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Jimmy was kind of like Ferris Bueller: Inside 49ers QB Jimmy Garoppolos early football care

Jimmy Garoppolo showcased nerves of steel during the 49ers’ dramatic December stretch to close the regular season.

“Now,” the 49ers quarterback said after beating the Seahawks to the win the NFC West, “the real tournament starts.”

We’ve learned plenty about Garoppolo throughout the course of this season. No longer a relatively unknown commodity, Garoppolo has 16 consecutive professional starts under his belt for the first time. He threw for nearly 4,000 yards, averaging 8.4 yards per attempt, the highest average in the NFL of any quarterback who started 16 games, leading the 49ers to the No. 1 seed in the NFC.

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Now a critical new test awaits.

How will Garoppolo handle the NFL playoffs? This is where legacies are made or broken, especially for starting quarterbacks. Over three playoff runs, Garoppolo won two Super Bowl rings while working under Tom Brady. But now it’s his show. What can we expect?

Just 10 years ago, he finished a two-year run as a starting high school quarterback in suburban Chicago with a first-round loss in the playoffs. He wasn’t All-State. He didn’t put up big numbers. But he had a presence about him. The people close to him saw the potential for him to do big things in college.

So how did he get to this place, as one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in football, starting for a 49ers team with Super Bowl dreams? You’d have to go back to a freshman special teams practice in 2006.

Never highly touted: Under-the-radar through high school

Garoppolo’s journey as a quarterback started at Rolling Meadows High School in Rolling Meadows, Ill. 

Colin Buscarini, Rolling Meadows offensive lineman: In eighth grade, he was a running back. 

Tony Taibi, Rolling Meadows wide receiver: Jimmy was an unbelievable baseball player too, so growing up he was able to pitch and he always had a gunslinger mentality. Throwing came natural to him. Jimmy was an all-around athlete — basketball, baseball, obviously football, he ran track. Seeing the type of athlete he was and how well-balanced he was, you knew he could succeed at football.

Buscarini: We were 15, 16 and he looked like he was 25. Just far more developed.

Jimmy Garoppolo didn’t play quarterback until he was a junior at Rolling Meadows High School. (Courtesy of Jim Van Antwerp / Rolling Meadows)

Dan Urban, Rolling Meadows freshman team offensive coordinator: When Jimmy showed up to freshman football, it was like, “Holy cow, we’ve got a nice athlete here.” Already 6 feet tall, already had the voice of a man. He clearly stood out. We had already heard there was going to be a younger Garoppolo, because one of his older brothers was already on varsity. We started off thinking he’d be an athlete playing everywhere — running back, tight end, receiver, different spots.

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We were having a punting tryout, seeing what kids could kick. Jimmy was fielding punts, just shagging them. When he was doing that, he started throwing them back. And he started making some throws back to where the punters were. And Anthony Bradburn, the other freshman coach, looked at me and said, “Did you see Jimmy throw that? I think he should be our quarterback.” That’s when he and I started talking about Jimmy being our quarterback.

In the second half of the season opener that season, Urban and Bradburn put Garoppolo in at quarterback for the first time in an organized football game.

Urban: I remember the first pass play I called, Jimmy rolls out. He scrambles around on the play and throws this 30-yard, line-drive pass on a backside post route, on a rope. And it bounces off the kid’s chest. He doesn’t even catch it. And I look at (Bradburn), and I go: “Holy crap, Jimmy is going to be our quarterback the rest of the year now. That throw was ridiculous.” It was his first pass. From that point on, quarterback was a long-term option for Jimmy. He had the tools.

That Monday, I made it a point to meet with Jimmy. “Jimmy, we’re gonna move you to QB. This is not just for the freshman team. I want you to be a quarterback because this is long-term. If you commit to this, you have the tools to make good things happen in the future. You have more tools than I did at your age.”

Charlie Henry, Rolling Meadows offensive coordinator: He played defense his sophomore year because he was too good of athlete not to play on varsity, and we had a senior quarterback. In hindsight, we may have been better off (his junior year) had we started Jimmy as a sophomore.

