During the first team period at Green Bay Packers training camp on Wednesday, Malik Willis dropped back to pass. In an instant, defensive end Brenton Cox was in his face. In the blink of an eye – or maybe even faster – Willis pump-faked Cox into the air, then dropped his arm for sidearm flick-of-the-wrist completion to tight end Ben Sims.
A day earlier, he dipped his arm and zinged a pass for a two-point conversion. Really, barely a day goes by when Willis doesn’t find a path around defenders by utilizing some sort of funky arm angle to get the ball to the receiver.
“I played baseball and I’m not 6-7, so you got to find a way to get it to who we want to get it to and that’s, more than anything, the plan,” Willis said. “But it’s just trying to find that angle, find that lane that we can get the ball out.”
Willis’ baseball experience has helped. He played a lot of shortstop and third base in baseball, though he said he also pitched, played in the outfield and also played some catcher.
“I just like hitting,” he said with a smile.
Willis also likes completing passes. He’s completed a bunch of them during training camp by throwing them under armpits.
“More than anything, it’s just reacting,” he said. “Being able to just not think and go out there and be active and be instinctive to whatever you’re seeing and just try to stick with whatever the read is.”
Willis’ reliance on arm angles is equal parts necessity and feel for the game. At 6-foot 1/2, he’s in the 14th percentile among quarterbacks, according to his Relative Athletic Score, and 3 1/4 inches shorter than Jordan Love. Sometimes, throwing under a 6-foot-4 defensive lineman is easier than throwing over one or throwing between two.
Has he always been comfortable throwing it that way?
“Yeah, I think so, and you get more comfortable within a scheme and understanding what we’re trying to do,” he said. “Then you can just go out there and do it the best way that you see fit. That’s what it comes down to.”
It’s an unorthodox style, to be sure. What have his coaches thought of it over the years?
