McGloin has a message for all his critics: ‘Watch me’
Oakland’s backup quarterback says he has been doubted his whole life
ALAMEDA, Calif. — Sensing that he might be ignored in the 2013 draft, quarterback Matt McGloin wrote an open letter to the NFL community.
This was no diplomatic plea, no polite request from a plucky dreamer. Instead, McGloin’s street-tough message landed somewhere between a warning and a veiled threat.
“To those saying to me now
‘You’ll never make it,’ all I have to say is this: Watch me,’ ” wrote
McGloin, who went undrafted anyway. “You’re damn right I live my life and play football with a chip on my shoulder, because there is honor and worthy achievement in proving wrong the myth of ‘impossibility.’ ”
McGloin, now 27, might as well dust off his laptop and thesaurus again. There’s a whole new audience waiting for him to fail.
When star quarterback Derek
Carr suffered a broken fibula during a Christmas Eve game, that sickening snap could just as well have applied to the
Raiders’ hopes of winning a championship.
Las Vegas odd-maker Bovada listed Oakland as 12-to-1 shots to win the Super Bowl before Carr’s injury. The mere idea of McGloin as the main man sent the stock tumbling to 28-to-1.
It’s easy to see the logic: The Raiders are losing not only their talented MVP candidate but also their emotional leader. And they’re replaing him with … well, what, exactly?
Even the quarterback’s father, Paul McGloin, felt briefly overwhelmed in the aftermath of Carr’s injury.
Paul, who lives in Scranton, Pa., calls his three sons each night to tell them that he loves them. But during a conversation with Matt last week, Paul let his guard down. “I’m nervous,” the father said.
“Why?” the son replied evenly.
And with that one-word answer, Paul McGloin snapped back to his senses. It was as if he’d forgotten that Matt has spent his lifetime of taking your worries and sticking them in your ear.
“People are saying, ‘Oh, the Raiders are doomed now,’ ” Paul said. “I know my son. He just never quits. Never gives up. The bigger the game, the greater the chances he’ll succeed.”
Vegas and other outsiders might view this as a tumultuous time for the Raiders.
But those who know the quarterback best say McGloin is living his life to the letter.
“When the world crashed down on Penn State in an ugly, horrifying cloud, the world around our team seemed to panic. ‘Penn State football will never be the same,’ is what everyone outside our locker room said. No way. Not as long as I was wearing the blue and white uniform.” — Matt McGloin in his pre-draft letter to StateCollege.Com on March 11, 2013.
McGloin was Penn State’s first quarterback in the wake of the Joe Paterno scandal. He was also the most unlikely passer there in more than a half-century.
The Nittany Lions had no interest in recruiting the kid from West Scranton High. McGloin’s best offer out of high school came from Lehigh University, a Division I-AA school.
As McGloin’s college decision neared, dad tried to give him a reality check. Paul McGloin never doubted his son’s ability or resolve, but he spelled out the equation: Matt could go to Lehigh and dominate or to Penn State, where he could vanish into obscurity.
“He said, ‘I don’t care. I’ll compete. I want to play on the big stage,’ ” his dad said.
McGloin chose Penn State, where, he would later write, Paterno “handed me nothing but expected everything. He made me work, scratch and claw for anything I ever achieved.”
While the Raiders coaches have full confidence in McGloin, they have little company these days. Skeptics have them outnumbered.
That’s fine with the quarterback. He’s so accustomed to being written off that he eventually he wrote back.
“My entire life has been defined by the words, ‘You’ll never make it.” … Some people play football with a ‘chip on their shoulder’ — I live life that way because I have to.”