Minshew impresses teammates, coach with record-breaking performance

It’s a bit too early to pronounce Sunday’s game as the beginning of the Gardner Minshew Era for the Jaguars.

After all, they did fall 40-26 to Kansas City. And the team didn’t pay Nick Foles all that money for him to lose his job on one injury, serious as it is.

But who would have expected anything like the performance Minshew put on?

The rookie quarterback and sixth-round draft pick from Washington State stepped into the game under adverse circumstances -- Foles injured and the Jags trailing 17-7 late in the first quarter -- and completed his first 13 passes, tying the third-best consecutive completions mark in team history.

Minshew went on to break the team record for completion percentage in one game, hitting on 22 of 25 passes (.880) for 275 yards and his first two NFL touchdown passes, 15 yards to Dede Westbrook and 21 yards to Chris Conley, both in the fourth quarter.

Minshew broke Mark Brunell’s record of .852 in a 2003 game against Carolina.

The Jaguars got within seven points twice, 17-10 and 20-13, as Minshew steered them to two Josh Lambo field goals. But with the defense giving up chunks of yardage to the Chiefs and quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Minshew never had the ball with a chance to tie or go ahead.

“I’m not happy with the circumstances,” Minshew said. “It breaks my heart to see what happened to Nick because he’s been one of the best people I’ve ever played with and had the pleasure to be around. But I know he’s going to be there with me and we’re going to have this team where we need to go.”

Minshew impressed the most important people he needed to: his teammates.

“Fearless … fearless,” wide receiver D.J. Chark said of Minshew’s composure and bearing in the huddle when he had to enter the game. “He went in and did his thing. We were upset Nick was out but there was never a point when we said, ‘dang … now we have to go with Gardner.’ We knew we had to elevate our play and make him feel comfortable and he made us feel comfortable.”

Center Brandon Linder described Minshew’s game as “awesome … especially for a rookie, it was awesome to see. I’m really proud of him. We’ll have to build on that.”

Minshew completed his first four passes for 43 yards to set up Lambo’s 37-yard field goal. He then found Chark down the right side for a 69-yard play to the Kansas City 6, where the drive stalled after a holding penalty on Andrew Norwell and Lambo booted a 23-yarder.

Minshew led the Jaguars on a promising drive to start the third quarter, completing three passes in a row, mixed with runs of 6 and 14 yards by Leonard Fournette to the Chiefs’ 34. But Fournette fumbled a short pass from Minshew on third-and-two and Kansas City made it hurt with a long touchdown drive.

Minshew made it interesting for the fans remaining with his two TD passes in the final 7:40 of the game. He did throw his first NFL interception, which end Frank Clark gathered in to set up a Harrison Butker field goal.

“We’ve got some stuff to fix but we got some stuff to build on, too,” Minshew said. “We had a lot of guys make plays.”

Minshew got most of the snaps in four preseason games but was pedestrian at times. He completed .562 of his attempts for 468 yards and a passer rating of only 69.271.

He didn’t have a turnover. But he also never put the ball in the end zone and the Jaguars got only three field goals with Minshew under center.

He put 19 points on the board against the Chiefs. While true that Kansas City was ahead the whole time, it’s encouraging that Minshew never showed he was a wide-eyed rookie.

“I feel better about him now, today, after week one than I did probably during the preseason,” said coach Doug Marrone.

“Gardner did a lot of things today and a lot was asked of him in a tough situation,” Conley said. “He put together a really solid day. My expectations for this team and this offense have not lowered at all, and they don’t lower with 15 [Minshew] being in there.”

Chark said the cliche of “next man up,” is much tougher when it’s at quarterback.

“It’s different because you’re now forced to be the leader on the team,” he said.

Conley said it’s now up to the offense to rally behind Minshew.

“We have to elevate our game,” he said. “As an offense we have a lot of things to clean up to make it clear to him. He did a really good job and he’s starting to get used to the environment, the people and the flow of the offense. Right now, we can’t blink.”

Good point. Because in his first NFL game, Minshew didn’t.