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In NFL, former Texas A&M standout might find best option of all
Pro scouts see in McGee skills concealed by taking one for the A&M team
By JEFF CAPLANjcaplan@star-telegram.comRelated Content
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/DAVID J. PHILLIP
Those who know Stephen McGee, whose hard luck as the Texas A&M quarterback rivals only his tenacity playing the position, aren’t surprised by his stampede up NFL Draft boards.
"If you were to ask Stephen if there was a time he didn’t think he would be an NFL player, he’d say, 'You’re stupid,’ " his father, Rodney McGee, said with a hearty laugh. "He knew that from the fifth grade."
As a nationally touted, state record-setting passer out of Burnet High School, McGee, who grew up with a Troy Aikman poster on his bedroom wall, might have snapped back the same two words if you had asked him if he’d rather run the option in college.
Aikman certainly didn’t. The Hall of Famer went to Oklahoma set to change Barry Switzer’s Wishbone into a pro-style offense. It never clicked. Aikman ended up breaking his leg and eventually transferred to UCLA.
McGee planned to ramrod coach Dennis Franchione’s quick-strike spread passing attack. Only the former A&M coach surprisingly adopted an option-based offense, the zone read.
In McGee’s first start, in the 2005 finale against Texas, he pulverized the unsuspecting Longhorns defense for 108 yards and two touchdowns on 24 hard-charging carries.
A&M lost the game, but it entrenched the bruising brand of offense McGee would willingly stay to lead.
"I think he played a couple games with a concussion," said Dallas Cowboys tight end and McGee’s former teammate, Martellus Bennett. "He never complained. I knew he wanted to pass the ball more, that’s the mentality of a quarterback. Sometimes I’d tell him, 'Don’t run that play. Just throw me the ball.’ I was serious."
Loyal like a soldier, McGee seemed to relish the challenge of transforming himself into a battering ram of a rusher, even at the peril of damaging the potential pro career he envisioned since grade school.
"To be perfectly honest, it wasn’t my dream offense, it’s not necessarily what I wanted to be in as a throwing guy," McGee said. "I never once second-guessed it. I always believed in it and thought that our concept made sense. Certainly there were some things in that offense that hurt my draft status, but things I learned like toughness and leadership, it wasn’t about Stephen McGee, but A&M."
His dream offense arrived with Franchione’s successor, ex-Green Bay Packers coach Mike Sherman, a proponent of the West Coast offense.
McGee, though, dislocated his throwing shoulder twice in the first four games, prematurely shutting down his senior season and his one chance to show NFL scouts that he could play their game, too.
"I had worked so hard and overcome a lot of things," McGee said. "And then not to be able to play, I was heartbroken."
Yet never disillusioned.
Fully healthy, McGee performed impressively at the NFL Scouting Combine and at the East-West Shrine all-star game. Suddenly, the option quarterback who isn’t is in the discussion as a third-round pick, possibly as the fourth or fifth quarterback selected, in the April 25-26 NFL Draft.
"He’ll be one of these guys two years from now, three years from now," said Gil Brandt, the former Dallas Cowboys player personnel director and esteemed NFL.com personnel guru, "where people will say, 'Ooh, how’d they get that guy on the second day of the draft?’ "
Rising draft stock
McGee, officially measuring 6-foot-2 7/8 and 225 pounds, has prototypical size. He has a strong arm and quick feet. At the combine, only West Virginia’s Pat White timed faster among quarterbacks in the 40-yard dash. McGee has intelligence and intangibles.
He’s worked out for New England, Seattle, Jacksonville, Carolina, Miami, San Francisco and Houston. This week, McGee is scheduled to visit with Denver and Oakland, plus a trip to Dallas to visit with the team he’s lived and died with since before the fifth grade.
"His best quarterbacking days are ahead of him, there’s no doubt in my mind," Bennett said. "He’s tough, he has the arm strength and he’s a highly intelligent kid. He always knows what’s going on in every aspect of the game."
Aggies fans delighted in McGee’s toughness, simultaneously wincing and whooping when he’d lower his shoulder and run somebody over, then bounce up and go facemask-to-facemask to let his assailant know there’s more where that came from.
Yet, fans never could grasp McGee’s true potential. Advertised as a down-field passer, fans pondered if Franchione’s change to the run-heavy option had something to do either with McGee’s faults as a passer or whispers of a supposed nagging arm injury.
As policy, Franchione kept injuries secret, serving to fuel speculation about McGee’s health. Was he hurt? Was he incapable of throwing deep? Or was he just not good enough?
In truth, Franchione turned to a ball-control offense because he didn’t trust his defense, and he valued the talent in his backfield over his receivers.
"He can do it all, he’s very intelligent," Franchione said. "You’d be amazed how much was put on his shoulders in our offense and what he could do. He has no limitations and if he did he would work on it until he could do it."
Tested under fire
As quarterbacks do, McGee took the brunt of fan dissatisfaction as the losses piled up.
Not unordinary were spates of hate mail and raw eggs splattered on his car.
"There were some long nights, tough moments when you combine everything that was going on," McGee said. "There were days that really tested me and challenged me."
Even at the worst of times, McGee said he never wondered what might have been had he gone to Georgia, his second choice. At Georgia Highland Park product Matthew Stafford developed into the projected No. 1 pick.
"Maybe if I went to Georgia I would have been a first-round draft pick," McGee said. "OK, great, but I learned things here at A&M that are more valuable than wherever I may be [taken] — the leadership, being tested under fire, the struggles, the heat I took as a quarterback here, backing my coach and teammates.
"Those lessons mean so much more than the hype of a first-round draft pick. I want to be a first-round pick, don’t get me wrong, but I was able to be a part of lessons here at A&M that in the long run I can lean on in the NFL."
