Indystar 10/12

[JAFF]

‘Enjoy every second of it’: Colts QB Gardner Minshew is starting again where it began
Joel A. Erickson
Indianapolis Star




SKIP



INDIANAPOLIS — For a little while, a brief moment in the bright Florida sun, the Jaguars were Gardner Minshew’s team.

Jacksonville was his town.

Forced into the lineup in the first quarter of his first NFL game by a broken Nick Foles collarbone, Minshew went 6-6 as a rookie starter and became a force of nature, the leader of a cult of personality that was a perfect fit for northeast Florida.

The jorts. The long hair. The bandanas. The mustaches dotting the crowds at EverBank Stadium.

“It was awesome, man,” Minshew said. “It was a dream. It’s everything you wanted as a kid and then some. Man, it was a whirlwind. It feels like forever ago.”




But it wasn’t all that long ago.

Minshew was the starter in Jacksonville just three years ago, trying to turn the fantasy of his rookie season into a permanent reality, only to see it all slip away faster than he could have ever expected, sliding through his hands like the sand of Atlantic Beach, sending him on an odyssey that took him first to Philadelphia and now Indianapolis.


He will walk back into Everbank Stadium for the first time as an opposing player Sunday, stepping into the starting quarterback role for a Colts team that has lost talented rookie Anthony Richardson for an extended period of time, giving Minshew another chance to prove himself as a bona fide starter in an NFL quarterback picture that’s always changing.

“For Gardner to be in this position, be able to go back against a team that moved on from him — I know him, I know how competitive he is,” Indianapolis middle linebacker Zaire Franklin said. “I’m looking forward to seeing what he does on Sunday.

What does returning to Jacksonville mean to Gardner Minshew?

Minshew kept his comments on his time as a Jaguar to a minimum this week.

If he’s feeling nostalgia at the prospect of going back to a place he was once beloved, if he’s feeling any sense of vengeance, Minshew kept it inside in his weekly meeting with media.



A reporter asked him, at one point, if he felt any unique emotions heading back to his first home in the NFL.

“Not really, man,” Minshew said. “Just excited to get out there and play football. Wherever, whenever, it’s always a good time.”

Minshew clearly built a connection with the Jaguars fan base during that magical rookie season.

He still has a house there. Trains in the state of Florida during the offseason, which is how he spent part of his offseason working out with Richardson, long before the Colts called the rookie’s name with the No. 4 pick of April’s draft.

“I’m really grateful for my time in Jacksonville,” Minshew said. “Those fans, that community.”

How he feels about the way his time in Jacksonville ended is harder to read.

Minshew opened his second season in Jacksonville by going 19 of 20 to beat the Colts in the season opener, then averaged 316.5 passing yards over the next four games, although the Jaguars failed to win any of them.

The final game of that stretch included an injury to the thumb on Minshew’s throwing hand that started to break his hold on the Jacksonville starting job. Minshew played the next two games and struggled; team doctors discovered multiple fractures and a strained ligament

Then-Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone told reporters at the time that Minshew did not tell the team about the injury right away. Minshew later said that he thought the injury was just a bruise; at any rate, Jacksonville was unaware of the injury for two weeks.

“When Gardner came in, I just talked to him, I said: ‘I can understand. One, if you’re injured, you need to report it,’” Marrone told the Florida Times-Union at the time. “’Two, it’s not like I don’t understand the competitiveness in you, where you want to continue to play.’ I said, ‘But you have to make smart decisions and decisions that are best for the team.”

The Jaguars spiraled the rest of the way, finished 1-15 and landed the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, a draft that featured no-doubt Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence. Lawrence won the job in training camp in 2021, and the Jaguars traded Minshew to Philadelphia, fulfilling his request to be dealt.

Minshew learned a valuable lesson about the NFL life along the way.

“Just take it as it comes,” Minshew said. “You can expect one thing to come, but it never really happens the way you expected. Just take it as it is and try to enjoy every second of it.”

If he harbors any resentment toward the Jaguars for the way things ended, Minshew didn’t let it show this week, although his former roommate in Jacksonville, Jaguars safety Andrew Wingard, hinted there might have been some hard feelings.

“It’s unfortunate how he kind of got ran out of the building here, but he is where he is,” Wingard told 1010 AM in Jacksonville this week. “I’ve always said it, he’ll play in this league for as long as he wants to. I think the Colts are just as good, if not better, with him behind center.”

Shane Steichen, kindred spirit

Minshew did not find playing time in Philadelphia.



Not with Jalen Hurts blossoming into one of the NFL’s best young quarterbacks.

But he did find a kindred spirit in Eagles offensive coordinator Shane Steichen, a football junkie who cut his teeth in the NFL as an assistant coach with the Chargers, talking offense late into the night with legendary quarterback Philip Rivers.

From the moment Minshew arrived in Philadelphia, Steichen could tell the new Eagles quarterback had the same passion.

