National Football League

Gardner Minshew: The NFL quarterback everyone wants to be friends with

Published Sep. 2, 2021 9:12 p.m. ET

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By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

"I’m fired up to be here."

That was the quote from Gardner Minshew in his first media appearance as a Philadelphia Eagle at the start of this week, giving the same answer as basically every player who ever joined a new team in any sport, ever.

That’s where the routine stuff began and ended though, for Minshew is not your typical quarterback character, a reality highlighted by the fact we are about to spend an entire column talking about a guy who, as of now, is the third-stringer on the reigning worst team in the worst division of the National Football League.

Pro football is a sport where devotion to one team means a certain sense of antipathy toward all others. It is OK to respect players on rival rosters, but you’re not really supposed to genuinely like them, and wanting them to actively do well is a major no-no.

Yet Minshew flouts the rule, and some of the disquiet aimed toward Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer for sending him toward the exit after naming Trevor Lawrence the starter came from those with little to no allegiance to the Jags.

"People just like Gardner," Wyatt Rogers, Minshew’s quarterback coach and offensive coordinator at Mississippi’s Brandon High School told me via phone this week. "They always have. He is just a down-to-earth guy who does a wonderful job of relating to all social classes.

"He is a typical American male. He can hang with the country boys and also with the city boys. People feel like he is the sort of person they can sit and have a beer with. He is a throwback to when kids were really tough and people find that endearing. He has a blue-collar work ethic that has gotten him to where he is. He is just a fun guy to be around."

He’s also carved out a nice little niche for himself as a QB worth paying attention to, no matter where he is or what he’s doing. Having been drafted by the Jaguars in the sixth round in 2019, he stood in for the injured Nick Foles and then occupied the No. 1 spot last season before suffering a thumb fracture and ligament strain.

Jacksonville kept him on a tight tactical leash that suited him well and has resulted in some glitzy numbers. In 20 NFL starts, Minshew has 37 touchdowns against only 11 interceptions, a better ratio, albeit with a small sample size, than Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Deshaun Watson and Dak Prescott. The latter two of that group both make at least $40 million per year. Minshew will receive less than $1m this year and next. The price the Eagles had to pay for him? Nothing more than a conditional sixth-round pick.

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He finds himself behind Jalen Hurts and Joe Flacco on the Eagles depth chart, yet gets an outsize amount of attention. Minshew is far more well known than most No. 2 quarterbacks, let alone third choices. Could it possibly be because of the one standout thing about him we haven’t talked about yet? The infamous mustache?

Sometimes players get liked for their excellence, their fashion sense, their athleticism or because they roll with a natural sense of cool. Minshew isn’t liked just because of his unapologetically dorky facial hair and headband – or is he?

The small furry animal he’s sported on his top lip since his college days at Washington State (having transferred from East Carolina) has taken on a life of its own. That, the headband, the occasionally worn jorts and the big reflective sunglasses fit neatly with an image of a player who works hard but doesn’t take himself too seriously.

"I saw the mustache a week before the first game at Washington State," Rogers added. "It looked terrible. I called him and told him to shave it off, he said he couldn’t because it had already become a thing. It’s part of his whole deal now."

Minshew combines the out-there look with good humor when speaking to the press, which doesn’t hurt his public perception either. Sure, new signings say they’re fired up and ready to join the football family, but not all of them tell a hilarious story like Minshew did in describing how he and Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni played a game of H.O.R.S.E. before the 2019 Draft.

"I had a button-up (shirt) on and I had to take that off because the game was getting a little too competitive," Minshew said of his first meeting with Sirianni, who was then on the Indianapolis Colts staff. "I think that really stood out. I think that might have played a role into why I'm here.

"He was kind of distracting me. I took my shirt off and it didn't help and he just continued to beat me. That's why I'm back. I'm back for revenge."

It is not implausible to see Minshew move past Hurts and Flacco and end up taking first-team snaps should things get rocky in Philly over the course of the campaign. There are also all kind of conspiracy theories that Hurts could be used as part of a package to try to land Watson from the Houston Texans, with Minshew serving as a backup and potential seat warmer depending on how quickly Watson’s legal issues are resolved.

Minshew plays a good game and he talks a better one. He doesn’t look like a normal QB but it’s hard to argue with the value of what he’s delivered at such a low salary base.

"Any opportunity he gets he will take it," Rogers said. "That’s been his mantra and he has had to fight for everything. People want to doubt him and he proves them wrong every time. I would never bet against him.

"Gardner is very intelligent in how he has developed his persona. It is completely genuine but he has done a great job in portraying himself in a light where people can appreciate his heart and who he is."

Gardner Minshew won't sell his mustache for less than 7 figures: 'I know what I have' | LIVE FROM MIAMI

Nick Wright and Eric Mangini are joined by Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Gardner Minshew during Super Bowl week in Miami.

He’s Gardner Minshew and he’s not the best player in the league, nor the best on his team and (according to the chart) not even the best in his new QB meeting room. He’s a popular paradox, one of the NFL’s more interesting people and yet it’s hard to figure out what’s so interesting about him, which is part of the charm, part of the low-key mystique.

He’s a personality and he’s funny, and from the outside looking in, it seems like the whole regular-Joe-nice-guy thing is real, not contrived. And yeah, he’s got an awesomely tragic mustache and the combination of all those things is enough, for most people, to decide he’s someone they want to root for.

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Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.

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