Backups to forefront?
Darnold, Gabbert ready if called upon
“You sit back and enjoy it. It’s such a unique opportunity to make it to a Super Bowl and have the opportunity to win a Super Bowl that people don’t get…you sit back and realize how awesome of an opportunity it really is and how cool this experience really is.Take it all in and enjoy it, careers don’t last forever, you’ve got to make the most of these opportunities when they come.” — Blaine Gabbert, Chiefs second-string QB
LAS VEGAS – Of the many storylines heading into Super Bowl LVIII, a highly anticipated quarterback matchup is at the top of the list.
Sorry, Taylor Swift.
But, for as much as football fans seem to be looking forward to Kansas City Chiefs superstar Patrick Mahomes and San Francisco 49ers MVP candidate Brock Purdy squaring off Sunday, that’s always just one play away from changing.
It’s something 49ers backup Sam Darnold knows he can handle based on how things unfolded this season.
“Unfortunately or fortunately, however you want to look at it, with Brock going out a couple times this year, I’ve got to experience going in midgame,” he said.
“It happened in Arizona, it happened in Baltimore, and then I got to play the whole game against LA because we were the one seed and it didn’t matter if we won or lost. So, I’ve gotten some good action this year and (I) have that experience going in midgame, so that’s helped my mindset. I’ll be prepared either way.”
As for Chiefs second-stringer Blaine Gabbert, the 33-year-old, who hadn’t started a game since 2018 before getting the regular-season finale, has familiarity with both the role in general and during this time of year, having won a ring as Tom Brady’s backup with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV.
“That’s just the reality of the game we play; whether you’re a starter, backup, third-stringer, you’re always one play away,” Gabbert said. “You just have to learn how to prepare without getting the reps during the week in practice, and that takes time. But fortunately I’ve been in the backup role here for a fair amount of time, so you get that routine down and stick to that throughout this week.”
While both men find themselves in a similar spot, albeit on opposite sidelines, they took vastly different paths to get there.
Darnold was the third overall pick of the Jets back in 2018, with the expectations that he’d be the next franchise quarterback. That was, at best, a struggle for the majority of the time, as he was never able to find firm footing with an organization that all too often didn’t do enough to surround him with the weapons or offensive line to be successful.
Traded to the Carolina Panthers for a handful of draft picks prior to the start of the 2021 season, Darnold memorably beat the Jets in that year’s season opener but was injured later that year and ended up having to share time with then-recently re-signed Cam Newton upon returning.
The following year he lost the starting job to Baker Mayfield and again missed significant time with an injury.
Signing with the 49ers was considered to be a risk by many at the time, as fellow former first-rounder Trey Lance was on their roster, but Darnold beat him out for the backup job and Lance was shipped off to Dallas.
“I just wanted to go to a really good organization, a place that was going to be able to compete for a championship,” Darnold said. “It’s not necessarily a reset. It’s just nice to be able to learn a ton of football from really good coaches and really good players.
“It’s been really good, through April until now, the amount of football that I learned. It’s been amazing.
“To be around these guys, to be around my teammates and all the great players that we have and to see their work ethic every single day and to see what it takes to make it to a Super Bowl, it’s a special group.”
Still only 26 years old, Darnold went 13-25 as a starter for Gang Green over his three years there — including a 7-6 mark in 2019 when he posted career bests in completion percentage (61.9), passing yards (3,024) and touchdowns (19) — and despite somewhat of a messy ending, he says he holds no ill will toward his time in East Rutherford.
“I haven’t really had a ton of time to reflect,” he said. “The situations that I was in, I tried to make the most of it. Obviously it didn’t work out, and that’s fine.
“I did (keep in touch with Jets teammates) my first year in Carolina, and then a little bit my second year, I had a lot more people that I contacted and stayed in touch with. But as the years go the relationships fade out a little bit. But I still talk to some people I was with in New York.
“Those were great times, great teammates, good coaches, good front office. I enjoyed all the people that I worked with there.”
Now Darnold finds himself in a unique position to earn a Super Bowl ring, having appeared in 10 of San Francisco’s regular-season games this year while completing 28 of his 46 passes for 297 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.
“It’s been great,” Darnold said of his experience this week. “Just to be able to see how hectic it is, it’s amazing. To see what this group has done this whole year to get to this point, that’s the special part about it.
“I’m going to prepare the same. Just in terms of preparing as a backup, it’s a lot more studying the plays because I don’t get to run them in practice. It’s going through the motions in the hotel room, making sure I’m on board with all the shifts and motions that we do, and making sure I’m good with all the concepts versus certain coverages and what to do.”
The backup role is somewhat new for Darnold, but the same certainly cannot be said for Gabbert, who has carved out a niche in that role after a similarly promising start to his career.
Selected 10th overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2011 out of Missouri, Gabbert’s tenure there was marred by both injuries and poor play; he started just 24 games before being moved across the country to the 49ers in exchange for a sixth-round pick in 2014.
Since then he’s made something of a circuitous path around the league, suiting up for the Arizona Cardinals, Tennessee Titans, Buccaneers and Chiefs, starting just 25 games over the past nine seasons.
And that’s OK with him.
“At this point in my career, I just want to be around great people, great football teams and really enjoy it,” he said. “The longer you play, you hope you have that ability to pick and choose where you want to go. …
“We had a wonderful quarterback room in Tampa. We had a lot of fun and a lot of success there for the past four years, but being around just high-level football conversations with Tom (Brady), I knew that was going to be the same thing with Patrick and Coach (Andy) Reid.
“You want to go to those winning cultures, those winning organizations, because that’s ultimately what we’re here to do.”
Dressed in 6-foot-4, 302-pound Chiefs center Creed Humphrey’s jersey during Thursday’s media availability at Kansas City’s team hotel in a humorous swap of attire, Gabbert is soaking up his experience, one he knew coming in would feature very limited, if any, playing time when it came time to pick a destination this past offseason.
“I think the biggest thing was when I had a conversation with Coach Reid early on in free agency,” he said. “This was always a desirable location, and it’s always been a desirable location for quarterbacks.
“Most guys in their career want to have the opportunity to play for Coach Reid, be around Coach Reid. We’ve always watched his systems, his teams from afar, and being able to talk to Chase (Daniel) and Chad (Henne) about their experiences here and the system and the staff, it made it a very easy decision for me to come here.
“Great team, great organization, great coaching staff, but it’s also close to kind of where I grew up and my wife grew up, so it was a no-brainer.”
It was, of course, a choice that paid off, as Gabbert is now one game away from his second ring in the past four years.
“You sit back and enjoy it,” he said. “It’s such a unique opportunity to make it to a Super Bowl and have the opportunity to win a Super Bowl that people don’t get. … You realize how awesome of an opportunity it really is and how cool this experience really is .... You’ve got to make the most of these opportunities when they come.”