Gardner Minshew chugged whiskey and tried to break his own hand to play more football

The Jacksonville Jaguars might have drafted a very good quarterback in Gardner Minshew.

What they definitely drafted was an insane quarterback in Gardner Minshew.

Before Minshew was playing with Mike Leach at Washington State, he was a backup at East Carolina. In an effort to play as much football as he could, he went in as a redshirt — that way he’d be able to play three seasons instead of two. But then the backup quarterback moved to running back and the starter went down and... we’ll just let Minshew tell the rest from his Pardon My Take interview:

It was my first year there. I went there from junior college and the situation was I had two seniors above me, so I was hoping to go in and redshirt and be able to play three (seasons). It was an awesome setup, you know?

So we get into game four, and we move our backup (quarterback) to running back because he was our best running back and then the starter got knocked out, concussion. So, shoot, I go in there, play about a half and then we get in for the next week and the starter’s going to be back. So I’m like, “Dang, I just played a half and really wasted a half of a year on playing ball” you know? So I was pretty pissed and started looking around at what my options were, and the only thing I could do would be to get a medical redshit. But if I played in this next game, then that would be off the table.

So, I get an idea. I go home, I grab a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and I grab a hammer. I go back into my room and take a pull of Jack Daniel’s, put my hand down on the table and — BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! 1, 2, 3 — hit the hell out of my hand, dude. I’m sitting there shaking, but I know it’s not broke, so I’m like, “God, come on.” Take another pull. 1, 2, 3, again, still nothing. I’m just shaking at this point, man. I knew it wasn’t broken, so another pull, another three hits, and that was all I could take. I couldn’t break my own hand.

But when I told the guys, what would you do for more football? Because I’d do damn near anything.

It was good getting the experience. But, dude, I had a swollen-ass hand for about a few weeks. I just told the coaches I closed it in a car door.

Many thanks to Mike Cole for helping with the transcription.

Go Jaguars.