The Athletic: Bills QB room article - includes AFC East QB shade

[stevewin]

https://theathletic.com/4015953/2022/12/27/bills-quarterback-room-josh-allen-case-keenum-matt-barkley/

 

Recent article in the Athletic is mostly a feel-good "this is the best QB room I've ever been in" piece - but includes this tidbit regarding the recruiting of Von

 

Quote

“I think Von has a couple numbers, so we were trying to figure out which one to call,” Barkley said. “We kept getting a dead ringtone.”

When they finally got to him, Barkley says Allen also sent Miller a three-line text that read:

 

Zach Wilson

Tua Tagovailoa

Mac Jones

 

“You get to play these guys six times a year,” Barkley said. “Have at it. Why would you not want to come? I don’t know if that sold him or not, but it was a heavy pitch.”

Not sure that is something Josh necessarily wanted out there

 

As mentioned - the rest of it is mostly about how well the three QB's get along on and off the field, the great team chemistry etc.  Some other highlights.

 

Barkley signing:

Quote

Barkley is on the practice squad in Buffalo, meaning he will make $358,200 this season, the maximum a player with two or more years of experience can make as a practice squad player. When the Bills cut Barkley after the preseason, he said he had a few opportunities to join active rosters on other teams, but he turned them all down to stay in Buffalo.

“Josh is probably the best friend I’ve made in the league,” he says.  “… I wanted to be here to be with this group of guys, knowing there is a shot at the Super Bowl and how well we meshed. We all get each other.  And Joe (Brady) is awesome. Dorse is awesome. It’s really fun to come to work every day.”

In financial terms, if Barkley had signed to another team’s active roster, he would have earned a salary of at least $1.12 million, which is the minimum for a player with at least seven years of experience. But Barkley bounced around last season from Tennessee to Carolina to Atlanta, and he knows what it’s like to be in other QB rooms that don’t jell, that aren’t as fun as this one. “All last year, it’s like man, wish I could have been back with the Bills,” he said. “We played the Bills with each team, so I saw everyone three times last year. It was wild.”

Barkley said his wife, Brittany, cried out of happiness when he told her he was signing with Buffalo again.

Also mentions that when Beane called Josh (who happened to be golfing with Barkley at the time) to ask him to help recruit Von by calling him, Josh asked for a favor in return: to sign Barkley (Beane responded OK I'll see what I can do)  

 

List of teams Barkley and Keenum have played for

Quote

Barkley’s team history reads as long as a CVS receipt: PHI ARZ CHI SF ARZ CIN BUF TEN CAR ATL BUF

Keenum’s: HOU SL HOU SL MIN DEN WAS CLE BUF

 

Best friends

Quote

Allen says having two veterans in the room, both with so much experience in football and life, has helped to keep him grounded. These quarterbacks all love Jesus, golf, cigars and playing Settlers of Catan (probably in that order). Barkley and Keenum’s wives and kids and Allen’s girlfriend have all become good friends. There’s a groupchat with just the QBs and Brady and another one with the QBs and all their significant others. They go to dinner every Friday night, and Allen is so superstitious that they’ll keep going back to the same restaurant until they lose. When receiver Stefon Diggs had a birthday party this season that fell on a Friday, the quarterbacks and their significant others rented a Sprinter van to take them there so they could all arrive together.

 

 Jockstraps:

Quote

Knowing that Allen is also recklessly competitive, Keenum offered up a challenge.

“I might have incentivized him a little bit if he would slide during a game,” Keenum said. “It was not a monetarily incentivized thing. It was more something that I would do …”

Sure enough, in Week 3 at Miami, Allen slid feet-first without being touched on an 8-yard scramble in the fourth quarter. He ran forward through a hole in the Dolphins’ defense, jerked left on a stick move and then slid forward well before two defenders closed in.

“Allegedly,” Keenum said, “I may or may not have told him I would wear only a jockstrap to one of our walkthroughs if he slid in a game feet first with nobody around him.”

“Ahhh, phew, trying to jog my memory here,” Allen said, when asked about this bet in December. He scratched his head and stared up at the ceiling. “I can neither confirm nor deny those allegations. I’m sure some of the receivers and the running backs might have something different to say about that, but I don’t really remember that.”

The Bills hold their Wednesday installs in their weight room so they can walk through each play as they learn it. Receiver Isaiah McKenzie said he was walking into the weight room with a fully-clothed Keenum when the quarterback told him he had to use the bathroom. “Tell (offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey) I will be right there,’ Keenum told McKenzie.

