It’s not that anything was ever guaranteed for Gardner Minshew in the NFL. Selected with the 178th overall pick in the sixth round of the 2019 draft, the Washington State alum was considered by many to be yet another physically limited quarterback buttressed by Mike Leach’s Air Raid concepts. He wound up starting 12 games in his rookie season, completing 60.6% of his passes for 3,271 yards, 21 touchdowns, five interceptions, and a rank of 22nd overall in Football Outsiders’ DYAR metric — which put him just behind Kyler Murray, and ahead of Baker Mayfield and Josh Allen. None of those guys were going to have to worry about their starting spots, in part because Murray and Mayfield were selected first overall in their drafts, and Allen was taken seventh overall in his.
In his second season, Minshew completed 65.9% of his passes for 1,855 yards, 13 touchdowns, five interceptions, and a ranking of 25th in DYAR despite several fractures in his right thumb he had been dealing with since Week 5. The last time we saw Minshew under center this season was Week 7 against the Chargers in a 39-29 loss, in which he completed 14 of 27 passes for 173 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions. Not amazing numbers, and at that point, head coach Doug Marrone was ready to move on to a quarterback plan that combined equal parts Jake Luton and Mike Glennon.
Fast-forward to now, where the 1-11 Jaguars have lost 11 straight games and rank 23rd in passing DVOA. The only thing they’re competing for at this point is the first overall pick, and there isn’t a lot of future in Glennon’s future, while we have far less an idea of what Luton is than what Minshew is.
Now that Minshew has been medically cleared, he’s been asking for an opportunity to start again, to no avail.
“It’s so frustrating,” Minshew recently said, per ESPN’s Michael DiRocco. “I pretty much went and begged before the Cleveland game to be able to play. It sucks, you know, There’s no way around it.
“I want to be out there. I want to be helping our team, but if helping our team is me being the best No. 2 I can be then that’s what I’ve got to do right now.”
Marrone responded that he’ll wait to see whether Minshew looks better in practice before he makes that call.
“We talked today and just like I’ve told him, I just want to see more practice. I think he’s working on his volume and the amount of throws and all of that. Obviously he’s cleared medically, but still you want to be able to see those things on the practice field. I just think right now in practice Mike is throwing better and gives us the best chance to win.
“I don’t think Gardner’s 100% as far as his workload, and that’s always a concern to me, and I’m trying to understand it. We’re both trying to work through it.”
So, not an absolute refusal, but also not a ringing endorsement. Which is interesting, given Minshew’s NFL career in historical context. While he has struggled at times, among quarterbacks who have thrown at least 500 combined passes in their first two seasons, Minshew ranks 15th all-time in Adjusted Net Yards per Pass Attempt at 6.31, in the top 30 in touchdown prate at 4.6%, and only Nick Foles in 2012-2013 has a lower interception rate than Minshew’s 1.49%.
As for the repeated assertion that Minshew doesn’t have the arm to make on-target downfield throws, he’s completed 12 of 34 passes of 20 or more air yards this season for 358 yards, four touchdowns, and two interceptions. Combined, Luton and Glennon have completed nine of 31 deep passes for 295 yards, three touchdowns, and five interceptions.
This 28-yard touchdown pass to receiver Chris Conley in Minshew’s final game this season to date would seem to be a refutation of the narrative.
Perhaps Marrone is just being careful with his quarterback in this case. Perhaps he prefers Glennon’s veteran predictability, though we all know what Glennon is and isn’t at this point. Perhaps he’s hoping that Luton is a thing over time. Perhaps the Jaguars are done with Gardner Minshew at this point, and are hoping for another quarterback opportunity. General manager Dave Caldwell and already been fired, and it’s hard to imagine Marrone being around in 2021 with a 23-39 regular-season record and no playoff appearances since 2017.
But is Minshew is healthy, he has absolutely proven to be the best quarterback on the Jaguars’ roster, and he deserves an opportunity to not only see what he can do to help prop up this sinking ship, but also to give his current organization — and other NFL organizations — a clearer view of his potential.