The QB The Making of Modern Quarterbacks

by Bruce Feldman

  • • •

  THE WAR ROOM FELT like one big poker club. There was bickering, posturing, tasteless jokes, and overcooked Italian food. At the core, it was just a bunch of guys talking about something they truly loved—football. Actually, it went deeper than that. It was guys giving their opinions about various aspects of the game and debating their own insights. This was a chance to show Trent Dilfer and their peers what they knew. A dozen TDFB coaches sat around the hotel meeting room. Dilfer was flanked by Yogi Roth and Brian Stumpf, a former wide receiver at Cal and longtime Elite 11 staffer. Also around the rectangular table were Matt James, another former college wideout and longtime Elite 11 coach; Jordan Palmer; and Joey Roberts, Dilfer’s baby-faced protégé who also works for ESPN and was the Elite 11’s general manager. Lining a wall was another group of guys balancing paper plates full of food on their laps—the TDFB coaches, who were told they wouldn’t be part of the vote on which QBs got picked for the remaining slots in the Elite 11 but were free to offer opinions. In truth, such conversations often would reveal as much about the coaches as it would the high school quarterbacks.

  Over the years, the Elite 11 staff based a lot of their invites off the high school tapes they evaluated. The footage still mattered a great deal to the TDFB guys, but in-person evaluation and “feel” seemed to count even more to Dilfer.

  Before most of the coaches had even put the first forkful of food into their mouths, Palmer had already established the tone for the evening. He detailed a recent conversation he’d had with a highly touted “four-star” quarterback prospect’s high school coach. The kid was a player whom most in the football recruiting world outside that room figured would be a lock to make the Elite 11.

  “I was honest with ’em,” Palmer said. “I told ’em the two biggest things he has to work on are coachability and likability.”

  It was a blunt assessment. It was basically, “Here’s the problem with your kid. He’s an asshole.”

  Palmer said the kid later followed up by saying, “I heard [you] guys thought I was a dick.” Palmer said the young QB got the message, but he wondered if he really got it. Players have to want to play for the QB. Want to be around him. It’s one thing to have an air of confidence. It’s another to be unbearable. Maybe the kid would mature. The Dilfer group has had two vivid examples of high school quarterbacks who were deemed elite talents by the Internet recruiting folks and got invites to the Elite 11, and Dilfer couldn’t stand either kid. Both felt entitled. Both were so caught up in their own Internet reputations that they came across as insufferable, and both—one a year ago, the other two years ago—recoiled when faced with competition in the Elite 11 setting—the biggest red flag in Dilfer’s world.

  Will Grier sounded like the opposite. The lanky 6′3″ quarterback from North Carolina once threw for 837 yards and 10 touchdowns in a 104–80 game at Charlotte’s Davidson Day School. He was the son of a football coach who once was (former NFL QB) Jeff Blake’s backup at East Carolina. On the day Grier worked out for the Elite 11 coaches at a Nike training camp in Charlotte in March, it was a sloppy, forty-degree afternoon with twenty-mile-per-hour gusts of wind.

  “Those were probably the worst conditions we’ve had in thirteen years,” Brian Stumpf said. “And he didn’t flinch an inch or blink an eye.”

  None of the QBs in North Carolina had looked very sharp trying to grip and throw a wet, heavy ball into howling winds. Paul Troth, a Dilfer protégé at TDFB seated behind Stumpf, chimed in. The onetime East Carolina QB and Elite 11 alum (Class of 2000) was from the same area as Grier.

  “I worked him out,” Troth said of Grier, “and he told me, ‘I’ll throw a watermelon, Coach. It don’t matter.’ ”

  “I think he’s got crazy confidence,” Palmer said. “The good kinda confidence.”

  Translation: Will Grier was getting an invite to the Elite 11.

  Within the first fifteen minutes of the night, it became apparent that the “intangibles” were vital to Dilfer’s group. Another candidate Dilfer was quick to move on was Stephen Collier, a 6′3″ Georgia product. “He’s got Dude Qualities,” Dilfer said. “I think he’s got a lot more in the tank than he’s shown.”

  Dilfer’s blessing triggered a well of support for Collier, a prospect who’d received only modest praise from the online recruiting analysts. Palmer said he had the ability to “dominate” at the college level. Roberts even noted that Collier was a 4.3 student.

