Before the surgeries, it does.

Pennington was pretty damn good before all the shoulder trouble.

Even before the shoulder injuries, Pennington had just about the weakest arm in the Nfl.

Barkley won't have a stronger arm than many starting quarterbacks, either.

:banghead:

I know we would be having a chiefs sills style discussion, but tell me the starting NFL qbs that Barkley will have a stronger arm than. I don't think it's a stretch to say he would be in the bottom third.

rivers, peyton, schaub, romo, dalton, sanchez, cassel

on par with:
wilson, bradford, brees, ryan, brady, alex smith

haven't watched enough to know:
weeden, tannehill, fitzpatrick, foles

Brady and Ryan? No.

The weirdest thing about the weak arm critique on Barkley, is that it was mostly from his Freshmen/Sophomore year. His arm has improved considerably since, but for whatever reason the weak arm line stuck with him.

Maybe it has something to do with how much air he puts under a lot of his deep balls. I think it's intentional (to drop it over the defenders), but I'll be interested to see how he looks throwing at the combine. If his arm surprises scouts there, what are the chances he challenges or overtakes Geno at the top of the QB class?

It's improved but he still doesn't zip the ball in intermediate areas (Digs, seams) or on comebacks/hitches as well as most top tier guys. You can balance that with utilizing PA and having WRs that run solid routes and utilizing a deep passing game that makes DBs respect deep throws and give a little more hesitance to jumping routes IMO.

I agree. In conjunction, I think he tends to float the balls because he has two very athletic receivers that can get up for it. It's really not much different from what Stafford does with Megatron. Obviously his arm isn't like Staffords but you get the point.

And I think the USC Stigma alone will keep him out of the running for the top QB spot.

No way Barkley's arm is on par with Wilson, Brady, Romo, or Matt Ryan. IMO, Alex Smith can also put more velocity on the ball than Barkley as well due to his release point and length. (Haven't compared arm length bw Smith and Barkley but it seems to me that his arms are longer and coupled with his release the ball gets more zip).

I'd say he's similar to Dalton with a bit more velocity.

Wonder if that was with an inflated ball?

I need to rewatch the Oregon/USC game from this year. Barkley just went off despite getting rocked all game long.