When Keenum reappeared, he was wearing only a jockstrap. “We was all staring at his cheeks,” McKenzie said.

Running back Taiwan Jones still busted up laughing when asked about this moment. “I’m sorry,” he said, covering his mouth with his hands to stifle his giggles. “He just casually walked past everybody.”

“I was like, what the hell is going on?

“Bare butt cheeks,” said fullback Reggie Gilliam.

“Exactly how you could picture it,” said quarterbacks coach Joe Brady. “I don’t know if you want to picture that.”

 

Edit: Note that this was the reason why guys are saying "jockstrap" in the Mic'd up of Josh from the GB game

 

Edited December 27, 2022 by stevewin

[MJS]

Nobody will have anything negative to say about Josh if it gets around what he insinuated about the AFC East QB's. He was just pointing out the truth. The rest of the league knows it too.

 

Zach Wilson has been a disaster. Mac Jones is a dirty cry baby who is quickly gaining a bad reputation in the league, not to mention he is a poor QB. Tua is decent, but has scrambled brains and is capped by hus lack of physical traits. Seems like a perfect incentive for an edge rusher to come to Buffalo.

[scuba guy]

Thus just shows one more assest to the team chemistry that we have here in Buffalo 🐃.  The players their wife's and others have all talked about it.

 

 

[Wyobills89]

that is probley one of my favorite things about this team is its team chemistry. the players all seem to just genuinely love each other and playing here. I guess success helps, but look at denver and them fighting on the sidelines, im glad we dont have that.

[stevewin]

8 minutes ago, Wyobills89 said:

that is probley one of my favorite things about this team is its team chemistry. the players all seem to just genuinely love each other and playing here. I guess success helps, but look at denver and them fighting on the sidelines, im glad we dont have that.

It's kind of jarring to see the numbers for Barkley - passed up 842K to be here vs active roster on another team, that's nothing to sneeze at

[The Avenger]

Barkley stayed in Buffalo because nobody would buy his house with the giant spider...

[BillsFanSD]

It is not at all surprising that players around the NFL do not respect Mac Jones or Zach Wilson.  Those guys are both losers, albeit for different reasons.  Their teammates know it, and players on other teams definitely know it.  And Tua seems like the kind of player that edge rushers would love to see on a weekly basis -- he can't extend plays and can't throw off-platform, after all.  

[stevewin]

6 minutes ago, BillsFanSD said:

It is not at all surprising that players around the NFL do not respect Mac Jones or Zach Wilson.  Those guys are both losers, albeit for different reasons.  Their teammates know it, and players on other teams definitely know it.  And Tua seems like the kind of player that edge rushers would love to see on a weekly basis -- he can't extend plays and can't throw off-platform, after all.  

Yes but at the time Bellicheat was saying ('Pro Bowl' QB ) Mac Jones had made 'dramatic improvement' and Zach Wilson was newly 'beefy' and 'thick'  

[Warcodered]

1 hour ago, The Avenger said:

Barkley stayed in Buffalo because nobody would buy his house with the giant spider...

You mean the giant spider's house?

[Logic]

Cool article on The Athletic (yes, behind a paywall) today about the Bills QB room by the excellent Kalyn Kahler. Long article, so there's good stuff in there that I won't post here, but certainly an enjoyable read overall.

https://theathletic.com/4015953/2022/12/27/bills-quarterback-room-josh-allen-case-keenum-matt-barkley/

 

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Matt Barkley stood in front of his locker, scrolling through photos on his phone. He searched for a specific video he took at a Buffalo Bills offensive install earlier this season. “It might not be safe for work,” he warned, squinting at his screen. “I might have put it in a secure folder.”

 

When the Bills’ third-string QB finally found the video he was looking for, he wisely decided not to turn around his phone to show it. Instead, he laughed as he relived the moment.

“I knew it was coming,” Barkley said. “Guys were laughing, it’s fun when you have cohesiveness and guys that are willing to laugh at that. Let alone Case (Keenum) who is willing to go through with it.”

Go through with what? The mysterious NSFW video that Barkley recorded on his phone that day in September was the result of an outlandish bet made in the Bills’ QB room in the name of protecting Josh Allen. During Buffalo’s Week 1 game, Keenum, the backup, and Barkley noticed a moment when they thought Allen should have slid to protect himself. Allen is famously nonchalant about his reckless playing style to the point where his veteran backups have felt the need to intervene.

