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2021 UDFA Quarterback Justin Arth Benefitting from Lack of Talent in 2022 NFL Draft

UDFA quarterback Justin Arth was one of the many quarterbacks that slipped through the cracks in the 2021 NFL draft.
Quarterback Justin Arth

Justin Arth is a young quarterback who left college at a bad time. Due to Covid 19 and the chaos it caused in 2020, Arth would end up leaving college before the 2021 season. His intention had at first been to return for his redshirt senior season. However, due to circumstances beyond his control, he was forced to walk away from Texas-Wesleyan. After committing to the school when they did not have a football program in 2016, he had helped build the Texas-Wesleyan football program. Now he looks to build a career in the NFL.

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#ArthVader Garnering Interest Due to Weak Quarterback Class

College Career

Quarterback Justin Arth is a guy who did not get much coverage playing for Texas-Wesleyan. Texas-Wesleyan was relaunching its program when Arth committed to play there and saw helping launch a football program as a welcome challenge.

With challengers on deck, the redshirt freshman came back to compete with sophomore Erik Richards, Trey Ward, and Colby Reed who also played punter. Over the years more challengers came and went and often Justin Arth was in and out of the lineup.

However, by the end of college, he had managed to collect 2,869 passing 26 touchdowns 11 interceptions, 484 yards, and 6 touchdowns playing in 15 games and starting 21 of them. He would parlay this into a starting job with an obscure arena league team called the Peach State Cats. He lit-up that league.

Beginning of Professional Career

Arth played 4 games winning 3 of them, accumulating over a 72% completion rate, 11 touchdowns to 3 interceptions, 511 yards passing, 119 rushing yards, and 3 touchdowns. He would ultimately start to receive opportunities that would showcase him more on the NFL stage.

Heading into the 2022 season not knowing what the future held Justin signed with the Tucson Sugar Skulls of the IFL. He would spend the first few weeks of the season on the roster. That was until he started receiving consideration in the CFL, and NFL. Thanks in part to the influx of head coaches, ten to be exact, many teams were looking at adding a young developmental quarterback.

CFL and NFL Interest

The Sugar Skulls, seeing the writing on the wall allowed his release to pursue these workouts. During this stretch, he would work out for six CFL teams, with the HUDL camp, and attend a try-out with the San Francisco 49ers. Since then Minnesota and Dallas have also started to sniff around #ArthVader as a potential addition.

Although when asked Justin points to the Air Raid offense as his scheme of choice, his best NFL fit might be the Shanahan offense. This is important because, at this point, Kyle Shanahan with the 49ers is more or less the most versed coach in this system having learned it from his father.

However this offseason alone Mike McDaniel and Kevin O’Connell added to the head coaching ranks of former Shanahan disciples. These ranks already included Sean McVay, Robert Saleh, Brendan Staley, and Matt LaFleur. As Rob Searles pointed out for the Zonecoverage.com, that makes up 25% of the league at this point, and that is not considering offensive coordinators and coaching staffs with heavy Shanahan influences.

This begins to open up several possibilities for the young quarterback who is just one year removed from his draft eligibility passing him by without being selected. Arth could be a developmental quarterback to watch going forward in the NFL, in the mold of a Chase Daniel. Justin Arth, the quarterback, has a future in the NFL, but according to Justin, we might also see him someday in the front office side with aspirations of building a team.

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