Marty Maciaszek, sportswriter, Daily Herald: His junior year, you would probably classify it as average. Nothing out of the ordinary. There were some good moments, some bad moments. His senior year, he really started to break out.

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Henry: When Jimmy took over as the quarterback his junior year, we were a pretty average football team. Between that junior and senior year, Jimmy really set out to improve his game. He spent time with Jeff Christensen outside of school.

When Garoppolo started as a junior, he had an elongated pitcher’s release — much different from the compact one that his future college coach, Dino Babers, would call “the fastest release of any guy I’ve ever seen” outside of Dan Marino. Garoppolo began putting in extra work with Christensen, a Chicago-area quarterback specialist. 

Christensen: It was 102 degrees outside. (Jimmy) just wanted to get his reps in for a full hour-and-a-half. I recently found that film and watched it, and it looked like Jimmy was 12 years old. But even then, watching the ball come out of his hand, it was really impressive.

He’s kind of a good-looking guy, so he could’ve been at the pool. He could’ve been doing all that stuff in the summer. Instead, he wanted to get his work in, and he’s been the same type of kid ever since. Jimmy has zero entitlement in his body. His two older brothers beat on him like a rag doll for 10 years growing up, so he’s just a worker. And that’s what college coaches want: A guy who shows up and knows how to get to work. Who gets knocked down and can get up.

Garoppolo’s skills as a pitcher augured an ability to throw a football. As a Little Leaguer, he was feared on the mound.

Buscarini: As a fellow overgrown Italian child, it was definitely men against boys. This is just house league baseball, so we’re in T-shirt jerseys, and Jimmy is on the mound, 6-1, throwing heat. It’s like what are we doing? Get this kid on a travel team. There were kids up there swinging the bat and the ball is already in the mitt.

But with a late start, Garoppolo was never even the most touted QB in his high school conference, the Mid-Suburban League in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. That was Miles Osei, who started as a sophomore at nearby rival Prospect, and wound up playing at the University of Illinois. 

Brent Pearlman, Prospect High School coach: Those two were kind of battling back and forth to be the two premier players in the conference.

Miles Osei, Prospect quarterback: Our conference was very strong then and still is now. We obviously knew each other. It was fun to compete and try to outdo one another.

Buscarini: My roommate Peter Bonahoom, he went to Prospect and he played at Illinois with Miles, even to this day we argue who was the better quarterback: “Miles was better at high school. No, Jimmy was better in high school.” It’s the back-and-forth banter of the old days. Let me throw on my letterman’s jacket and chest him up.

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Henry: In that game against Prospect, against Miles Osei, we were five wide receiver for most of the game, and Jimmy led us in carries. He led us in rushing. We won 46-38 or something like that.

Garoppolo passed for 323 yards and a touchdown while running for 103 yards and two more scores in a 46-38 win. Osei combined for 375 all-purpose yards and three touchdowns.

Osei: I remember there were a lot of points scored. It was kind of a battle of who had the ball last. It was fun. It was frustrating at times to see him run around and do his thing.

Pearlman: He made a couple of those plays where I was thinking he should not have made that play, but he did. He would scramble around and find a guy. You just wouldn’t expect most high school quarterbacks to do that. 

Buscarini: He and Tony Taibi were on the same wavelength, doing what could work under (Rolling Meadows coach) Doug Millsaps. There were so many third downs where people were running around back and forth and Jimmy hits one for 17 yards on third-and-16, and it’s like, “We’re still alive, boys.”

Henry: Jimmy hit two big throws against Barrington to his best friend, Tony Taibi. And we’re like man, this kid. We can throw the ball around. He did scramble a lot, run around a lot, but in the long run, it was his arm.

Taibi: I’ll never forget, there was one play, it was the Barrington play. (Jimmy) said if they’re giving me five yards of cushion or less, he’s like, “Tony, just run right past them.” As I did, boom, Jimmy threw me a 50-yard bomb. We scored a touchdown. Jimmy, he’s just a smart guy. He plays off his feet and he can make those plays.

