One Year Later, Jaguars QB Gardner Minshew Still Leaves an Impact on Senior Bowl
This time last season, Gardner Minshew wasn't nearly as popular of a name as he is today. He was a productive passer his senior season at Washington State, but he wasn't a hot name when it came to the NFL Draft.
This would obviously change after he became a pop culture phenomenon during his rookie season with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The jorts, the mustache, and the sound bites all helped, but his play spoke more than anything else.
But before Minshew took Jacksonville by storm as a sixth-round quarterback turned rookie standout, the quarterback's journey to becoming an NFL starter began in Mobile during the Reese's Senior Bowl.
For a week, Minshew got to meet with NFL teams and take live practice reps in front of evaluators. He left a strong impression on not only scouts and general managers, but also on Senior Bowl officials.
Minshew, and the ensuing Minshew Mania that spread throughout the NFL like a wildfire, left such a strong impression that he is still remembered fondly by Senior Bowl officials.
"Gardner was fun to watch this year. Kind of Minshew Mania taking off, and we got all these pictures from Mobile where he is doing his thing," Senior Bowl Executive Director Jim Nagy said Monday.
How highly does Nagy and the Senior Bowl think of Minshew? Enough to attempt to get him to play a role in this year's festivities, which may have happened if Minshew wasn't on a cross-country RV trip.
"We tried to get him back here for our Mardi Gras parade. I actually reached out to him," Nagy said with a smile. "I knew about that caravan, that RV thing he is doing, I knew about it early. That is why he is not here in Mobile. I wanted to make him the grand marshal in our parade."
Nagy also spoke highly of the Jaguars' rookie, who led all rookie quarterbacks in wins in 2019, when his former Washington State teammate Anthony Gordon's name was brought up. Gordon is following in Minshew's steps once again this year as he is partaking in the Senior Bowl after one year as a starter. As Nagy pointed out, it makes sense now why Gordon had to wait for his time to shine in the Pac-12.
"He got beat out by Gardner last year, and now in hindsight looking at what Gardner did as a rookie -- top-rated quarterback, I mean, better than Kyler Murray, 6-6 on a kind of a struggling Jaguars team. So that is really not an indictment on Gordon," Nagy said.
Minshew represents exactly the type of player who the Senior Bowl hopes to help shoot up draft boards each season. Unheralded entering the draft process, and maybe even during the draft, they are given a chance to shine against top competition all week. Stories like Minshew make the draft all the more enjoyable for Nagy, a former NFL scout, as well.
"People ask, 'what is like in this role and not working for a team?' and honestly draft day was so much fun. Because when you are working for a team you got six or seven picks and you wait around forever," he said. "But on draft day, (there are) like 93 guys going. It is like every other pick, you are jacked up about."
