The Arizona Cardinals have a math problem. Or, to be more accurate, a time problem.
With increasingly tight restrictions on NFL practices, opportunities are limited for their scout team. That group sees 32 live reps every Wednesday, 36 on Thursday and 20 on Friday.
And for backups, that’s typically the only practice opportunity available in a given week. Unlike during training camp, the second-string units don’t get regular work within the Cardinals’ own scheme once the season begins. The third-stringers often get no work at all.
Here’s where the problem comes in.
For the Cardinals, one of the key stories this season is the development of third-round rookie Carson Beck. Even as the third-string quarterback, he offers the Cardinals long-term upside
at the sport’s most important position, in a way that the veterans on their roster don’t.
So with Beck, the Cardinals have come up with a plan. Rather than Gardner Minshew taking every scout team rep — as would typically be the case — they are now splitting their scout-team reps between Minshew and Beck.
“Gardner's played a lot of football, and Carson hasn't, in the NFL,” head coach Mike LaFleur said. “So as you're trying to develop these guys, we just thought it was right to do that. Had Gardner been a second-year guy and was our number two, then probably wouldn't be doing this.”
For Beck, those reps are crucial.
“I get to go against our starting defense every day, which is awesome,” Beck said. “And those are invaluable reps. So getting used to the speed, just developing and getting those reps. Obviously, if I was just sitting and not getting any reps, it's kind of hard to develop and grow.”
The downside, of course, is that Beck isn’t running the Cardinals’ own scheme with the scout team, as he did during training camp. But he gets mental reps every day in meetings, both with the quarterbacks and with the full offense. And on the practice field, he’s often running similar concepts to those that he would see on Sundays.
“Yeah, sure, it's not our offense,” Beck said. “But everybody runs the ‘same thing.’ And you can make things translate and make them the same and go through reads the way that you would, even though it might not be exactly the same.”
The ability to create those opportunities for Beck also helps mitigate the harm of the ribs injury he sustained in the Hall of Fame game.
Beck was the Cardinals’ standout performer that night, completing 15 of 19 passes for 188 yards and a touchdown. After a rocky start to training camp, he looked in control of the Cardinals’ offense, consistently making the right decisions, albeit against a defense that he admitted was “pretty vanilla.”
The following week in practice, Beck continued to excel, most notably with a highlight-reel no-look touchdown pass that only served to accelerate the hype. But as that week progressed, his ribs injury got worse and worse. Eventually, he was shut down for two weeks and missed the Cardinals’ final three preseason games.
“Obviously that part sucks, missing that time, which is just so valuable, catching up to speed in the NFL,” Beck said. “But for me right now, it's just being the best that I can be in my role and doing whatever I can to help contribute to the team, and making sure that I'm prepared if my number is ever called.”
Now that he’s back on the field, Beck feels that his development has picked up where it left off back in August.
“You get around guys like LaFleur, (Nathaniel) Hackett, (Matt) Schaub and just pick their brains apart and the game just starts to slow down,” Beck said.
The players he works with on the scout team have seen it, too.
“You can just tell,” wide receiver Simi Fehoko said. “The guy can sling it, and he just has a good understanding of the game. Even in scout team, you'll see throws where you're like, 'I would never expect a rookie to make that throw.' And he did and completed it.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Cardinals reveal development plan for QB Carson Beck
