CANTON, Ohio -- Carson Beck couldn’t sleep Wednesday night.
Even though Thursday night’s Hall of Fame Game against the Carolina Panthers was just a preseason game, the Arizona Cardinals’ rookie quarterback lay awake thinking about getting to play football again.
Then he went out and did what his coaches wanted him to do.
Beck was clean, efficient, took what the defense gave him and finished with an impressive preseason debut in a 33-30 loss at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium. The third-round pick completed 15 of 19 passes for 188 yards and a touchdown for a quarterback rating of 125.4.
“It feels great to go in and succeed and execute within the offense,” Beck said. “And, obviously, again, there’s going to be things to fix.
“You got to go watch the tape and there’s always so much room to improve, even just being a rookie, being a new guy and kind of getting my first taste of the league.”
Beck was poised in the pocket, commanded the play-action and showed off his touch -- threading his passes in tight pockets and on the deep ball that came through on a perfect late summer night.
Cardinals coach Mike LaFleur didn’t seem surprised by Beck’s showing.
“It’s going to be a broken record,” LaFleur said. “The same thing that I keep seeing at practice where he just gets in and out of the huddle, and he doesn’t make it too big. He just lives by the play. Again, I give a lot of credit to [offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett], but really, particularly, [quarterbacks coach Matt] Schaub in terms of ... just the way Schaub played was that. [Beck] worried about one play at a time and executing that play and going through your progressions, not making stuff up. If it’s not there, checking it down. If we’re in a bad play, a bad call, don’t make it worse.
“He’s proud of the way he played, and it’s a good first steppingstone for him.”
The Cardinals had a specific plan for Beck on Thursday to play the entire first half and the first drive of the second half. They wanted him to get a feel for what an NFL halftime is like and experience coming out of it.
After experiencing college halftimes, which are about 20 minutes, Beck said the 13-minute NFL halftime was “definitely interesting.”
“I kind of liked it, being able to get back out there,” Beck said. “They were like, ‘We have X amount of minutes’ -- I forget exactly what it is -- and I was like, ‘Wait, really? That’s pretty fast turnaround.’”
Arizona had a turnover on downs on the drive after halftime, but LaFleur said he thought Beck did well dealing with his first pro halftime.
“I just thought he was steady all day,” LaFleur said.
Beck, starting after Arizona rested its starters and most of its second team, had two highlight-worthy throws on the same drive.
The first came on a 49-yard pass to wide receiver Jalen Brooks, who ran his way past Panthers cornerback Akayleb Evans and got a few steps ahead of him. Beck launched a deep ball that caught Brooks in stride right before he was leveled by a Panthers defender.
Earlier in the game, Beck had called a dagger route for Brooks, which he caught, but watching the film of the play on the sideline, Beck noticed something with how the Panthers’ secondary covered it. Beck made a tweak to the call, running back Bam Knight picked up the blitz and Beck nailed the throw.
“I think Carson has been really good,” Brooks said. “And you could tell through the throws that he’s made today that he’s going to give you a chance to make a play.
“So, that’s huge as a receiver, but it’s really huge for him as a rookie QB in the NFL to understand just giving his guys a chance.”
Three plays later, Beck threw a back-shoulder fade to wide receiver Simi Fehoko from the 5-yard line that was placed where only Fehoko could get it for a touchdown that put Arizona up 14-7 with 9:38 left in the second quarter.
The Cardinals’ quarterbacks and receivers spent time in camp working together on red zone fades, going as far as meeting about them. So, when the Cardinals scored on the drive before, Beck wanted to throw a fade, Fehoko said, but handed the ball off to Corey Kiner from the 1 for the touchdown instead.
But when the Cardinals got back into the deep red zone at the 5 and Fehoko heard the playcall in the huddle, he had a feeling Beck would throw the fade to him.
“[He] threw a great ball,” Fehoko said, “and all I had to do was catch it.”