Those who know Stephen McGee aren’t surprised.
Pro scouts see in McGee skills concealed by taking one for the A&M team
By JEFF CAPLANjcaplan@star-telegram.comRelated Content
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/DAVID J. PHILLIP
Those who know Stephen McGee, whose hard luck as the Texas A&M quarterback rivals only his tenacity playing the position, aren’t surprised by his stampede up NFL Draft boards.
"If you were to ask Stephen if there was a time he didn’t think he would be an NFL player, he’d say, 'You’re stupid,’ " his father, Rodney McGee, said with a hearty laugh. "He knew that from the fifth grade."
As a nationally touted, state record-setting passer out of Burnet High School, McGee, who grew up with a Troy Aikman poster on his bedroom wall, might have snapped back the same two words if you had asked him if he’d rather run the option in college.
Aikman certainly didn’t. The Hall of Famer went to Oklahoma set to change Barry Switzer’s Wishbone into a pro-style offense. It never clicked. Aikman ended up breaking his leg and eventually transferred to UCLA.
McGee planned to ramrod coach Dennis Franchione’s quick-strike spread passing attack. Only the former A&M coach surprisingly adopted an option-based offense, the zone read.
In McGee’s first start, in the 2005 finale against Texas, he pulverized the unsuspecting Longhorns defense for 108 yards and two touchdowns on 24 hard-charging carries.
A&M lost the game, but it entrenched the bruising brand of offense McGee would willingly stay to lead.
"I think he played a couple games with a concussion," said Dallas Cowboys tight end and McGee’s former teammate, Martellus Bennett. "He never complained. I knew he wanted to pass the ball more, that’s the mentality of a quarterback. Sometimes I’d tell him, 'Don’t run that play. Just throw me the ball.’ I was serious."
Loyal like a soldier, McGee seemed to relish the challenge of transforming himself into a battering ram of a rusher, even at the peril of damaging the potential pro career he envisioned since grade school.
"To be perfectly honest, it wasn’t my dream offense, it’s not necessarily what I wanted to be in as a throwing guy," McGee said. "I never once second-guessed it. I always believed in it and thought that our concept made sense. Certainly there were some things in that offense that hurt my draft status, but things I learned like toughness and leadership, it wasn’t about Stephen McGee, but A&M."
His dream offense arrived with Franchione’s successor, ex-Green Bay Packers coach Mike Sherman, a proponent of the West Coast offense.
McGee, though, dislocated his throwing shoulder twice in the first four games, prematurely shutting down his senior season and his one chance to show NFL scouts that he could play their game, too.
"I had worked so hard and overcome a lot of things," McGee said. "And then not to be able to play, I was heartbroken."
Yet never disillusioned.
Fully healthy, McGee performed impressively at the NFL Scouting Combine and at the East-West Shrine all-star game. Suddenly, the option quarterback who isn’t is in the discussion as a third-round pick, possibly as the fourth or fifth quarterback selected, in the April 25-26 NFL Draft.
"He’ll be one of these guys two years from now, three years from now," said Gil Brandt, the former Dallas Cowboys player personnel director and esteemed NFL.com personnel guru, "where people will say, 'Ooh, how’d they get that guy on the second day of the draft?’ "
Rising draft stock
McGee, officially measuring 6-foot-2 7/8 and 225 pounds, has prototypical size. He has a strong arm and quick feet. At the combine, only West Virginia’s Pat White timed faster among quarterbacks in the 40-yard dash. McGee has intelligence and intangibles.
He’s worked out for New England, Seattle, Jacksonville, Carolina, Miami, San Francisco and Houston. This week, McGee is scheduled to visit with Denver and Oakland, plus a trip to Dallas to visit with the team he’s lived and died with since before the fifth grade.
"His best quarterbacking days are ahead of him, there’s no doubt in my mind," Bennett said. "He’s tough, he has the arm strength and he’s a highly intelligent kid. He always knows what’s going on in every aspect of the game."
Aggies fans delighted in McGee’s toughness, simultaneously wincing and whooping when he’d lower his shoulder and run somebody over, then bounce up and go facemask-to-facemask to let his assailant know there’s more where that came from.
Yet, fans never could grasp McGee’s true potential. Advertised as a down-field passer, fans pondered if Franchione’s change to the run-heavy option had something to do either with McGee’s faults as a passer or whispers of a supposed nagging arm injury.
As policy, Franchione kept injuries secret, serving to fuel speculation about McGee’s health. Was he hurt? Was he incapable of throwing deep? Or was he just not good enough?
In truth, Franchione turned to a ball-control offense because he didn’t trust his defense, and he valued the talent in his backfield over his receivers.
"He can do it all, he’s very intelligent," Franchione said. "You’d be amazed how much was put on his shoulders in our offense and what he could do. He has no limitations and if he did he would work on it until he could do it."
Tested under fire
As quarterbacks do, McGee took the brunt of fan dissatisfaction as the losses piled up.
Not unordinary were spates of hate mail and raw eggs splattered on his car.
"There were some long nights, tough moments when you combine everything that was going on," McGee said. "There were days that really tested me and challenged me."
Even at the worst of times, McGee said he never wondered what might have been had he gone to Georgia, his second choice. At Georgia Highland Park product Matthew Stafford developed into the projected No. 1 pick.
"Maybe if I went to Georgia I would have been a first-round draft pick," McGee said. "OK, great, but I learned things here at A&M that are more valuable than wherever I may be [taken] — the leadership, being tested under fire, the struggles, the heat I took as a quarterback here, backing my coach and teammates.
"Those lessons mean so much more than the hype of a first-round draft pick. I want to be a first-round pick, don’t get me wrong, but I was able to be a part of lessons here at A&M that in the long run I can lean on in the NFL."
Those who know Stephen McGee aren’t surprised.
