Carson Beck is ready to move past arm injuries, focus on the Cardinals

TEMPE, Ariz. — On the eve of rookie minicamp, Arizona Cardinals Third round pick Carson Beck Thursday said his right arm, which injured the quarterback in 2024, is “the strongest it’s ever been.”

Beck said he thinks he’s thrown the ball “really well recently,” about 18 months after surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, which was torn from 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 wasn’t torn 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 and in the College Football Playoff after transferring from Georgia. 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’s been around for a while now, but I think having an offseason to train and focus compared to the year before the surgery, me rehabbing, me trying to learn a new offense, you’re not really able to focus on small, minute details like that.

“I think it really helped to be able to this offseason.”

Beck spent this offseason leading up to the draft working on the fluidity of his throwing motion and focusing on his mechanics, making sure they are “100% right and 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 struggled with two competing mindsets: Would he ever be back to 100%, or was it just a matter of time before he got there?

“Obviously, at the quarterback position, that’s probably the worst injury you can have,” Beck said.

“You want to tell yourself, always, it’s going to be okay. It’s just going to take time. You just have to trust the process and have a lot of really, really good people around you to help you get back to where you were. But then it’s been two months and you still haven’t thrown a football and you’re sitting there and it’s tough on you mentally.”

Beck’s return to throwing came in his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida, where he started by throwing just a 10-yard pass. At the time, it was what he was told to do, but Beck said it was all he could muster at that point in his recovery.

After two weeks of light, 10-yard throws, he began to open his arms again.

He was instructed to “let it rip,” but he was hesitant, and for good reason. The last time he threw long, his UCL tore his bone.

“It was hard to get over that mental hump and mental hurdle,” Beck said. “But they’re like, ‘Just give it a rip.’ And I was completely gone and my arm was fine and I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to be fine.’

The grind of his recovery has given Beck a new perspective, he said. It also fuels his inner fire.

“Just realizing, man, I just want to be out there. I want to play football. It’s so bad,” he said. “It was obviously a really tough time for me and a tough situation to go through, but again, the Miami guys really rallied around me during that time and really helped me from coach to coach to teammates.”

On Friday, the first day of Arizona’s rookie minicamp, Beck will take the field as an NFL quarterback for the first time. He reported Thursday after a week of video calls with quarterbacks coach Matt Schaub and offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, going through the playbook and talking about how they view the game.

Coach Mike LaFleur said Beck could see the field as a rookie after the veteran quarterbacks on the roster. Jacoby Brissett And Gardner Minshew 2.

Beck said he views each day as a “learning experience” and that includes practice and game experiences as well as meetings.

“Just talking to the guys around the facility, trying to get what I can from each individual,” Beck said. “But, again, everybody wants to play football, especially at the quarterback position. You want to be the guy there.”

However, Beck isn’t worried about 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 learning the guys around me, building relationships, connecting with them, being myself, and then just go play ball, have fun, enjoy the process,” Beck said. “But, again, just trying to improve and try to get better every day. And if I keep doing that, I think we’ll see where it takes you.”

That could be on the bench, learning from Brissett and Minshew, or on the field, leading Arizona to a three-win season as the starting quarterback.