Teams try to identify backup QBs ready to start
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Matt Hasselbeck is one of the poster boys for success of backup quarterbacks changing teams and becoming effective starters in the NFL.
After throwing just 29 passes in his first three seasons as Brett Favre’s backup in Green Bay, Hasselbeck spent most of the next 10 years as the starter in Seattle, where he made six trips to the playoffs, one Super Bowl and three Pro Bowls.
For every successful example such as Hasselbeck or Mark Brunell, there are probably even more busts such as Brock Osweiler, Kevin Kolb and Matt Flynn.
With backups quarterbacks such as Jimmy Garoppolo, Mike Glennon, AJ McCarron and Colt McCoy possibly on the move this offseason, the task for talent evaluators will be figuring out which group best fits each quarterback.
“One of the things that helped me immensely was the fact that I was Brett Favre’s backup for three years,” Hasselbeck said. “I really became a better player by playing with him every single day. It’s like playing golf with Jordan Spieth every day. You’re just going to get better by osmosis.”
Brunell followed a similar pattern. After two years as Favre’s backup, Brunell was traded to Jacksonville and made three Pro Bowls and four playoff appearances in eight seasons as the Jaguars’ starter.
Hasselbeck believes Garoppolo is in that same mold if a quarterback-needy team tries to trade for him this offseason, even though he has started just two games in his first three seasons as Tom Brady’s backup in New England.
Garoppolo has completed 67 percent of his passes with five
touchdowns and no interceptions in his limited playing time, with just 94 career attempts, He could cost a team a hefty package, possibly including a firstround pick.
“If I’m trying to get over the hump and find a guy who’s going to be the leader of my offensive huddle, you really can’t go wrong with how Tom Brady does things. That’s what Garoppolo thinks is normal,” Hasselbeck said. “When I see him play, he almost looks like Tom Brady with his mannerisms. At the end of the day, you have to evaluate how did this guy take advantage of his opportunity or not take advantage of his opportunities? He certainly has.”
Berry stays a Chief
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Eric Berry sat behind a small table in the Chiefs training complex, flanked by his parents, and made the kind of admission that
probably made general manager John Dorsey wonder.
“Someone could have offered me more money somewhere else, and they could have offered me less here, and it wouldn’t have balanced out,” Berry said. “You can’t put a price on chemistry.”
Well, the Chiefs were forced to put a price on it anyway.
The team that drafted Berry in the first round out of the University of Tennessee seven years ago signed him to a $78 million, six-year deal to make him the NFL’s highest-paid safety. It’s a deal that was more than a year in the making after the sides failed to reach an agreement and Berry spent last season playing under the franchise tag. It’s also one that should stabilize the Kansas City defense for the foreseeable future.
But speaking for the first time since signing the deal, Berry said the financial aspects were only part of the equation. There was also a comfort level that came with continuing his career in Kansas City.
“I know what I’m going to get every time I walk in the building,” he explained. “I know everyone in the building. I know the people in the cafeteria. I know what desserts we’re going to have, that we’re going to have wings every Thursday. If there’s something we don’t like in the cafeteria, we can talk about it and get it done. It’s not like that everywhere. Why risk having to rebuild that somewhere else?”
Which begs the question: Could Dorsey and the Chiefs have squeezed him for a few more bucks?
There is no telling what the market would have been had the Chiefs failed to reach a deal, but there is also no disputing the fact Berry would have had plenty of suitors when free agency begins this week.
This is a guy who overcame a torn Achilles’ tendon to become one of the game’s best safeties, then dealt with even more serious adversity when he was diagnosed with cancer in December 2014.
Berry was back on the field for training camp the next season and had such a solid year the Chiefs wanted to sign him to a long-term deal then. But the sides never truly got close to an agreement, and after he missed most of the offseason, Berry wound up making about $10.8 million on a one-year deal.
He said all along he wouldn’t sign the franchise tag again this season, so that put more pressure on the Chiefs to reach an agreement.
“I’ve got everything I want. The stuff that I want doesn’t have a dollar value to it,” said Berry, who was voted an All-Pro for the third time last season. “It’s just living the life I want to live.”