EAGAN, Minn. — Here’s Josh McCown, the cheery, backwards-cap-wearing, gum-chewing Minnesota Vikings quarterbacks coach. Another preseason workout wrapped up, the 45-year-old former NFL quarterback and pro is sitting outside the TCO Performance Center, baking in the heat and playing trivia.
Can you name all 14 former offensive coordinators?
He laughs.
“It looks like you might be missing a few,” he says.
Did I count them wrong?
“Well, let’s go down the list,” he says. “Let’s see.”
“Rich Olson. Jerry Sullivan. Alex Wood. Keith Rowen. Mike Martz. Greg Knapp. Jeff … was it Davidson? Yeah, Davidson. After Jeff, let’s see, that was … Mike Martz again. That’s a repeat. Mike Tice.”
I didn’t have that one.
“He was in Chicago, yeah. Marc Trestman and Aaron Kromer. That’s 10. Jeff Tedford and (quarterbacks coach) Marcus Arroyo are 11. John DeFilippo is 12 in Cleveland. Then Hue Jackson and Pep Hamilton. Then John Morton. Then Jeremy Bates. Then Mike Groh in Philly. And then, technically, Tim Kelly in Houston. I didn’t play any snaps, but I was technically on the list.”
So, 18 maybe?
“I think so,” says McCown.
That was impressive.
“Yeah. And then in college, going back, Jim Ferguson was at Sam Houston, Larry Kueck was at SMU, a guy named Greg Briner was at SMU. In high school, Wayne Coleman and Matt Turner. So…”
You’re just showing off. But how about this: if I asked you to translate insulting words from one person to another, could you do it? For example, if I said “Mike Martz” and you recited a play.
“He was a numbers legend. Like Trips Right Scat Right 094 F-Seam Trail. That’s the play that (current Vikings quarterback) Sam Darnold hit in the preseason opener this year. It’s not the same call, but that’s our play in those terms.”
This is unbelievable.
Incredible retrospective, to be sure, but also instructive to re-read. From the moment the Vikings set their sights on drafting a quarterback this spring, they’ve been deliberate in almost every way. That includes McCown’s hire, which came up randomly at the NFL Scouting Combine. Head coach Kevin O’Connell made the move for a number of reasons, one of which was a relationship between the two men that goes back more than a decade. Another factor, however, was exactly what McCown is doing here.
Using his memory. Translating information. Not taking himself too seriously or applying too much pressure. That’s McCown the quarterbacks coach in a nutshell. When we look at what he’s offered Darnold, JJ McCarthy and the Vikings organization in general, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the package is a carefully chosen amalgamation of traits from the names he’s just mentioned.
For Josh McCown and Sam Darnold, things come full circle when they meet again in Minnesota.
📺: photo.twitter.com/q0WSvsqvwY
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) June 12, 2024
Back to Trips Right Scat Right 094 F-Seam Trail.
This is Martz’s verbiage of the impressive throw Darnold made to wide receiver Jalen Nailor in the Vikings’ first preseason game, against the Las Vegas Raiders. Darnold released the ball before Nailor could complete his route toward the middle of the field. McCown still raves about it.
“The way Sam released that ball, man,” McCown said, “it was just perfect.”
The anticipation?
“One hundred percent,” McCown said, “and he learned that over time. We played together his rookie year. I probably talked about it then. That’s what I learned from being coached by Martz and watching Jon Kitna and Kurt Warner do it. Let that ball go.”
Martz, for the uninitiated, was the head coach of the St. Louis Rams during the “Greatest Show on Turf” era. McCown first met him in 2006 when he was signed by the Detroit Lions at age 27. He had been in the league for a few seasons at the time, having started 20 games for the Arizona Cardinals after being selected third overall in 2002. But when he arrived in Detroit, Martz described him as a “wild horse rider.”
Martz tells a story about a particular throw in McCown’s first practice with the Lions. Martz asked the quarterbacks to throw a deep in-cut over the middle of the field. McCown saw the safety drifting toward the in-cut and threw over the top on a deep post pattern instead. It resulted in a touchdown.
“I said, ‘What the f— was that?'” Martz recalled. “He looked at me and said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘What the f— was that? You just do what you want to do?’ He didn’t understand.”
You could say Martz was just a hardass, but McCown acknowledges that this was the first time he played in an intentional NFL passing game. He couldn’t just take the snap, take his drop and scan the field, looking for the open man. Martz’s offense dictated that he look in specific spots for different reasons — and throw the ball at the right time.
