Serby’s Q&A with McCown

Jets quarterback Josh McCown takes a timeout to huddle with Post columnist Steve Serby for some Q&A. Q: What are you like in the huddle? A: I try to stay pretty relaxed with the guys. Try to be as natural as I can to help guys get fired up, get motivated to play ... remind [them of] any details, last-minute coaching points that I can remember for each guy. I try to keep it as smooth and upbeat as we can be, because it gives us the best chance to be successful. Q: Do you crack jokes? A: Oh yeah, all the time, ’cause I think the minute you can start smiling, you’re breathing better, you’re not anxious, you’ll see clearer and you’ll play smarter. So whether they laugh or not, I think it helps me (laugh). Q: What makes you a leader? What makes guys gravitate to you? A: I didn’t know they did (chuckle). I don’t know ... hopefully just ’cause I care. I care about their careers and their life, and care about winning, care about wanting to help in any way I can. Q: What is the biggest obstacle you’ve had to overcome? A: I guess the year I spent out of the league. The UFL was only a six-week or eight-week season, then the lockout was the following year, so a lot of time away from the NFL. That’s a mental grind, ’cause you have a vision of what you hope’s gonna happen versus what reality is and you’re grinding every day working out. But normal offseasons for the previous eight or nine years or whatever it was, I was working out knowing I was gonna play for this team. Whereas you’re working out, you don’t know what’s gonna happen. So sometimes that can be a challenge and a test to your focus. Q: Give me an Al Davis story. A: I remember watching him walk in and tell a guy, “You played all your snaps last year in college, you got all your sacks from the left side, and you had your left hand down. ... Why are you putting your right hand down now?” He goes, “Put your left hand back down,” and he walked off. It was a great experience because it was somebody who was truly, truly passionate about his team. Q: When you came into this league, what kind of career did you envision or imagine? A: I thought it was cool how guys played with one team the whole time. Nobody goes in going, “Hey, I hope I can just hang on for a few years.” I think everybody envisions themselves being a starter and playing a long time in one place. So that was certainly my goal too. But I enjoyed being here, I wanted to be in [the NFL] a long time, and I thought, “Man, it’d be cool to have a 15-year career.” I don’t remember setting a lot of goals other than that. I don’t know if that was influenced by growing up in Texas watching guys like Jason Garrett and other quarterbacks, whether it was starters or backups, which is people that made long careers for themselves. Q: What would the movie title be about your career? A: (Smile) I don’t know! “The Journeyman”? I don’t know. Or “Pack Your Bags”? (laugh), I don’t know. I’ve been on a bunch of teams, and it seems to have been my path, and the provision that this game gives you is great, but the relationship that you get from all these people is awesome, and it’s so cool, and the privilege that I’ve gotten to be in these different cities and meet all these different people — I’m very thankful for that. Q: Did you have a mentor as a young quarterback? A: I picked up a little bit from Jake Plummer my rookie year, but more from my fourth year with Kurt Warner. And then my fifth year with Jon Kitna was probably, I think, more of a defining type of year for me than anything. Q: How so? A: Because Jon was driven to play good football, but he was also driven to help his teammates along in their careers. And I think we were like

minded in that degree, and he just had done it for longer, so he understood how to do that. We realized that there’s a lot of things that you can do to help people not only in their career but in their life by helping them be better pros, because there’s so many things in football that correlate to life. Q: You once caught two passes in a game from Kitna in 2006. A: That was awesome. Started ’cause I would run routes for Dan Orlovsky, he was our third quarterback, and I would come in and get conditioning on Monday and Tuesday and run routes. And I think they saw me and so they threw me in on some scout team stuff. ... We had some issues at receiver, with how many guys we were gonna dress on Sunday, so they said, “Hey, you can be the fifth guy.” So, I end up coming in at the end of an Arizona game for a couple of routes, and then I come into the Patriots. And we have a guy, he runs a bad route at the end of halftime and the ball gets intercepted. So Coach

[Mike] Martz comes to me, we’re walking off the field (chuckle), he goes, “Get your gloves, you’re the fourth guy the rest of the game.” Q: Describe your first catch. A: I ran like a drag route across the middle, like a shallow route. I remember catching the ball, and feeling like, “I’ve never been in this position where my back is to the defense.” I turned, and tried to make a move on Mike Vrabel or somebody, and got six or seven yards or whatever. It’s was surreal, man. It was so much fun. Q: You had one catch called back later. A: Jon’s scrambling, I went to the sideline — unfortunately, it was on their sideline — but I can’t remember who it was, I don’t think it was Asante Samuel, but I was running, and Jon back-shouldered me, and he came by me and I put my hand there to kind of balance, but I didn’t push off. And I turned and caught the ball, and it was like about a 20-yard gain, and I was really excited about the play, but Coach [Bill] Belichick was right there, and he was right in the ref’s ear, and I got a flag for [offensive pass interference]. Q: What do you remember about Colin Kaepernick in his rookie season in San Francisco? A: I was impressed. The verbiage of that playbook, and what they were asking the quarterback to do in that playbook and in that offense, it was a lot. Alex Smith is as sharp as it comes in the league. So here’s Kap spitting out these plays, he was quiet, seemed like a humble kid, could really spin thet football, and so I thought, “The sky’ss the limit for this guy.” Q: Are you stunned or surprised he isn’t in this league right now? A: A little bit, yeah. There’s certainly all kinds of things that come into play when you consider signing a guy like that, because of the attention that he’s gotten. Q: What advice would you have for him? A: I don’t know that I have any advice for him. I go back to playing this position, it’s an all-in lifestyle, and I think sometimes you get judged on that, whether that’s right or wrong. I think if the perception is in a certain way, then teams get scared. I hope it works out for him, if he wants it to. If he loves it and he wants to continue playing, and by all accounts I guess it seems like he does, then I hope it works out for him. Q: What was Johnny Manziel like in Cleveland in 2015. A: Love that kid, man. Wish him the best. Tons of potential. Q: Did you try to counsel him? A: Yeah, I mean, as best you can. You can’t want something more than that person. I think he’s got a great heart, and he just has some things that he fights. We still keep in touch, I root for him and just like any teammate, try to help him with the things that I think help you build a career in the NFL. I think he’s really, really talented, I think he’s a smart kid, and I think if he decides to be fully committed to it, he could play in this league. But at this position, it’s hard, it’s a lifestyle, and you gotta be committed to it. Q: You played with top-over all draft pick JaMarcus Russell during his rookie season in Oakland. A: Sad. Because he was as gifted an arm as I’ve probably been around as far as just the ability to throw a football and as strong of an arm as I’ve been around. But unfortunately, like with Johnny, if you don’t really understand how much of a lifestyle this is, it’ll expose you real quick. Unfortunately, I don’t know if JaMarcus understood that, and it caught up to him. Q: How much longer do you want to play? A: I don’t know, we’ll see. It’s literally kind of year-by-year just taking assessment of my family, where we’re at. We do this apart, and my kids are getting older.

AP