“I am probably putting Case through a nice roller coaster of emotion,” Allen said. “He’s probably grabbing his helmet like, ‘Oh s—, do I need to go in or not?’”

“I play football,” Allen shrugged. “It happens sometimes.”

Knowing that Allen is also recklessly competitive, Keenum offered up a challenge.

“I might have incentivized him a little bit if he would slide during a game,” Keenum said. “It was not a monetarily incentivized thing. It was more something that I would do …”

Sure enough, in Week 3 at Miami, Allen slid feet-first without being touched on an 8-yard scramble in the fourth quarter. He ran forward through a hole in the Dolphins’ defense, jerked left on a stick move and then slid forward well before two defenders closed in.

“Allegedly,” Keenum said, “I may or may not have told him I would wear only a jockstrap to one of our walkthroughs if he slid in a game feet first with nobody around him.”

“Ahhh, phew, trying to jog my memory here,” Allen said, when asked about this bet in December. He scratched his head and stared up at the ceiling. “I can neither confirm nor deny those allegations. I’m sure some of the receivers and the running backs might have something different to say about that, but I don’t really remember that.”

 

The Bills hold their Wednesday installs in their weight room so they can walk through each play as they learn it. Receiver Isaiah McKenzie said he was walking into the weight room with a fully-clothed Keenum when the quarterback told him he had to use the bathroom. “Tell (offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey) I will be right there,’ Keenum told McKenzie.

When Keenum reappeared, he was wearing only a jockstrap. “We was all staring at his cheeks,” McKenzie said.

Running back Taiwan Jones still busted up laughing when asked about this moment. “I’m sorry,” he said, covering his mouth with his hands to stifle his giggles. “He just casually walked past everybody.”

“I was like, what the hell is going on?

“Bare butt cheeks,” said fullback Reggie Gilliam.

“Exactly how you could picture it,” said quarterbacks coach Joe Brady. “I don’t know if you want to picture that.”

The non-quarterbacks at the install had no earthly idea what was going on. Some cheered, some asked questions, and some didn’t even bother, because, as McKenzie put it,
“We all know that quarterback room is a little odd, so they do a lot of odd things.”

Odd isn’t the first word Keenum would use to describe this room. Instead, he chose “best,” meaning the best quarterback room he’s ever been in, and for a quarterback in his 11th NFL season and seventh NFL club, that statement carries a certain weight. Most quarterbacks won’t pick a favorite QB room if you ask them to. They’re uncomfortable judging different teammates or teams and even the retired ones still don’t want to piss off anyone.

“I normally don’t rank them like that,” Keenum says. “I normally say one of the best, but this is incredible.”

........................................................

 

A QB room is a delicate, almost sacred place. A successful one requires just the right combination of personalities and ability levels. Unlike other position groups, there is only one player in the room who can actually play. The backups, whether there are two or three, have to be good enough to win games, but not so good that they threaten the starter’s job. Introduce the wrong personality into a QB room and face the consequences of a ruined season or an alienated starter.

“When you have a young QB who is a star and you have older guys around him to help him, there’s no weird competition or animosity, or guys thinking of taking his job or anything,” Barkley says.

Allen is 26, and Barkley and Keenum are 32 and 34. Both the older guys have arrived at the point in their careers where they are at peace as backup quarterbacks. They know the franchise quarterback contract isn’t coming. Keenum self-identifies as a journeyman now, and after the 2019 season as Denver’s starter didn’t go the way he hoped, he’s realistic and satisfied with his current role.

“I started my career with one college offer,” Keenum says. “And I’m sitting here in year 11 and we’ve got a pretty stinkin’ good football team and it’s fun to be a part of. And I love playing football, love playing quarterback. I love the camaraderie of the QB room, the mesh that happens there.”

Barkley’s team history reads as long as a CVS receipt: PHI ARZ CHI SF ARZ CIN BUF TEN CAR ATL BUF

Keenum’s: HOU SL HOU SL MIN DEN WAS CLE BUF

Between the two of them, they’ve played for 14 NFL teams, not including Buffalo. “I can trust them because they’ve seen it all,” Allen said. “They’ve been around so many different offenses and they have seen so many defenses that whatever they say, I believe in it.”

In 2018, Allen sprained his elbow and wound up missing four games. After two of those games, backup Derek Anderson was sidelined with a concussion. So the Bills brought in Barkley, and he wound up starting the last of those four games after Nathan Peterman bombed in the third game.

