The legend of Gardner Minshew II grew Thursday night in rainy Jacksonville.
The quarterback, who was thrust into action when Nick Foles went down in Week 1, earned his first win as an NFL starter when he threw two touchdown passes in the Jags’ 20-7 win over the Tennessee Titans. The Washington State product now has completed more than 70 percent of his passes for nearly 700 yards with five touchdowns and just one pick in two-plus games of action.
Not bad.
But most of Minshew’s headlines stem from his larger-than-life off-field persona. The stories about his naked pregame stretching and Crown Royal have been well-told at this point. The rookie signal-caller was a guest on Friday’s episode of the “Pardon My Take” podcast, and he shared a story about his love for football that will only grow his legend.
Minshew started his college career at East Carolina before transferring to Washington State (spurning Alabama in the process, because of course). At Wazzu, when expressing the lengths he would go to in order to continue his football career, he recalled a story from his ECU days. He retold that story Friday on “Pardon My Take.” The tale involved a hammer, some Jack Daniel’s and a desire to truly earn a medical redshirt.
Here’s the story:
It was back when I was at East Carolina. It was my first year there. I went there from junior college and the situation was I had two seniors above me, so I was hoping to go in and redshirt and be able to play three (seasons). It was an awesome setup, you know?
So we get into game four, and we move our backup to running back because he was our best running back and then the starter got knocked out, concussion. So, shoot, I go in there, play about a half and then we get in for the next week and starter’s going to be back. So I’m like, ‘Dang, I just played a half and really wasted a half of a year on playing ball,’ ya know? So I was pretty pissed and started looking around at what my options were, and the only thing I could do would be to get a medical redshirt. But if I played in this next game, then that would be off the table.
So, I get an idea. I go home, I grab a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and I grab a hammer. I go back into my room and take a pull of Jack Daniel’s, put my hand down on the table and — Boom! Boom! Boom! 1, 2, 3 — hit the hell out of my hand, dude. I’m sitting there shaking, but I know it’s not broke, so I’m like, ‘God, come on.’ Take another pull. 1,2,3, again, still nothing, I’m just shaking at this point, man. I knew it wasn’t broken, so another pull, another three hits, and that was all I could take. I couldn’t break my own hand.
But when I told the guys, what would you do for more football? Because I’d do damn-near anything.
Minshew was then asked whether he played the rest of that season at ECU.
“Yeah, I mean, I ended up playing some. It was good getting that experience,” he said. “But, dude, I had a swollen-ass hand for about a few weeks. I just told the coaches I closed it in a car door.”
Legend.
