Josh Weinfuss
Multiple Authors
TEMPE, Ariz. — On the eve of rookie minicamp, Arizona Cardinals third-round pick Carson Beck said Thursday that his right arm, which the quarterback injured in 2024, is the “strongest it’s ever been.”
Beck said he feels like he’s throwing the ball “really well recently,” almost 18 months after surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, which was torn off the bone on the final play of the first half of the 2024 SEC championship game. He avoided full-blown Tommy John surgery because the UCL did not tear in half.
Beck said his arm started to feel “great” toward the end of the 2025 season, which Beck played at the University of Miami after transferring from Georgia, and into the College Football Playoff. Beck led the Hurricanes to the CFP National Championship Game, winning three games along the way before falling to Indiana 27-21 in the title game.
“Again, my arm feels great,” Beck said. “It has for a while now, but I think really being able to hone in and have an offseason to train and focus on it compared to the year before where I have the surgery, I’m rehabbing, I’m trying to learn a new offense, you’re really not able to focus on those kind of like small, minute details.
“I think that has really helped being able to have this offseason.”
Beck spent this offseason heading into the draft working on the fluidity of his throwing motion and focusing on his mechanics, making sure they’re “exactly 100% and exactly what I want them to be.”
In the immediate aftermath of his injury in December 2024, which caused him to miss the College Football Playoff that season, Beck said he constantly battled two competing mentalities: Would he ever get back to 100%, or was it just a matter of time to get there?
“Obviously, at the quarterback position, that’s probably the worst injury that you could possibly have,” Beck said.
“You want to tell yourself, always, it’s going to be fine. It’s just going to take time. You just have to trust the process and you have a lot of really, really good people around you that are going to help you get back to where you were. But then it’s two months in and you still haven’t thrown a football and you’re sitting there and it’s hard for you mentally.”
Beck’s return to throwing came in Jacksonville, Florida, his hometown, where he began by throwing just 10-yard passes. At the time, it was what he was instructed to do, but Beck said it was also all he could muster at that point of his recovery.
After two weeks of light, 10-yard throwing, he started to unleash his arm again.
He was instructed to “let it rip,” but he was hesitant and for good reason. The last time he threw long, his UCL ripped off his bone.
“It [was] hard to get over that mental hump and mental barrier,” Beck said. “But they’re like, ‘Just let one rip.’ And I just full go and my arm was fine and I was like, ‘All right, I’m going to be good.'”
The grind of his recovery gave Beck a new perspective, he said. It also fueled his internal fire.
“Just realizing, man, I just want to be out there. I want to play football. This sucks,” he said. “It obviously was a really hard time for me and a difficult situation to go through, but again, the guys at Miami really kind of rallied around me through that time and really helped me get through that, from the trainers to the coaches to the teammates.”
Beck will take the field for the first time as an NFL quarterback Friday, the first day of Arizona’s rookie minicamp. He reported Thursday after a week or so of video calls with quarterbacks coach Matt Schaub and offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, going through the playbook and talking through how they see the game.
Coach Mike LaFleur has said Beck could see the field as a rookie if he outperforms the veteran quarterbacks on the roster, Jacoby Brissett and Gardner Minshew II.
Beck said he sees every day as a “learning experience,” and that includes practice and game experiences as well as meetings.
“Just talking to guys around the facility, just trying to get all the little breadcrumbs that I can from each and every person,” Beck said. “But, again, everybody wants to play football, especially at the position of quarterback. You want to be the guy out there.”
However, Beck isn’t concerned with that just yet.
“I think, for me, the most important thing is A, get in the building. I started meeting with the coaches and going over the playbook and learn the guys around me, build relationships, start to connect with them, be myself, and then just go play ball, have fun, enjoy the process,” Beck said. “But, again, just try to improve and get better each and every day. And if I continue to do that, I think we’ll see where that takes you.”
That could be on the bench, learning from Brissett and Minshew, or on the field, leading Arizona out of a three-win season as the starting quarterback.
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