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There’s one man who has wielded a tremendous amount of influence with the top quarterbacks in the 2021 NFL Draft. John Beck, a former NFL quarterback under both Mike and Kyle Shanahan, has been working with Zach Wilson for much of this year, with Justin Fields for the last few months, and recently, at the 49ers’ behest, with Trey Lance. The Athletic’s Matt Barrows elds-qb-coach-who-now-works-with-trey-lance-too/working with the quarterbacks.
Beck is operating as sort of a quarterback whisperer and provided an invaluable service specifically for the 49ers. Due to COVID-19 protocols, private workouts have been banned, so Beck has worked, essentially, as Shanahan and other interested NFL team’s proxy, incorporating drills and specific wrinkles of their offenses.
Beck joined KNBR on Thursday and broke down what Shanahan is looking for in a quarterback. The full answers are listed because it gets fairly granular:
Kyle wants somebody that can understand his offense, that can process information quickly, that can see the field through a lens that makes sense for him to be able to coach it, and for you to kind of see it how he sees it. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but he wants you to be able to communicate with him and then be able to process so that in-game communication, during practice communication, all those things can flow smoothly. He’s also really big on feet. He wants to be able to tie feet to the scheme, and really vice versa, so he’s very particular about the feet of his quarterback, the eyes of his quarterback, the positioning, and he looks for traits and abilities.
Physical abilities would be getting the ball out quickly, being able to drive it to a lot of different places on the field quickly and effortlessly. He loves to be aggressive in play pass, especially certain areas of the field. So he wants somebody that can, as they come off the play fake, if those safeties start to cut the underneath routes, they have the ability, or I should say also, if they get flat-footed, he wants somebody that can drive a ball downfield.
And then within space in this game, space is always taken away because of the pressure on the defense. So he wants somebody that doesn’t have to use a bunch of space in the pocket, to be able to really drive the ball and do it accurately. So that’s why there’s certain elements of a guy that may jump out to him and he looks and says, I know where that fits in what I do.
A lot of people just want to say, oh he’s looking for an athletic quarterback and they think, oh, anybody with athleticism fits. Kyle doesn’t need a Lamar Jackson athlete, he just needs somebody athletic enough to run the keeper game, to be able to move off the spot and in the play pass game, to be able to move enough, selling the actions, and if there is any pressure, quickly move and still be able to drive every single throw to all three levels of the field.
Things that stand out from above are bolded. What it affirms is that Shanahan’s priorities are processing, footwork, communication, sufficient athleticism to run and sell play action passes, and the ability to drive the ball to “all three levels” of the field.
As far as athleticism goes.
“I see athleticism to him in the run game, it’s more about when things break down, can somebody bail me out, right? He’s not going to be able to go and make the perfect play call every play. He’s not going to be able to protect his quarterback perfectly on every play, so do they have the ability to make a play when things break down? Do they have the ability when the protection almost holds up?
Can they avoid one person, can they then get out and make a move and then still remain a passer, whether from a throwing platform or a runner’s platform, can they still do that? So to me in terms of how I see, you know, an athletic quarterback who has the ability to run to do so in Kyle’s offense, that’s more of what he’s looking for.”
When you read that and assess the three options on the board, it just points much more clearly to one of Justin Fields or Trey Lance, especially in terms of movement in the pocket, throwing with limited space, driving the ball down the field, and providing that bail out ability. That’s not even a criticism of Mac Jones; it’s just pointing out what the other two prospects have that he doesn’t.
Listen to the full, tremendous podcast episode below.