The 2009 football season in suburban Chicago was a muddy one, as this picture from Rolling Meadows’ 26-19 win over Buffalo Grove can attest. (Jim Van Antwerp / Rolling Meadows)

Henry: Part of the reason he was undervalued is that we played in rain every Friday night for the last six weeks. We played his playoff game on Halloween night. The field was standing water from hash to hash. Mud, it was awful. And we played a team that didn’t really throw the ball, so we were at a disadvantage.

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Taibi: I think we had two dry games. Every other game was muddy and disgusting. Nowadays every field is turf. Ours was still grass. A lot of the fields we played on were grass. It was a disaster. The fact that Jimmy still threw up those numbers he did was unbelievable because we were playing with soaked balls pretty much 75 percent of the season. It’s tough making cuts in those conditions and I can only imagine Jimmy throwing the ball with a wet, heavy ball. 

Rolling Meadows felt like it had a team to make a run in the 2009 state playoffs, but it came to an abrupt ending with a 16-6 home loss to nearby Lake Zurich in the opener. Garoppolo threw four interceptions and went 9-for-25 for 154 yards.

Maciaszek: Looking back, in his last game of his senior year, a playoff game where he threw four interceptions, I don’t know if that turned people off. His coach said people were coming in. I remember him saying Purdue and some other Big 10 schools, other D-I schools in the area, had started to show more interest. Then it just kind of went away.

Garoppolo completed 56 percent of his passes and threw for 1,888 yards and 16 touchdowns his senior year. He added 563 rushing yards and another seven touchdowns. That was good enough to put him on the Daily Herald’s All-Area team, but he was only special mention in the Chicago Tribune’s All-State team. He went 0-2 in the playoffs as a high school quarterback.

Struggle and the turning point: Humble, blue-collar roots

Garoppolo, short on scholarship offers, ended up attending Eastern Illinois, located in the small town of Charleston, population 20,000. Notable Eastern Illinois football alumni include former coach Mike Shanahan (father of Garoppolo’s 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan), Saints coach Sean Payton and former Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo.

Maciaszek: I will say one thing I do remember when I went over to the school on the day he committed to Eastern, I remember his mom was there, he was there and I think the biggest thing is some people would’ve taken it the wrong way, “Why am I being disrespected? Why am I not being looked at like I should be?” They were the exact opposite. They were looking at it as a great opportunity, a chance to really make something there. I certainly couldn’t have told you this is what it would’ve led to. I think the attitude he took from it trickled down from his parents and it had a lot to do with him taking the right path.

Garoppolo took over the Eastern Illinois starting job as a true freshman in 2010. Over his first two years there, Garoppolo was sacked over 50 times. He threw 27 interceptions as a freshman and sophomore. The Panthers went a combined 4-18. 

Mike Bradd, Eastern Illinois play-by-play announcer: At first, we were learning how to spell his name. The coach at the time, Bob Spoo, decided to take Jimmy’s redshirt off and start him after the third or fourth game.

Garoppolo in a game against Northern Illinois during his senior year at Eastern Illinois in 2013. (Chris Anderson / Icon SMI / Corbis via Getty Images)

John Wurm, former Eastern Illinois safety and Garoppolo’s housemate: One of his first times playing, we had so many injuries a third-string tight end was playing right tackle. I just remember Jimmy running for his life and he was loving it. It was the biggest fire I’d ever seen in my life, and he was having fun. He was taking hits out there, and he was playing better.

It’s a different kind of mindset. You don’t see a quarterback who loves getting hit, not worrying about having a fourth-string right tackle in. He was like: “Oh, it looks like I’m gonna have some hits today. Can’t wait!’”

Bradd: It was a pretty rough start at first. First of all, the team wasn’t very good. They had a game against Tennessee Tech, and Bob pulled Jimmy. He may have had five interceptions. I remember there being a lot of debate about whether they should go with Jimmy or go back to the older quarterback.

