QB Velocity Rankings: Nick Foles has an objectively strong arm

Arm strength for NFL quarterbacks is typically a relatively subjective assessment. Without hard data, it’s tough to say definitively who has strong arms and who doesn’t.

Personally, I’ve always wondered why they don’t have QBs do a long distance toss or throw for a radar gun at the combine. Perhaps they fear it would hurt the players’ arms? Well, apparently there’ve been speed guns at the combine for years, and Ourlads.com has the results for 2008-2014, which I’ve compiled into the chart below (long, but Control-F-ible).

As you can see, Nick Foles ranks in the 13^th-21^st range among the 90 quarterbacks who threw at the combine from 2008-2014. Now, this isn’t a perfect dataset for measuring relative arm strength [1], but the results still demonstrate that Nick Foles has upper-end arm strength.

Quarterback Throw Velocities at NFL Combine 2008-2014
Rank	QB	Velocity	Program	Year
1	Logan Thomas	60	Virginia Tech	2014
2-7	Stephen Morris	59	Miami	2014
2-7	Tyler Bray	59	Tennessee	2013
2-7	Zac Dysert	59	Miami (OH)	2013
2-7	Brandon Weeden	59	Oklahoma State	2012
2-7	Kirk Cousins	59	Michigan State	2012
2-7	Colin Kaepernick	59	Nevada	2011
8-12	Austin Davis	58	Southern Mississippi	2012
8-12	Ryan Mallett	58	Arkansas	2011
8-12	John Wilson Parker	58	Alabama	2009
8-12	Mike Reilly	58	Central Washington	2009
8-12	Drew Willy	58	Buffalo	2009
13-21	Tom Savage	57	Pittsburgh	2014
13-21	James Vandenberg	57	Iowa	2013
13-21	Nick Foles	57	Arizona	2012
13-21	Chandler Harnish	57	Northern Illinois	2012
13-21	Jordan Jefferson	57	LSU	2012
13-21	Mark Sanchez	57	Southern Cal	2009
13-21	Josh Freeman	57	Kansas State	2009
13-21	Chase Daniels	57	Missouri	2009
13-21	Paul Smith	57	Tulsa	2008
22-33	Blake Bortles	56	Central Florida	2014
22-33	Jimmy Garoppolo	56	Eastern Illinois	2014
22-33	Jeff Mathews	56	Cornell	2014
22-33	Keith Wenning	56	Ball State	2014
22-33	Ryan Nassib	56	Syracuse	2013
22-33	Bradley Sorensen	56	Southern Utah	2013
22-33	Patrick Devlin	56	Delaware	2011
22-33	Andy Dalton	56	TCU	2011
22-33	Cam Newton	56	Auburn	2011
22-33	Levi Brown	56	Troy	2010
22-33	Nate Davis	56	Ball State	2009
22-33	Curtis Painter	56	Purdue	2009
34-42	Jordan Lynch	55	Northern Illinois	2014
34-42	Geno Smith	55	West Virginia	2013
34-42	Tyler Wilson	55	Arkansas	2013
34-42	Russell Wilson	55	Wisconsin	2012
34-42	Casey Keenum	55	Houston	2012
34-42	Scott Tolzien	55	Wisconsin	2011
34-42	Rhett Bomar	55	Sam Houston State	2009
34-42	Joe Flacco	55	Delaware	2008
34-42	Kevin O’Connell	55	San Diego St	2008
43-49	Tajh Boyd	54	Clemson	2014
43-49	Bryn Renner	54	North Carolina	2014
43-49	EJ Manuel	54	Florida State	2013
43-49	Matthew Scott	54	Arizona	2013
43-49	Patrick Witt	54	Yale	2012
43-49	Nathan Enderle	54	Idaho	2011
43-49	Jake Locker	54	Washington	2011
50-59	David Fales	53	San Jose State	2014
50-59	AJ McCarron	53	Alabama	2014
50-59	Dustin Vaughan	53	West Texas A&M	2014
50-59	Landry Jones	53	Oklahoma	2013
50-59	Darron Thomas	53	Oregon	2012
50-59	Tom Brandstetter	53	Fresno State	2009
50-59	Cullen Harper	53	Clemson	2009
50-59	Stephen McGee	53	Texas A & M	2009
50-59	Brian Brohm	53	Louisville	2008
50-59	Chad Henne	53	Michigan	2008
60-71	Collin Klein	52	Kansas State	2013
60-71	Ryan Lindley	52	San Diego State	2012
60-71	Kellen Moore	52	Boise State	2012
60-71	TJ Yates	52	North Carolina	2011
60-71	Max Hall	52	BYU	2010
60-71	Tim Hiller	52	Western Michigan	2010
60-71	Michael Kafka	52	Northwestern	2010
60-71	Zac Robinson	52	Oklahoma St.	2010
60-71	Jevan Snead	52	Mississippi	2010
60-71	Graham Harrell	52	Texas Tech	2009
60-71	Pat White	52	West Virginia	2009
60-71	Erik Ainge	52	Tennessee	2008
72-76	Colby Cameron	51	Louisiana Tech	2013
72-76	Marqueis Gray	51	Minnesota	2013
72-76	Christian Ponder	51	Florida St	2011
72-76	Sean Canfield	51	Oregon St.	2010
72-76	John David Booty	51	Southern Cal	2008
77-84	Connor Shaw	50	South Carolina	2014
77-84	Jacory Harris	50	Miami	2012
77-84	Aaron Corp	50	Richmond	2012
77-84	Ricky Stanzi	50	Iowa	2011
77-84	Tyrod Taylor	50	Va Tech	2011
77-84	Jarrett Brown	50	West Virginia	2010
77-84	John Skelton	50	Fordham	2010
77-84	Matt Flynn	50	LSU	2008
85-88	Michael Glennon	49	North Carolina State	2013
85-88	Dan LeFevour	49	Central Michigan	2010
85-88	Tony Pike	49	Cincinnati	2010
85-88	Josh Johnson	49	San Diego	2008
89	Armanti Edwards	46.5	Appalachian St.	2010
90	Colt Brennan	44	Hawaii	2008

