‘I missed the boat’: Kellen Moore recalls bad break as Cowboys QB that led to coaching career

From @ToddBrock24f7: Moore recalled how his own playing days were cut short by a 2016 injury and how the subsequent rise of Dak Prescott led him down a new path.

Kellen Moore now believes he is where he was meant to be, even if the pathway to get there took a few unexpected twists and turns.

The 34-year-old is entering his first season as Chargers offensive coordinator, but it’s already his sixth year as a coach at the NFL level. The winningest quarterback in college football history never got much of a chance to repeat that success in the pros, but he feels that temporary disappointment ultimately led to bigger and better things.

“I don’t lose sleep now,” Moore said on The Season with Peter Schrager podcast, “because I think everything happens for a reason, and it kind of led me to this coaching thing.”

After amassing a staggering 50-3 record under center for Boise State, Moore found himself holding a clipboard in Detroit, never getting onto the field in three seasons with the Lions.

In 2015, he joined the Cowboys and reunited with former Detroit OC Scott Linehan in Dallas. He started two games as one of several Cowboys backups tasked with filling in for an injured Tony Romo that lost season and was looking forward to building on that limited experience as the team prepared for the 2016 campaign.

But fate had a different plan.

“I was still getting a lot of reps as the No. 2 at the time,” Moore recalled to Schrager. “I have a freak deal at training camp in Oxnard, the fourth day: an offensive lineman gets pushed back and falls back on my leg, I break my ankle. So I went back to Dallas and got surgery. Sitting there on the couch, I just remember watching, because Tony was feeling some, kind of, maintenance stuff at that point already with his back. So Dak was taking a ton of reps in practice, basically 1s, 2s, and 3s. They played that first game against the Rams in the preseason, the first season in the L.A. Coliseum. And he goes out there and just is dealing. It was incredible.”

With that eye-opening performance just a few months after being the club’s fourth-round draft pick, Prescott looked like he’d be a more than serviceable backup option to Romo for the season.

And then everything- for Prescott, for Romo, for Moore, and for the entire Cowboys franchise- changed in an instant.

“The next week is at Seattle, and that’s where Tony’s back goes out,” Moore continue, “and Dak rolls out there and deals again. Certainly in the back of your mind as a competitor, you’re like, ‘Man, there was a chance here, and I missed the boat.’ There’s a competitive side of you that’s challenged by that, but all things happen for a reason. A, we figured out that Dak was really, really good. I’m glad we did.”

Moore’s forced hiatus in 2016 also got the son of a legendary high school football coach in the state of Washington looking at the Xs and Os in a very different way.

“That year, I was on IR. Scott and Jason [Garrett, head coach] were awesome with me; they allowed me to stay in it. I was in the quarterbacks room trying to be a resource or help in any possible way,” Moore said. “Tony was rehabbing, Dak was the starter now, Mark Sanchez was signed on, like, Tuesday, a lot of moving pieces in this room. There was an element of, ‘Hey, can you just stay in there so there’s at least some commonality there for Scott and for [quarterbacks coach] Wade Wilson?’ … It was awesome for me because it let me go on the other side of the thing, be on the coaching side a little bit. … But it also gave Jason and Scott a chance to see me from that perspective, which, lo and behold, allowed me transition right from player to coach two years later. I think without that moment, I don’t think I’m doing that.”

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One year spent on inured reserve. Another year on and off the Cowboys practice squad. Retirement as a player at the age of 30.

But it turns out Moore’s NFL journey was really just beginning. He stepped immediately into a new role as Cowboys quarterbacks coach and then, a year later, offensive coordinator.

Now he’ll do it with his second team as he continues to build an impressive NFL resume after all, only wearing a headset instead of a helmet.

“Sometimes life pivots and takes you to the path that maybe leads you down something else.”

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