Mississippi Mustache: The Legend of Gardner Minshew II
The man in the image above is not Baker Mayfield trying to disguise himself by growing out a mustache and wearing the jersey of different NFL team (even though it kinda looks like it).
The man in the image above is not Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, after finally getting Kip to remember to put in the crystals so that his time machine would work, allowing Rico to go back in time, win the state championship, and find his way to the NFL (even though he definitely looks like it).
The man in the image above is Gardner Flint Minshew II, the new starting quarterback of the Jacksonville Jaguars, who now runs the NFL world that we’re all just living in.
If you listen to several of the national media “talking heads,” many of them will try and tell you that Minshew is some type of fairy tale Cinderella story reminiscent of Kurt Warner’s rise to stardom with the 1999 St. Louis Rams.
And i’m here to tell you that they’re wrong.
Sure, Minshew’s college career started at Northwest Mississippi Community College (where he led the team to the NJCAA National Football Championship and forged the foundation of his current alliterative “Mississippi Mustache” nickname), followed by a two-year stint at East Carolina University, before arriving at Washington State University as a graduate student (allowing him to be eligible to play immediately under the NCAA’s graduate transfer rules).
But the parallels between Minshew’s path early on and Warner’s time at the University of Northern Iowa end there.
But playing under the swashbuckling Mike Leach in 2018, Minshew won the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award in college (given to the nation’s top senior- or fourth-year quarterback), became the first Washington State player to be named Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year in almost two decades, was on the cusp of leading his Cougars —who had gone 11-straight seasons without a winning record between 2004 through 2014 — to a berth in the Pac-12 Championship game, and possibly even a Rose Bowl appearance.
As college football fans on the west coast would be glad to tell you: if Minshew accomplished this playing for a program on the eastern seaboard, he’d have been a household name. But as Minshew was leading Washington State to their first season with double-digit wins since 2003, most of the narrative-shaping media was sound asleep.
That’s why so many media types — even the ones located on the west coast, like Bill Simmons — act like Minshew made it on the Jaguars’ roster after seemingly being dropped off by a UFO from Neptune.
So then, why did Minshew last until the 6th round of the 2019 NFL Draft, with him still being available when Jacksonville picked 178th overall this past spring?
It’s no secret that NFL scout still value “potential” over “production” almost to a fault. That’s why, when coming out of college, guys like quarterbacks like Giovanni Carmazzi and Spergon Wynn end up being more coveted by NFL teams than Tom Brady.
Last year, at Washington State, Minshew attempted 662 passes. For reference, that’s 72 more attempts than Dwayne Haskins threw for during his two years at Ohio State, and 143 more attempts than Kyler Murray threw in his three-year college career. Minshew left Pullman having thrown for almost 3,000 more yards in his career than Murray or Haskins had in theirs.Yet, Minshew didn’t hear his named called until 150+ players were selected after Haskins.
Further, Minshew got slapped with the old school stigma of playing in Mike Leach’s “gimmicky Air Raid offense,” which used to be football equivalent of someone having leprosy. It was a “diagnosis” that he simply would not be able to overcome as a pro… right?
The manner in which NFL teams continue to “out-think” themselves is breathtaking. On one hand, everyone in the leagues knows that offenses are becoming more pass-happy, with so many teams borrowing heavily from college concepts.
- Kyle Shanahan brought the the Pistol the early vestiges of the Run-Play Option (RPO) to the NFL back in 2012, with Robert Griffin III and the Washington Redskins.
- John Harbaugh and Greg Roman utilized the aforementioned Pistol + RPO “prequel” heavily in 2013, when Colin Kaepernick was virtually unstoppable.
- Doug Pederson, Frank Reich, and John DeFillippo used the RPO to turn Carson Wentz into the favorite for the NFL MVP in 2017, and enabling Nick Foles to still lead the Philadelphia Eagles to winning the Super Bowl.
- Andy Reid has literally borrowed elements from the Air Raid offense to maximize the output of Patrick Mahomes; i’ll let you guess how that turned out.
And yet, when talking about Minshew’s transition to the NFL, the first thing many scouts would say is “well, he’ll have a tough time transitioning from a college offense to a ‘pro-style’ offense.”
Honestly, what the fuck does that even mean anymore, past being another meaningless, stupid, and over-used football cliché?
When you do stump the scouts with the above arguments, they’ll pivot and try and tell you that Minshew, standing 6'1, lacks the “desired” height to play in the NFL (even though the last two quarterbacks selected with the #1 overall pick stood 6'1 or shorter) or that he has a perceived lack of arm strength (tell me more about how Joe Montana and Tom Brady become two of the three greatest quarterbacks of all time because of their abundant arm strength).
Put another way: if you ask Leach about Minshew’s arm talent, he’ll tell you Minshew’s arm strength is just fine, and if you have any questions about his accuracy, you clearly didn’t watch any film.