I wanted another way to verify arm strength, so I looked at Football Outsiders’ 2012 game charting data (2013 not out yet) to find his longest throw that year. Only 15 QBs threw a ball farther downfield than Foles (53 yards) all year (and three tied him).

This is an even more imperfect measure than our combine data [2], but it is still additional objective evidence that Foles has a good arm, especially since Foles achieved such a high mark on fewer attempts than most quarterbacks on this list. (Also note how low Peyton Manning ranked. I would be curious to see how he did in 2010 or earlier before his neck injury, and I will be anxious to see how he fared in 2013.)

I think part of the issue with anyone underestimating Foles’ arm strength was that Donovan McNabb and Michael Vick (subjectively) had cannons. I don’t have much hard evidence for either player, but both pass the eye test. People rave about the way the ball jumps out of Vick’s hand (and he did have a 56 yard toss in 2012). And no one ever complained about McNabb’s arm strength; if anything, he was criticized for throwing the ball too hard for his receivers to catch!

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Footnotes

[1] There is some sampling bias here if we’re looking to compare him to all QBs in the league. Not all future pro-QBs go to the combine, and it’s also common for a few prospects each year to attend without throwing. And those prospects also often tend to be the most highly rated prospects, and so we can assume that they would be likelier than normal to have strong arms. (On the other hand, maybe some don’t throw because they want to hide weak arms?)

Another issue is that the values seem off. Why is Armani Edwards’ velocity given with a decimal while the others’ are not? And was Colt Brennan’s maximum velocity seriously 16 mph slower than Logan Thomas’. A 44 mph max velocity implies he can throw the ball about 45 yards max (rough estimate based on playing around with a projectile motion calculator). Seriously? I tried to check this by watching Colt Brennan highlight videos on YouTube and saw zero tosses exceeding 40 yards in 4 minutes of watching. Is that right?

[2]

1. Incompletions are marked based on where the ball lands and completions are marked where it’s caught so if a quarterback throws a ball that’s caught, it will have a shorter reported distance than the same ball that is not caught and travels a little farther before hitting the ground.
2. You’ll get more distance throwing straight down the middle as opposed to down the sideline
3. The starting point is the line of scrimmage as opposed to the spot where the QB released the ball.
4. Not every QB unleashes a max distance throw each year
5. Wind/weather may help some and hurt others

Regardless, these flaws affect all QBs about the same, so over such a large sample, it should still provide a reasonable approximation of arm strength.