I am a chad fan. I think that sometimes the arm strength or lack of armstrength is overblown. However, one thing -- and someone mentioned this on the board -- and i saw it yesterday at "Camp" -- he NEVER throws the ball hard. Not in warmups, not in tossing, not in scrimmages. Its very strange. And I dont mean "hard" by NFL standards -- Im talking anyone -- he never throws it full speed. Everything he threw yesterday was "soft." He gets some distance and he is accurate but he never seem to try to throw hard -- regardless of the situation.
Kind of makes you wonder. Is it because he just can't, or is it that he thinks if he has to drill it in there then it may not be his best option. CP really never does throw "lazer beam" passes, not even in the 10-20 range.
Exactly. He does not even try to zip them in during drills or warm ups or scrimmages. I know that when baseball players warm up they dont try to throw their hardest (except pitchers do) -- but at least once or twice you think that Chad would try to "open it up." When you watch at practice -- he does not ever try to throw as hard as he can.
That was me that mentioned that in my report. I tried to do it with kindness and the knowledge that Chad is well liked and has MANY other qualities than we often give him credit for. But, yeah, I saw no lasers... nothing even close. I was a little disappointed because I was hoping that with all the rehab, all the supposed working out in the offseason, etc., that there would be some visible difference over last year. Now, in all fairness, there's a report floating around by a reporter this morning who attended the PM practice and said that Chad had some very nice deep balls. Unfortunately, he still didn't say how much zip was on them... just that they were well-placed deep shots. The one deep pass I saw yesterday morning sailed into the end zone and was batted down by Coleman or Dyson, and I remember saying to the guy next to me that the ball had a lot of air under it and the defenders had plenty of time to get there. But now, if Chad was just purposefully not putting heat on his passes yesterday morning and perhaps was intentionally concentrating more on accuracy, accuracy, accuracy, that could be. Clemens and Tui had more laser passes, although had this been an actual game, I would have by far traded Chad's accuracy for their zip. My overall impression yesterday after watching the entire picture with Chad is, he's definitely our #1 QB, far and away. His "command presence," his smarts, his confidence level (off the charts), his knowledge of all the intricacies, his leadership and all the other intangibles that he brings to the table makes him far and away a much better QB than any of the others. And, dare I say, I think he's a better overall QB than meny in the league. When I think of most of the other QBs in the league right now, we could do far worse than play 16 games with a healthy Chad. A healthy Chad... that's going to be the key.
Or perhaps... Chad throws so hard and fast they all appear to be moving in slow motion as they are thrown so hard and fast as to slow down the actual orbit of the planet. Heck, even the sun has been known to waver under the stress of a Pennington throw.
I wonder why he never even attempts putting a little mustard on his throws. Touch and Accuracy are great, and I would rather have him then a bullet armed qb that makes many bad decisions, but being that he had a regular off season where he could focus on improving himself instead of just recuperating from an injury I expected to hear more reports about him having more velocity. It does suck knowing our qb has 1 glaring weakness, but as long as he continues to improve and stay away from injury I think he'll end up as a high echelon qb due to what he does well.
CP has a very deliberate throwing motion which gives the illusion of a soft, effortless ball. IMO - its the "lazy" motion that gets him more in trouble against the aggressive cornerbacks....its not totally the arm strength. ken obrien had this a bit but he had a pretty good arm - so it was compensated for in a way. its something that is not changing so that is why pattern timing is the entire jets passing game. - also why it is heavily dependent on a decent running game and good TE play - neither of which the jets have excelled at in a couple years. jil
There's still the possibility that Chad didn't want to put some velocity on his passes or didn't feel the need to in the AM practice. And many of the drills that I watched from the fence were either hurry-up offense or quick play-action stuff with short dump-offs to Leon and Jones to give them some practice with the check-downs. Chad even threw one away late in the practice. It's still early in Training Camp too. Maybe Chad's arm is stronger now and he's already proved that he can throw with velocity and we just haven't seen it, and maybe the CS has told him to concentrate on accuracy first, and then the speed will follow. This would not be out of the realm of possibility given that the first two days were awash with dropped, sloppy, inaccurate passing and running. I know this is a lot of wishful thinking on my part, but it's possible the CS told Chad, "Let's all settle down and concentrate on completing the passes and getting them there accurately, so that the WRs and others get the feel for completing the catch and getting yards after, etc." Once you get this down, you can always put more heat on in later practices. This might be pure bullshit on my part, but I'm just trying to grasp at reasons why I didn't see Chad throw a bit more forcefully yesterday.
This is so, with the arm motion and the soft "look" on the pass. Of course, this look is often reality too, especially in windy situations. But in comparison, Tui, for example, has a pretty hot, straight-trajectory pass. But it is what it is, whatever it is. And this is why we design a lot of plays around Chad as opposed to trying to force him to be a John Elway or something he's not. Chad compensates for his lack of zip in so many ways it's actually becoming an art form. He's learned to overcome this deficiency in so many ways that I'm truly not sure we need to constantly obsess over thinking that this is the end-all or that this is the one, solitary, defining thing that will keep us from winning championships. I'm going to say this again fellas. The running game I saw yesterday is absolutely awesome. Both Jones and Wahsington are true north-south runners. It's downright scary when Leon gets his hands on the ball in one of Chad's check-downs, for example, because the guy is at full stride within two steps of the catch and if he's got even a couple of yards of extra room, he's juking the hell out of people and making it look easy. Jones is no slouch in both speed and short, pass-catching ability either, so beween the new-found running attack, which I'm sure has arrived finally, and Chad's ability to make things happen, this is going to more than compensate for his one, obvious, possibly somewhat overblown weakness, IMO.
How come every camp article I have seen has been praising Chad? Is the media making it up that Pennington looks stronger?
Chad's accuracy has been very good, but his arm has been noticeably weak. No less than it was last year, but not up to par to expectations. Plus, he looks better when compared to his competition.
When He does throw it hard , he throws with his whole body and really arches his back, so for me hes never had the arm strength.
Someone in the media has said his arm looks stronger? That I haven't read... but not saying it didn't happen. You have an example or reference? Or perhaps you read that Chad had some nice, deep passes in the PM pratice, GM. He may have, but I didn't read anywhere that they had velocity on them.
Beat writers are just used to Chad's pathetically weak arm, I guess. And I should have said most Jet fans accept mediocrity. That's why most people are in love with Chad.
You are overblowing it because -- it is not the only mark of a quality qb. The issue -- i raised based on what i saw yesterday is that he does not seem to TRY to throw the ball hard--in drills, warmups or scrimmages. Even with that glaring weakness -- the other qbs at camp do not pose any threat to him at this point.