Josh McCown spent time with 12 NFL franchises — and one UFL team — over 19 professional seasons. (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
Kitna, with whom McCown competed for the Lions’ starting job that season, helped with the details. The plays in Martz’s playbook were merely a guide. On the field, other factors, such as his receiver’s speed and the tendencies of the opposing defense, forced him to adapt. Think of learning an offensive system like an actor learning his lines: The script says one thing, but the actor’s flair is often what brings the production to life. Knowing which words to change or adjustments to make is a skill that only comes with experience.
“It’s easy to just give a guy a chance and say, ‘Find the open man,'” McCown says. “And then you come in Monday morning as a coach and you’re holding the clicker and you’re like, ‘You probably should have thrown it to that guy.’ Well, yeah, really. Thank you.
“It’s harder for the coach to say, ‘This is who we are’ think will be open. This is where you’re going to focus your eyes. And then react to that play, based on that, be as detailed as possible.’”
The challenge, of course, is finding the right balance of details: You have to be purposeful in every aspect of your drop, your eyes and your decision-making, and you have to keep a cool head when you’re in the pocket and the crowd is screaming, the pass rushers are coming at you and the defense is swarming the field.
If Martz, Kitna and Warner explained the need for specificity, Trestman focused on eliminating the gray area. Trestman simplified the amount and scope of McCown’s post-snap decision-making. More than at any other point in his career, McCown, who was 34 with the Chicago Bears in 2013, felt he knew where to go with the ball. And as long as he operated correctly, Trestman gave him validation on the back end — a bit like a catcher shrugging when the pitcher throws the perfect pitch to the proposed spot and the hitter still crushes it. Good process, bad result.
In O’Connell, McCown found someone he could relate to his experiences with other coaches. They met in Cleveland in 2015. O’Connell was the Browns’ quarterbacks coach, and together they talked about their favorite concepts, vocabulary and teaching philosophies. They worked with Johnny Manziel through that brutal 3-13 season. But McCown appreciated O’Connell’s approach and humility. The first-time NFL coach, six years McCown’s junior, would look to him for advice.
They stayed in touch after that season, as O’Connell began creating his own system and McCown played for five more years before becoming the Carolina Panthers’ quarterbacks coach last year. McCown played in 102 NFL games and had a 98-82 touchdown-to-interception ratio, but his experience with Bryce Young reinforced something he often says about playing quarterback: This is really hard, man.
“In any three- to five-year period, there are maybe five to seven transcendent players at the position,” McCown says. “The rest of them need people around them.”
Peoplehe says, referring mainly to talent on the field.
But the quarterbacks coach is also important.
Josh McCown was the Carolina Panthers’ quarterbacks coach last season, working with No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young. (Rich Schultz/Getty Images)
O’Connell describes his teaching philosophy for quarterbacks this way: “We want to connect the quarterback’s feet and eyes.” In general, this is the common thread between being detailed and not clouding the quarterback’s mind.
After naming all of his former offensive coordinators, McCown explains.
“If you see a quarterback drop and you see his helmet turn to the left, he’s looking to the left,” McCown said. “If you pause, you can hopefully see the bottom of the quarterback and his feet moving that way to throw the ball. You’d be shocked, but so many guys — especially younger ones — are not connected. Their feet and eyes are all flipped up.”
So you’re trying to sync them?
“Exactly,” says McCown.
How do you learn that?
“Reps,” he answers, describing one of the drills the Vikings quarterbacks do every day. They take the snap, look at a receiver on the right sideline, straighten their body and throw. Then they take another snap, shift their gaze to the left, straighten their feet and throw again. Some days they move from the right sideline to the left, as if they’re doing a quadruple progression.
“You build that up until you have 22 people,” McCown says.
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Are you saying you’re adding the pass rush, which will probably make it harder to be calm and disciplined with your feet and eyes?
“Now you get it,” he says, “which brings us all the way back to Martz and knowing exactly what you’re doing. If you’re not sure, your own attack is on your brain before you even start. It’s, ‘Uhhh, what do I do? … Oh, no …’ When you know what you’re doing, when you can get guys playing in a system for years, it’s like, ‘Boom. There’s a ball. Boom. There’s another one. Boom, boom, boom.’ You play fast, you process. Stress sets in and they know the answer to the test.”
Experience is not required to learn all of this, but it is important do As a coach, give him a strong empathetic point of view.
McCown is encouraging. He pats his quarterbacks on the helmet after good throws and criticizes them with a fist bump after bad ones. If he sees something wrong, he doesn’t waste much time before telling them what he saw. But he doesn’t yell or scream because it’s not authentic to him.
The situation is difficult enough, he says.
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(Top photo: G. Newman Lowrance / Associated Press)