  Collier was invited, too.

  Palmer, an aspiring broadcaster, was a quote machine.

  On one dual-threat quarterback from the Eastern Seaboard: “I love that kid … he’s gonna be a really good safety.”

  On undersized Arizona QB Luke Rubenzer: “I think he hates the fact that he’s 5′11″ so much that he loves it.”

  On an imposing Midwestern quarterback with scholarship offers from most of the Big Ten: “I think he’s a mental midget, and he’s probably gonna end up as a defensive end.”

  On the hardscrabble background of Manny Wilkins, a skinny 6′2″ QB who’d bounced from Texas to Colorado to the Bay Area after his father died from a drug addiction five years earlier and whose mom battled her own problem with addiction: “I grew up wealthy in Orange County, and at some point you’re at a serious disadvantage to the guys who have an edge. He’s already had to overcome so much. I’m standing on the table for Manny.”

  “Standing on the table” is coach-speak for lobbying for a player or a recruit.

  After almost ninety minutes, Dilfer’s process had whittled the candidates to eighteen QBs for the final seven spots at the Elite 11.

  “OK, MJ, stand on the table for someone,” Dilfer said to James, the oldest coach in the room.

  James brought up Sean White, a 6′1″, shaggy-haired QB from Fort Lauderdale, who, unlike many of the kids under consideration for the Elite 11, hadn’t committed to a college program yet. White had been one of the most determined quarterbacks, having come to two Elite 11 events in Atlanta and Columbus and also stayed for the Nike training camps the following day. White had not been anointed by the online recruiting experts as a highly ranked guy, and he didn’t have a bunch of big-name schools that had offered him scholarships, but he had shined on the summer 7-on-7 circuit while leading the powerful South Florida Express squad, a team loaded with elite players.

  “I think it helped a lot, because going against the best in practice all the time and competing with them really makes you better,” White said. “That’s why I think South Florida kids do so well in college—they are used to the competition level, because they already saw it in high school down [t]here.” White had been practicing with his Express teammates weekly from February until June, with some time off in May, when his high school team—the University School Suns—had its spring practice sessions.

  “Besides [Arizona quarterback] Kyle Allen, Sean’s the most consistent passer we have had,” said James. “His steps are on time. He throws it nice. He looks a lot like [unheralded-recruit-turned-Cincinnati Bengals-starter] Andy [Dalton] but better.”

  That comment triggered other comparisons. In the evaluation game, people love comparisons. Everyone good must look at least a little like someone else. There’s a measure of security of opinion in that. Stumpf remarks that Kentucky QB commitment Drew Barker “is probably what Ben Roethlisberger looked like in high school. Drew’s a chest-bumper. He’s a leader.”

  Dilfer turned to Yogi Roth, seated to his left, and asked whom he’d like to fight for. Roth mentioned Brad Kaaya from the Los Angeles area.

  DILFER: I think his tape is really good. He’s 6′4″, 220, a good athlete, and he can play.

  ROTH: I can project him in the NFL.

  DILFER: I think he’s a serious Dude.

  Roth then invoked the name of another, taller QB who was one of the more talked-about prospects in the online recruiting world. “I don’t know that he’s a Dude.”

  Brandon Harris was a hyped quarterback prospect, but the group seem
ed skeptical of his Dude capabilities. The coaches all were high on his arm “talent”—“He definitely has a hose.”

  Dilfer said Harris was “twitchy,” which might not sound like a compliment, but in the 2013 scouting vernacular, it was. The term was a nod toward an athlete being amped up with fast-twitch muscle fibers that are often discussed in regard to an elite sprinter, jumper, or someone with rare, essential explosiveness. Still, the group didn’t have a great read on Harris. And perhaps the only TDFB staffer who’d be willing to stand on the table for Brandon Harris was George Whitfield and he was en route to go see Johnny Manziel.

