hit unless he stops running and does what Dak has done to be an almost exclusive pocket passer.
So in TL;DR, my overall point is physical talent at QB really doesn’t matter. The guys who made it preserved regardless of their physical tools. And Joe Milton getting cut has nothing to do with “arm potential” or “physical gifts” or how great he looked in a preseason game. Nick Foles has a podcast and he brought up an interesting point: a QB should never care about his statline in a preseason game, because the coaches don’t. They need to see how he runs the offense against a live defense who isn’t playing nice. It’s not about taking deep shots and hitting them because the third string deep safety sucks, it’s about getting the play in and to the line at a good time. It’s about immediately taking the checkdown based on what the defense shows. It’s about properly adjusting offensive personal when there’s confusion before the snap.
Joe didn’t get cut because he didn’t do enough in those games, he got cut because he didn’t do the little things that are what really make great QBs great. He got cut because of the meeting room, because of playbook retention, because of comfortability after 2 years in the offense. Joe would have looked cooler than Sam if the #2 needed to play, but this is saying Sam is far more reliable to do what the coach needs to improve the chance of winning. Checkdown Charlie wins football games, it’s always been that way.