Carson Beck 2026 Prospect Profile

Where does Miami's new QB stack up

Today, we look at former UgA Bulldog Carson Beck. After watching his tape, I am thoroughly whelmed and might be ready to write him off as a top prospect entirely before his last year at Miami begins.

Background

Carson Beck was born in Jacksonville, Florida, where he became a two-sport athlete. Initially, he committed to the University of Florida to play baseball, but then decided to focus on football, where he then committed to play for Alabama. He ended his high school career according to the On3 Industry ranking as a four-star recruit, the 225th nationally, and 16th overall QB. Honestly, numbers lower than you’d expect for a QB who won Florida’s Mr. Football as a Junior. During his senior season, he ultimately flipped from Alabama to play for Kirby Smart in Athens for UgA. After three years as a backup, Beck finally got his chance to start in 2023 and quickly rose to be one of the top draft prospects in not only the 2024 class but might have been a first-rounder had he declared in the 2023 class. However, he is not yet in the NFL and decided to use his final year of eligibility to play for the Miami Hurricanes after transferring out of UgA.

Physical Attributes

Beck has good size for a quarterback. He is 6’4” tall and a bit on the skinny side at 220 lbs. This makes him appear quite a lanky and uncoordinated athlete when running. At times, it can look downright Bambi on ice. This lack of athleticism and coordination also contributes to mediocre arm strength by NFL standards. This is not to say that his arm is too poor to make it in the NFL, but think of him as a 92-mph fastball pitcher in baseball. He can make it work, but everything else about his game must be near perfect, and, well, more on all that later. His seeming lack of coordination also leads to inconsistent throwing bases, throwing motions, and throws missing while moving at a concerningly high level.

Data and Tape Analysis

If you are unfamiliar with my QB radar charts, you can find more information here.

Let’s get the asterisk out of the way: Yes, Beck's skill position players were not great. However, look at that radar graph. Does anything stand out to you positively? No? Ok, I'm glad we can agree on that. Something would stand out for a quarterback, no matter their position player talent, if they were an elite prospect.

Beck is an unbelievably average prospect. I do not think he has any one skill that I can look at and identify as definitively above the baseline of what you would expect from a QB that a team would draft with the hope that they might start one day.

I already mentioned his physical tools; none are above average for a top-end prospect. He is slow, uncoordinated, and lacks arm strength. Looking good right? That level of arm strength consistently gets Beck in trouble. He trusts his arm to be able to get balls into tight windows. It often cannot. He prefers to throw a flat bullet-type pass over a lofted one, but I do not think I can remember a QB with such a poor arm favoring that kind of throw as often as he does. Ok, well then his lofted throws must be good, right? Nope, they might be worse. The accuracy of his lofted throws are all over the place. On deep throws, he overthrows most of his receivers, and the overthrows are not particularly close either. However, the ball could not be more perfectly placed in seemingly one of every three deep throws, but because he misses the others by so much, it appears more of a fluke than any other cause.

Those deep throws and the number of casual misses he has are not reflected in his accuracy score. An offense that threw a ton of screens padded those numbers, reflected in his average depth of target. In fact, when looking at work in the intermediate level (10-19 yards), PFF rated Beck as the 88th best passer last year. That’s where NFL offenses do most of their work, and Beck fails to. Why is those casual misses. Due to the inconsistent base he throws with, he sprays the ball in this area. Add to that his consistent lack of identifying droppers and that weaker arm, and over the middle of the field, there are a lot of dangerous near-field and actual turnovers. And for a second, while we are on turnovers, when he gets hit, look for the ball to hit the deck too.

His processing and pocket presence also leave something to be desired. When he feels pressure, he often moves towards it, if he feels it coming at all. Then, in the abundance of opportunities he had to operate with a clean pocket, he almost always waited for a receiver to make their break before starting his throws. And that’s usually after staring down that target for the entire snap beforehand. When given the opportunity, he will work through his progressions, which led to many quicker than you would like checkdowns.

Grade and Outlook

Carson Beck was a top prospect at one point, but after more analysis, it's evident that the theoretical upside he had as a 21 year old first-time starter was not hit by the soon to be 24 year old college quarterback. He does not exhibit a single plus trait as an NFL prospect. That being said, there are not too many glaring negatives either. A QB desperate team may give him a shot a year or two into his NFL career to see what he has, but if he ever becomes a long-term starter in the league, I would be surprised.

Grade: 5.0 / 10 (3rd / 4th rounder)