I think his deep ball is mostly his deep ball. Guys can see their arm strength improve as they get into their mid 20s, but I think what you see is what you get with Clausen’s deep ball. It’s not bad, but he often puts a ton of air under it. I’ve seen people criticize his accuracy deep, but I think he’s got a good feel for the deep pass and regularly droped passes into Golden Tate’s lap 40 yards downfield without Tate having to slow up or jump for the ball. You could see a safety get over to make a play on the ball more often in the NFL though.

I think that those deep outs are more of a mental thing that require a lot of timing and trust in the WRs and that’s why he takes the heat off. I think he’s got the arm strength to fire them in there, but he’s playing with great WRs against college DBs and can afford to make slower, safer throws on the challenging passes. I wouldn’t hold it against him that he doesn’t show big time arm strength on those throws, but it’s far from a given that he’ll start to do that in the NFL though. I’d say that his ability to hit those routes with the better QBs in the league is questionable, but not a huge concern.

I’d call his arm strength average and Mark Sanchez was a good comparison in terms of velocity. And when I say something is average, that doesn’t mean I think it’s a bad thing. There’s 10 or more starters who throw a very impressive ball in the NFL, so to be above average in terms of arm strength, you’ve got to really put a lot on the football. I think Clausen’s arm is definitely stronger than Bradford’s.