Fresh off making it to the AFC Championship game for the second time in their franchise’s history (and — as per the usual — getting absolutely hosed by the referees in said game when the refs repeatedly and bogusly ruled things in favor of the Patriots), the Jaguars started out the 2018 season with a 3–1 record, looking like they’d potentially pick things up where they left them off the postseason prior.
And then, of course, the Jaguars got an ice-cold reality check:
In the seven-game stretch after the aforementioned 3–1 start, Blake Bortles went back to being the most Blake Bortles-est version of himself, and — in no coincidence whatsoever — the Jaguars would lose all seven games.
It became abundantly clear that the Jaguars that the Blake-tanic was sinking, and they had to abandon ship as fast as possible.
That’s why, almost exactly six month ago to this day, Jacksonville signed Nick Foles to a 4-year, $88 million contract, hoping that — paired with his former quarterbacks coach in DeFillippo (who was hired as Jacksonville’s offensive coordinator in the offseason) — Foles could finally be the grown up presence at quarterback the Jaguars haven’t had since the days of David Garrard playing under center.
But as Morpheus so eloquently said in The Matrix: “fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.”
It was one thing when Minshew came off the bench in “relief” of Nick Foles, when the latter suffered the broken clavicle in the first quarter of Jacksonville’s Week 1 game against the Kansas City Chiefs, and threw for 275 yards and two (somewhat meaningless) touchdowns. After all, it’s substantially easier to come off the bench and do things in an NFL game when your opponent spent the entire week studying the tendencies of the guy ahead of you.
Conversely, it’s exponentially much more difficult to do the same thing when your opponent has spent the week devising a game plan predicated on stopping you.
And that’s why Minshew has to be a source of optimism for Jacksonville fans (all 73 of them, anyway). He’s one head-scratching draw play called on a two-point conversion attempt from leading the Jaguars to a 2–0 record in games he’s started (against two AFC South rivals, no less). In an admittedly up-and-down game against the Houston Texans, he did just enough to keep them in the game, and drove them down the field for what would’ve been the game-tying (or even game-winning) touchdown.
And against a Tennessee defense that was ranked 8th in overall defensive DVOA and 5th in pass defense DVOA, Minshew’s two first quarter touchdown passes gave the Jaguars a lead they wouldn’t come close to relinquishing, and he provided a steady presence at quarterback that the Jaguars haven’t been able to count on in almost a decade.
Again, let’s be clear: you should hold on to the anointing oil before dumping it all over Minshew and calling him “Kurt Warner 2.0.” While his sterling passer rating (110.6) might present one story, Minshew presently 16th in the NFL in QBR (49.7). He’s thrown for 417 yards combined over two games.
But what is intriguing about Minshew all the things he shows from the “neck up” — the stuff that, as mentioned, the scouts are way too quick to ignore.
Wide receiver DJ Chark commented on Minshew already knowing how to work through his progressions, and demonstrating an exemplary work ethic — both of which are very rare for rookie quarterbacks. It might be classic coachspeak, but Head Coach Doug Marrone told reporters how he’s impressed with Minshew “getting better and better each week.”
And just imagine how much easier things could be for Minshew if DeFillippo didn’t have his well-documented proclivity for completely ignoring the idea of running the football (Jacksonville currently ranks 25th in the NFL in rushing attempts per game, and Leonard Fournette — who came into training camp in the best shape of his life— has yet to carry the football more than 15 time in a game this season)?
In a 2019 season that we will very likely look back at as being a “changing of the ‘old guard’ at quarterback” (given the very murky futures of guys like Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, Cam Newton, and Drew Brees, in addition to the preseason retirement of Andrew Luck), we’re already starting to see many of the“new school” quarterbacks — like Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, Lamar Jackson, Carson Wentz, and Jared Goff, among others — atop the list of the best quarterbacks in the NFL today.
(Note: I know i’m omitting one particular name, and it’s because my inner Washington Redskins fan refuses to say nice things about anyone playing quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys).
But given the brief — if not promising — glimpses of what we’ve seen so far, it’s not far-fetched at all to say that we could be adding Gardner Minshew II’s name to that latter list by season’s end.
Week 3 Picks
Lines courtesy of MyBookie.ag (as of Friday, 9/20)
Tennessee (-2) at Jacksonville — pick made Thursday evening Cincinnati at Buffalo (-6) Miami at Dallas (-23) Denver at Green Bay (-7.5) Atlanta at Indianapolis (-1) Baltimore at Kansas City (-6.5) Oakland at Minnesota (-9) NY Jets at New England (-22.5) Detroit at Philadelphia (-6) Carolina at Arizona (-2) NY Giants at Tampa Bay (-6.5) Houston at LA Chargers (-3) Pittsburgh at San Francisco (-6.5) New Orleans at Seattle (-5) LA Rams (-3.5) at Cleveland Chicago (-4) at Washington
Last week: 10–6 Season to date: 21–11
Rajan Nanavati is the editor of HailToTheDistrict.com. You can follow Rajan on Twitter, find the HailToTheDistrict Podcast here, and/or view his writing archives here.