Eagles quarterback Matt Barkley has heard the questions about whether his arm is strong enough to succeed in the NFL, and he doesn’t take kindly to them.
Barkley personally responded on a Reddit thread titled, “Barkley’s arm strength a concern” to say that his arm strength is no concern at all. Responding to Jimmy Kempski of Philly.com, who wrote that Barkley may “struggle to stay in the league” if he can’t improve the velocity on his throws, Barkley wrote on Reddit that it simply isn’t true.
“Easy there Jimmy, you don’t know a thing about that route, the defensive coverage, technique of the wide receiver, the route he was actually running, let alone my maximum velocity arm strength,” Barkley wrote. “We can play catch sometime if you want to figure out for yourself how hard I can throw it, just lemme know.”
Maybe Barkley is right, and he can put more heat on the ball in a game situation than he showed at minicamp. But the next time he plays in a game, he’ll have to be a lot better than he was in limited game action as a rookie, when he completed 30 of 49 passes for 300 yards, with no touchdowns, four interceptions and three fumbles. If that’s how Barkley plays in the preseason, he may be in danger of getting cut.