“He came into that first meeting, I remember, in Philly, and he had this (Microsoft) Surface, and he was constantly taking notes,” Steichen said. “Everything we said, taking notes. … I said this when I got hired, but just the obsession with football at the quarterback position.”

When Minshew hit free agency for the first time last offseason, he looked at his options and decided it was best to stick with Steichen, even though the Colts told him upfront that they’d likely be playing the quarterback they planned to draft with the No. 4 pick.

“A lot of it was Shane, my comfort with him and the offense,” Minshew said of his free agency decision. “I felt like playing with him, I would have the best chance of being successful.”

He also had a chance to play.

Even if it was only an outside shot, given Steichen’s belief in developing young quarterbacks by playing them as quickly as possible. When the Colts named Richardson the starting quarterback halfway through August, Minshew threw his support behind the rookie.

He also acknowledged that he’d wanted the job.

“You’re hurt, obviously,” Minshew said at the time. “Any time you put so much into something, it can be disappointing when you don’t hear what you want to hear. I totally understand, I’m all in with what we got going.”

Minshew has been an incredible resource for Richardson, helping the rookie play better than anybody expected through the first five games of the season, ably stepping into the lineup as Richardson dealt with a bruised knee, then a concussion, and now a serious injury to his AC joint that will keep the rookie out at least four weeks, potentially more.



He feels for the young quarterback. Minshew’s been through injury, knows how hard it is to get sidelined by something out of his control.

“Hate it for him,” Minshew said. “He’s really had some tough luck to start the year.”

‘Elite processor of the game’

Minshew has a chance now.

A chance to prove he can still be a starting NFL quarterback, even though he knows this is Richardson’s franchise. Minshew signed a one-year, $3.5-million deal in Indianapolis this offseason; play well during this stretch, and a chance to compete for a starting job might be there for him in free agency.

Maybe he can show the rest of the NFL what Steichen sees in him.

“I think he’s an elite processor of the game,” Steichen said. “When you’ve got a guy that can process the game quickly and make quick decisions, he’s really good, he’s accurate, he knows where to go with the football at the right time and the right place.”

Minshew’s best asset is the trait Steichen saw on that first day in Philadelphia.

He is obsessed with offensive football, and he spends so much time thinking about the game that the chess match that happens at the line of scrimmage has become second nature to him.

“It’s his mental mastery of the offense,” offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter said. “His mastery of what we’re doing, realistically, what the defense is doing, how he can use one thing to counter the other. … For some guys, they may not see that during the game, but Gardner sees it.”

A lot of quarterbacks can read coverages.

Minshew knows the rules that guide each defender in those coverages, how they’re supposed to react to everything the offense does, and how those rules can be exploited in his favor.

“He’s a student of the game,” backup Colts quarterback Sam Ehlinger said. “A lot of guys study offensive tape, but Gardner studies defenses, too, so he knows their rules. If we’re in two by two with the back releasing to the flat, he knows the safety has to come down to the flat, and he knows that means there should be a hole here. It’s very impressive.”

Minshew has the mind of a future offensive coordinator.

Maybe the mind of a current offensive coordinator. Minshew’s already become famous inside the Colts’ facility for drawing up plays, dreaming up wrinkles for the coaches to use, sometimes creating all-new plays.

Ask any Colt about Minshew’s play design, and they smile, then laugh a little bit. Sometimes Minshew does it on the sideline on game day.

“I think sometimes he gets bored with just watching practice tape, because he wants to continue to expand his mind,” Ehlinger said. “He does that by drawing plays versus different coverages, trying to be creative.”

Minshew does not have prototypical physical traits.

For a player like Minshew to be successful in the NFL, he has to be a step ahead, reading the defense, knowing instantly how to attack its weak points.

“He knows that’s where his strength is,” Ehlinger said. “Processing, being able to get the ball out of his hands versus different coverages quickly and in the right spot.”

NFL teams are typically looking for starting quarterbacks who can do what Minshew does, but also have the physical gifts to make plays when everything breaks down and the read gets muddied, who have the arm strength to attack any weakness in the defense, even the faults that seem impossible to reach.

But there are plenty of quarterbacks, backup quarterbacks by reputation, who’ve carved out second chances for themselves in the NFL because of their processing ability, because they can make up for their lack of prototypical physical traits by blending seamlessly into an offense that can still hum without highlight-reel plays from the quarterback.

Minshew hasn’t explicitly said he’d like to be a full-time starter again.

But he’s still only 27 years old, still finds himself chasing the thrill of playing the game. When Minshew realizes a play is going to work, he often lets out a whoop of celebration as he releases the throw, before he even sees the ball settle in the receiver’s hands.

He can’t help himself.

“I love it,” Minshew said. “You can never take it for granted. I think being off the field and not being able to play just really ignites that fire in you, makes you realize how much you miss it. … I’m just grateful every time I get to step out there.”

Minshew knows how fast those chances can slip away.

And he wants to make this one count.

Beginning on the same field he once, briefly, made his own.