  Throughout the night, the TDFB group also took to Twitter to share the drama in real time, not just with the hopeful young quarterbacks but also with the diehard recruiting fans who live down this widening rabbit hole. Many of the “recruitniks” root for a certain QB to get invited because it’ll reflect better if their favorite college team is involved. It’s a twisted version of fantasy sports for others who are looking for validation of their own evaluation skills when it comes to sizing up a seventeen-year-old prospect. Taylor Holiday, Palmer’s old high school buddy, who was handling the social media aspect for TDFB, was recording and tweeting out videos every time a coach notified the latest Elite 11 invitee. Dilfer and the coaches often sounded giddier about the breaking news than did the kid on the other end of the phone. Palmer reached one kid (Jacob Park) while he was working at an Italian restaurant chain. Another TDFB coach broke the news to Manny Wilkins while he was in the middle of playing Call of Duty.

  At one point, Dilfer sent out a tweet from his TDFB account with a picture of a poster board listing the seventeen names of the QBs remaining in consideration for the final six available spots and added, “It’s getting gnarly.”

  One of the names listed in the photo was Darius Wade. A 6′1″, 185-pound left-hander from Middletown, Delaware, Wade was verbally committed to play football at Boston College and would become the first Delaware high school football prospect to sign with a Division I program in some forty years.

  “He plays in Delaware,” said Palmer. “We can’t hold that against him. He had twenty-seven TDs and just one pick all season. He hasn’t been exposed to much coaching or much competition up there. I think his learning curve is as much as anybody’s. But he’s a guy who is going to walk into the room, and you’re gonna feel his presence.”

  Palmer added that Wade, in his mind, was a more talented version of another kid who was selected to the Elite 11 a year ago who ended up signing on with one of the biggest football programs in the nation.

  “Darius told me at breakfast that he wants to be an architect, if that means anything,” former Green Bay Packers backup QB Craig Nall said from the back of the room.

  It didn’t. Well, maybe it did a little, since it hinted at the kid’s maturity. And, as Dilfer said, everything mattered.

  “Everybody’s gonna rally around Darius at Boston College,” predicted Palmer.

  Another one of the names listed from Dilfer’s tweet was Cade Aspay, a 6′1″, 180-pounder from Southern California. “Cade can ‘tempo’ the throws with the best of ’em,” said Joey Roberts, also a Southern California guy. “He plays the ukulele, too.”

  “He’s got tiny knees,” interjected one of the TDFB coaches, alluding to Aspay’s small frame. “But I think he’s super-talented.”

  At issue: How did Aspay compare with Sean White, the 6′1″ quarterback from Fort Lauderdale? “Cade’s film is better, but Sean plays better people,” said Dilfer, who wasn’t ready to decide which QB got the next invite.

  After five hours of deliberation, there were still four golden tickets remaining. Dilfer tweeted: “4 golden tickets left and we only know one way to figure this out. #MidnightMadness”

  Actually, Dilfer had already figured out one of the spots he was filling. It was going to Luke Rubenzer, the 5′11″-ish QB from Arizona whom Dilfer had compared to Johnny Manziel and Russell Wilson. Even though Rubenzer was barely a blip on the online recruiting radar and had just one scholarship offer from a BCS program (Cal), his game tape and spunky personality had made Dilfer a believer. Rubenzer’s private quarterback coach Dennis Gile, who also worked with fellow Elite 11 QB Kyle Allen, was a Dilfer TDFB protégé sitting nervously in the back of the room. Rather than just call Rubenzer with the good news, Dilfer wanted to pull a little prank he hoped would go viral for Elite 11 and TDFB.

  Dilfer had Gile call Rubenzer at 12:30 a.m. at his hotel down the street in Columbus. Get out of bed. Get your cleats and your ball. We need to see more. Time for a midnight workout at a field across the street from the hotel.

  After a long night of deliberations on other QBs, Dilfer and his coaches called Rubenzer under the guise of needing to see him make some more throws … at 12:30 in the morning. The headlights from five SUVs parked in front of a small muddy lot provided the light. “In the pressure chamber, you showed a little puckering,” Dilfer told Rubenzer.

  Dilfer had Rubenzer stretch his legs and told his colleagues holding flip cams to focus on Luke’s feet as he fired a few warm-up passes to one of the TDFB coaches standing twenty yards out into the darkness. Just when the kid figured his workout would officially begin, Dilfer let the kid in on the joke as the rest of the TDFB crew howled. The little quarterback sighed in relief before getting a bear hug. Rubenzer got his invite to the Elite 11—or QB Heaven, as Dilfer calls it.

  2.

