MMQB: Trevor Siemian's Unlikely Rise
Read this before the game tonight and get hype!
This might not be Kurt Warner going from stocking grocery shelves in Iowa to winning a Super Bowl. But it’s the feel-good story of the year in the NFL, the story of a successful team with a GM unafraid to take risks and coaches who know what they’re looking for in a quarterback, one whose skills translate to pro football. Namely, poise, intelligence, accuracy—and the understanding that a strong supporting cast can make a fundamentally sound quarterback look pretty good.
“You couldn’t write the script,” says Jacob Schmidt, a former teammate of Siemian’s and now the director of player development for Northwestern football. “It is such a the stars aligned thing. You have what most would call a mediocre senior season, and then you blow out your ACL, and then you’re going to go to the NFL? How?”It’s a tribute to Siemian that he’d hung around long enough to finally win the starting job outright as a senior. But when the offense was finally his own to claim, he lacked consistent playmakers at receiver and a steady offensive line. “It’s easy and lazy to look at his college career and not understand what he went through,” says former Wildcats running back Mike Trumpy, a close friend of Siemian.
Adds Schmidt: “We knew from day one Trevor had the skills. He’s always had a big arm and been a cerebral guy. We were never able to protect him long enough and put some weapons around him that would allow him to succeed.”http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/10/12/m...ning-successorThe Broncos told no one, but it was clear they liked what they saw in Siemian. In a preseason game at Seattle, the rookie led a fourth-quarter scoring drive. The next week at Houston he did it again, this time a two-minute drill for a game-winning touchdown. “It gave us the sense that this kid has got something to him,” Knapp says. “He didn’t have a whole lot of reps, he was in a brand new offense that he had to learn a lot of in the classroom, and he still performed at a high level.”
The strong preseason performance persuaded Denver to give Siemian a roster spot rather than stash him on the practice squad, where he could get plucked by any team willing to put him on its active roster. So Siemian sat and learned. What seeped in from his exposure to Peyton Manning? Says Siemian: “He really found his success in the six days leading up to the game. He always had an answer for everything, and that was from his preparation on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.”
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Originally Posted by underrated29