Barkley shocked everybody and beat the Jets 41-10 in his first start in two years. He’d only been with the team for two weeks, so after the game, he made sure to find Allen. “I was like, look dude, I’m not here to take your job,” Barkley said. “I am here to win, if I have to. I will play, I love playing. I think just letting him know that I recognize this is your team, just put him at ease.”

“A lot of teams don’t really have that in the QB room, and it can create some tension.”

“Yeah, this is uncommon,” Keenum said. “There are probably more like that (with tension) than not. It’s a hard position to play, it’s the hardest in all of sports. Everybody in the building is dependent on the QB. And the QB is dependent on everybody in the building at the same time. I have not had it like this very often at all, and it’s very nice when it is like this.”

 

Edited December 27, 2022 by Logic

[Fleezoid]

[Logic]

I try not to post too much from pay articles, but this was too good not to share:




 

Allen was golfing in Newport, Calif., with his old pal Barkley, who had been his backup in 2018, 2019 and 2020, when Bills general manager Brandon Beane called. He asked his quarterback if he could give Miller a call because the Bills were trying to recruit the pass rusher to come to Buffalo.

Allen has said that he thinks he and Beane have the best QB-GM relationship in football, so he knew he could use this favor to strike a deal.

“I’m like, alright, well, I need you to sign Matt,” Allen said. “And he said, okay I’ll see what I can do.”

Together from their golf cart, Allen and Barkley held up their end of the bargain (though at the time, Barkley had no idea Allen had mentioned him to Beane). “I think Von has a couple numbers, so we were trying to figure out which one to call,” Barkley said. “We kept getting a dead ringtone.”

When they finally got to him, Barkley says Allen also sent Miller a three-line text that read:

Zach Wilson

Tua Tagovailoa

Mac Jones

“You get to play these guys six times a year,” Barkley said. “Have at it. Why would you not want to come? I don’t know if that sold him or not, but it was a heavy pitch.”

[Wizard]

Great article and insight. Thanks for sharing.

 

 

[BruceVilanch]

 

Case took this bet for one reason.

[stevewin]

 

[strive_for_five_guy]

7 minutes ago, Logic said:

I try not to post too much from pay articles, but this was too good not to share:




 

Allen was golfing in Newport, Calif., with his old pal Barkley, who had been his backup in 2018, 2019 and 2020, when Bills general manager Brandon Beane called. He asked his quarterback if he could give Miller a call because the Bills were trying to recruit the pass rusher to come to Buffalo.

Allen has said that he thinks he and Beane have the best QB-GM relationship in football, so he knew he could use this favor to strike a deal.

“I’m like, alright, well, I need you to sign Matt,” Allen said. “And he said, okay I’ll see what I can do.”

Together from their golf cart, Allen and Barkley held up their end of the bargain (though at the time, Barkley had no idea Allen had mentioned him to Beane). “I think Von has a couple numbers, so we were trying to figure out which one to call,” Barkley said. “We kept getting a dead ringtone.”

When they finally got to him, Barkley says Allen also sent Miller a three-line text that read:

Zach Wilson

Tua Tagovailoa

Mac Jones

“You get to play these guys six times a year,” Barkley said. “Have at it. Why would you not want to come? I don’t know if that sold him or not, but it was a heavy pitch.”

The irony is that Von only got to play those guys in two games this season.  And who knows how long each of them will even be around!

[Logic]

7 minutes ago, stevewin said:

 

Whoops. My mistake. Mods, please merge if desired. 

[Mr. WEO]

7 minutes ago, stevewin said:

 

 

OP meant "it was too good not to start another thread"

[Mr. WEO]

2 hours ago, stevewin said:

It's kind of jarring to see the numbers for Barkley - passed up 842K to be here vs active roster on another team, that's nothing to sneeze at

 

" if Barkley had signed to another team’s active roster, he would have earned a salary of at least $1.12 million, which is the minimum for a player with at least seven years of experience. But Barkley bounced around last season from Tennessee to Carolina to Atlanta"

 

The offers were not likely forthcoming...

[Logic]

2 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

" if Barkley had signed to another team’s active roster, he would have earned a salary of at least $1.12 million, which is the minimum for a player with at least seven years of experience. But Barkley bounced around last season from Tennessee to Carolina to Atlanta"

 

The offers were not likely forthcoming...

Barkley claims in the article that he had a few offers. Could be lying, of course, but it seems sort of a silly thing to lie about.