Surprise! Beanie Wells Not Among Worst In Pass Catching (But He Really Is)

If you follow the Arizona Cardinals at all and have watched Beanie Wells at all over the first three seasons of his career, you will notice a couple of things. One is that he slips and falls more than he should. The other is that he does not have great hands.

However, to my surprise, when Pro Football Focus compiled their stats for running backs and catching the football over the past three seasons, Wells did not appear among the worst.

There was a caveat, though. It looked at the running backs that were thrown at 75 times in the past three years. Beanie didn't come even close. He has had a total of 33 catchable targets since coming to the league.

The worst in the league among RBs at dropping the football? Cardinals fans know him. It is Timmy Hightower. His 16 drops in three years amounts to a 14.7 percent drop rate.

Beanie? Had he been thrown at enough, he would have surpassed that dubious rate by quite a bit. He has 26 catches and seven drops. He drops the ball 18.1 percent of the time.

There is no reason to wonder why he is not thrown to more often. He is not very good in that facet of the game.

This is a big reason why he has reason to worry about playing time if Ryan Williams is healthy and shows in the pros what he was able to do in college -- be a pass catching threat out of the backfield.

Any of you surprised at Wells' ineptitude statistically? I wasn't. But I was surprised initially when he didn't show up on the list.

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