Matt Barkley hurt his shoulder last year against UCLA. He got it fixed and then spent all offseason saying that he was at 100 percent.
Apparently that wasn’t the case. Tim McManus has some quotes from Barkley.
“I’ve come a long way, come a long way,” said Barkley after practice. “My shoulder — I didn’t think it would take that long to get healthy — but it was really hurting during OTAs at one point. [Training] camp it hurt a little bit, too. But right now I feel it’s the strongest it’s been all year, I feel like I’ve got more power on the ball, more zip. I feel comfortable with the offense and that always helps with the timing of things.”
“It’s a tough situation,” said Barkley, “but you have to suck it up. It’s the NFL, no one cares about stuff like that. Feels good now, though.”
Barkley certainly didn’t wow anyone with his arm in the OTAs, TC or the preseason. I’d love to see him throw now to see if there is a noticeable difference or not. He’s never going to have a great arm, but he could be good enough.
Barkley throws good deep balls because of his mechanics and the way he uses his lower body. The throws he’ll struggle with are the deep outs where you either have a strong arm or you don’t. You can’t manufacture velocity.