  MAGIC MEN

  In recruiting circles, there is a caveat that veteran scouts cling to when dealing with high school football coaches who rave about one of their own kids: How do they know what a “great” one actually is if they’ve never had one before?

  Tom Rossley knew something about greatness. In fact, after what Rossley had been through in his football career, he was as qualified to sift through the murk of the quarterback world, with its booms and busts, as anyone. Rossley spent five decades in big-time football. He’d coached greatness. He’d recruited greatness. Once, back in the mid-’60s, as a wispy 6′4″ nineteen-year-old, he even had to give up his dream of playing quarterback due to the presence of greatness. Rossley was a redshirt freshman at the University of Cincinnati battling for the starting QB job with a true freshman. The coaches opted for the other kid, who was bigger and had a more powerful arm. They asked Rossley to move to wide receiver. As a senior, Rossley caught 80 passes for 1,072 yards in 1968. The guy who got the quarterback job, Greg Cook, went on to be selected by the Cincinnati Bengals with the fifth overall pick in the 1969 NFL Draft.

  “I still think I was better than him, but that’s beside the point,” Rossley said with a chuckle two years after retiring from a career in coaching. “In my heart, I was always a quarterback.”

  Rossley went to camp with the Philadelphia Eagles as a free-agent receiver before being released.

  “I was about to go to the Bengals, and we were in Vietnam, but they couldn’t guarantee me that I’d get into a reserve unit, so I took a teaching job and started coaching in my high school,” Rossley said. Two years later, he was a graduate assistant at the University of Arkansas for head coach Frank Broyles on a staff where Joe Gibbs was the offensive line coach and Raymond Berry was the wide receivers coach.

  “I just fell in love with coaching,” Rossley said.

  Cook was the Bengals’ opening-day starter as a rookie. The 6′4″, 220-pounder even sparked Cincinnati—3–11 the previous year—to wins in its first two games in 1969. Then, in Week Three against the Kansas City Chiefs, Cook was sacked by Jim Lynch, who landed on the quarterback’s throwing shoulder. Cook was shaken up but continued playing. He attempted another pass before leaving the game. Doctors didn’t diagnose it at the time, but Cook had shredded his rotator cuff. In spite of that, Cook returned to action at mid-season after sitting out three games. He took cortisone shots and played though the pain, he later told Sports Illustrated. He still managed to lead the AFL and NFL in yards per attempt (9.4) and yards per completion (17.5), as well as in pass
er rating (88.3). He was voted Rookie of the Year by UPI.

  Cook’s torn rotator cuff, though, only got worse. He re-tore it playing basketball when he got hung up on the rim one day before he actually was ready to start throwing again, Rossley said. Cook’s biceps also had become partially detached—another injury that had yet to be diagnosed and wouldn’t be until Cook’s rotator-cuff surgery. He would undergo three operations and would not play again till attempting a comeback four years later. He completed one pass in 1973 for the Chiefs, and that was the end of his NFL career.

  Cook’s name has wafted into football lore in a Bunyanesque manner, the way some star-crossed playground legends are discussed by NBA greats. Bill Walsh, the iconic NFL mastermind who was an assistant with the Bengals during Cook’s rookie season, once told NFL Films that Cook could’ve become “the greatest NFL quarterback of all time.” Cook’s impact on the game is a poignant one. Without the use of Cook’s prodigious arm strength and downfield passing acumen, Walsh rethought the Bengals offense to cater to his new QB, Virgil Carter’s, talents. Walsh’s new scheme employed rollouts and an underneath passing attack, becoming the framework of what would later be known as the West Coast Offense that won the San Francisco 49ers a fistful of Super Bowl rings.

  “Greg Cook was a big strong guy who had good feet and could really zip the ball—a real rope-thrower,” Rossley said. “The ball came out so quick. He was more of a drive-the-ball-down-the-field guy. I likened him to Terry Bradshaw, although I didn’t think Bradshaw was as good as Greg Cook.”

  Meanwhile, Rossley’s coaching career meandered from small colleges (Holy Cross) to small Division I programs (he had two different stints at Rice) and his alma mater. Rossley also coached in four different professional leagues—the NFL, the CFL, the AFL (the Arena Football League), and the now-defunct USFL. At age fifty-four, he landed a job with the Green Bay Packers, where he inherited the most remarkable quarterback he’d ever been around—Brett Lorenzo Favre.