It takes all kinds to be a successful NFL quarterback. If you like cool and restrained, you go for the likes of Patrick Maholmes and Joe Cool Burrow. If a little flash and dash is more your style, you’re probably about guys like Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray. And if you go for plain flat-out redneck crazy, you have to be a huge fan of Gardner Minshew.
There’s no one else like him, that’s for sure. He’s got a gunslinger mindset while admitting he has a weak arm. For a while, his mustache was his career, as Minshew also freely admits. Finally, he’s the ultimate journeyman, but there’s something about Gardner Minshew that makes him darn near unforgettable.
The Gardner Minshew journey: welcome to the world of twists and turns
Minshew’s colorful college career was brilliantly chronicled in a recent Athletic piece that “illuminates” why he once tried to break his own hand, but we’ll start with the pro piece of the puzzle in Jacksonville. Back then the quarterback was a wildly erratic sixth-round pick, and he proceeded to take the Jags on a wild ride, winning 6 of the 12 games he started after Nick Foles got hurt.
An injured thumb and a 1-7 record the following year sent the Minshew Mania experience off to Philly, where he started just four games in two years as Jaylen Hurts’ backup. That led him to Indianapolis, where the quarterback showed that he might be more than just a career clipboard carrier.
When Anthony Richardson broke his shoulder, Minshew nearly got the Colts to the playoffs. He was still a gambler, though, and when Minshew forced his hand too many times a little too strongly, Indy was finally eliminated on the last weekend of the season.
Can the gambler learn when to fold ‘em?
The free-spirited quarterback is largely over a good chunk of Minshew Mania, but he still lives crazy. According to the Athletic, his van still doubles as a kind of mobile home, to the point where he occasionally parks it next to the facility after post-practice film study, then stays who knows how long to unwind when he’s done playing Captain Video.
What Minshew hopes to get over is his tendency to gamble too much. His choices have gotten better overall, and part of the reason he signed with Vegas is that Minshew believes Vegas’s version of the West Coast offense suits his particular skill set.
It’s an intriguing theory, and the competition favors his chances as well. With Aidan O’Connell, Carter Bradley and Nathan Peterman as his competition, Minshew could easily land a starting role, and he’d have Davante Adams, Jakobi Meyers and Zamir White to use as potential weapons.
His second preseason game against Dallas will serve as a useful measuring stick. Minsew threw for almost 120 yards on just six completions against the Vikings, and that’s the kind of production that could put Minshew on a new level. The Raiders probably aren’t going to compete seriously with the Chiefs, but the rest of the division is full of question marks, and Minshew could easily find himself back in the playoff hunt.
The league would be better for it, too. Sanitized celebrity QBs are fine up to a point, but if you believe the position is short on genuine characters, you’d probably also love to see Minshew in at least a wild card game. He’s always been a wild card as a quarterback, and it would be fun to see him make the leap to a whole different level of success.