Hey, Cardinals! Catch the ball so we can evaluate Clayton Tune

Arizona Cardinals rookie quarterback Clayton Tune might be able to play a little bit, but it’s hard to tell. His receivers and tight ends are dropping too many passes.

Against Kansas City last week, I counted seven drops, six of which came with Tune on the field.

“We gotta have soft hands,” Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon said.

That’s something his guys are working on “cleaning up,” as Gannon puts it.

“It’s repetition,” he said. “They’re working on it every day. Sometimes, that’s how the ball bounces. But when guys get open and we hit them, we’ve got to convert those. Those missed chances … those things matter.”

Four of the seven drops came on third downs. Good teams don’t bail out defenses like that.

What is a 'drop'?

“Drop” is a subjective statistic.

For example, in the third quarter, Tune threw a short pass to reserve tight end Blake Whiteheart that was low and a bit late. It would have been a tough catch, but it hit him in the hands, so I consider it a drop.

Sometimes, drops are obvious, like on a third-and-4 play in the third quarter when Tune hit tight end Noah Togiai in stride and on time, but the ball bounced right off his chest.

Or the play on third-and-8 with about 4:30 left in the third quarter when Andre Baccellia mistimed his jump on a play that would have been a big gain.

Mistakes like those are easy to correct. They’re just a matter of basics. Look the ball into your hands. Don’t turn up field to run before you secure the catch. And anticipate getting hit, because it’s probably going to happen whether you catch the ball or not.

Cardinals Ring of Honor member Roy Green says that catching is a skill that can be developed a lot like any other.

He would know. Green is one of the best living receivers who’s not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame — a slight that strains credulity.

Green also worked with receivers including Julio Jones, AJ Green and Odell Beckham Jr. during their NFL draft preparation.

“Those guys always did functional football drills,” he said.

In other words, they put themselves in intentionally difficult positions to make catches. For example, they would run looking left and have a quarterback throw to their right, forcing them to get their heads around to make the play.

There’s also sports vision training, the type that Larry Fitzgerald made famous. (Fitz, of course, had more tackles than drops over the course of his career.)

"Check his eyes," Green said of Fitzgerald. "It sounds crazy, but his vision was probably better than 20/20."

Cross-training, especially for young athletes, can help, too.

"Most of the greats? I guarantee you they played at least three sports. I bet they played baseball, basketball and football," Green said.

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Confidence is key

Green isn’t a big proponent of using passing machines, because stationary catches don’t happen very often in a game.

“A real catch is when you have to adjust your head and turn it quick,” he said. “Those are toughest to make. Practice that. Work on moving your head, not seeing the ball and then seeing the ball at the last second. And then make the catch.”

This sort of work outside of team practices can do wonders for a guy’s confidence.

“After those kinds of drills,” he said, “every catch is routine.”

Confidence was key for Green.

“Confidence, generally, is based on success … The more good things happen, the more confident you are,” he said.

For Green, self-assurance was never a problem.

“First, you have to understand how good you are,” he said. “I never, ever thought about missing a ball. Of course, it happened, but when it did, ‘Hey, that was a huge mistake that came from some other reason, because it definitely wasn’t me!’”

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If Cardinals receivers and tight ends can develop some of that moxy, we’d be better able to evaluate Clayton Tune.

It looks like he can play a little bit, but it’s hard to tell when his drives keep getting cut short by dropped passes.

Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Cardinals drops make it hard to evaluate Clayton Tune