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Wurm on Garoppolo’s benching: The thing I remember is him being on one, but in a quiet way, where you knew something was going on with him. You could tell he was pissed off and upset, but he wouldn’t show it. He was keeping it in. It’s a struggle. There’s nothing worse in college football than when you’re having a two-win season. They threw him into the fire. But, we all knew the future was bright. 

Bradd: And I remember Bob came out the very first thing the next week and said “Jimmy’s gonna be the starter, we have faith in him.” And I always thought of that as the turning point. 

The house on 7th St.: From FCS anonymity to NFL stardom

Wurm: The cool thing about Jimmy: Most quarterbacks don’t live in an all-defensive house. Normally, the quarterback lives with the O-line and receivers. But Jimmy lived in a house with five of us, and we were all defensive guys. So every day it was competition. We’d come home and we’d be talking shit about practice. I think it was special he never wanted to live with anyone else.

Adam Gristick, former Eastern Illinois linebacker: We competed so much at practice. All the defensive guys in the house, we’d come home and give it to him all the time. We could kick their ass the whole practice, no questions asked, it didn’t matter what would happen, Jimmy would never admit that we had a better day than him. We always used to bust his balls. It was good banter, everyone ganging up on Jimmy.

Jimmy Garoppolo and his roommates lived in this rental house in Charleston, Ill., during their senior year at EIU. (Courtesy John Wurm)

Four of the housemates lived upstairs, but Garoppolo and Wurm lived in the house’s decaying basement. That’s where they played Xbox and critiqued each other’s game. Wurm said that Garoppolo spent three-to-four hours a day “stretching his hips” there, eliminating one of his key weaknesses early in college. That allowed him to better evade pressure in the pocket as an upperclassman. 

Garoppolo would also frequently cook his signature dish of chicken, rice and spinach leaves in the basement’s tiny kitchen.

Wurm: Oh my God, we’d call it the VIP down there. Our house got so trashed. There were four or five steps to get down there, and those damn steps kept breaking. It was almost like you were going down to a crawl space. There were times when you had to jump downstairs. We had the smallest little bathroom ever. It just felt like you weren’t going to where someone would live. It was like, “are people supposed to go down there?”

To paint you a picture just walking into our college house, our main bathroom was straight to the back. At one point we had no wall or door. We just had a big bedsheet over the main bathroom to the house.

Gristick: I don’t think there was a window in his room. There might’ve been a 12-by-6 window. It was a damn dungeon. Jimmy lived in some rough spots in Charleston. Our house the first summer, a different place, Jimmy was upstairs, in the damn sauna. This hot-box cupboard, no air conditioning. It sucked. 

Wurm: That’s because it was first come, first serve, and Jimmy had last pick. He didn’t even go up there half of the time, it was so hot. Just think about it: Jimmy slept on the couch in his first house in college. He didn’t even get to sleep in his room. That’s where he came from: His first house with the boys he got last pick. Tough love.

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Gristick: But Jimmy and Wurm lived in the basement of the main house together. It was their own world down there sometime.

Wurm: It was a shit show. But it was the best four years of my life, I’ll tell you that.

That house was a staple for us, us going through back-to-back 2-9 seasons and then turning the campus around. Getting people excited about football again, and then dominating on the field. We wouldn’t even have to throw parties. People would just come over to our house. I think it was special. Half of the campus would know to come to the football house. 

Eastern Illinois hired Babers as its new coach ahead of the 2012 season. The Panthers surged behind Babers, who unlocked Garoppolo’s potential over his junior and senior seasons with an aggressive pass-to-set-up-the-run offensive system that he brought from Baylor.

In 2013, the Panthers finished 12-2. Garoppolo threw for 5,050 yards and 53 touchdowns during his record-breaking 2013 season. One of Eastern Illinois’ losses came to Northern Illinois (defensive back Jimmie Ward, now Garoppolo’s teammate with the 49ers, intercepted the QB) and the season-ender came against Towson in the snow during the FCS quarterfinals. 

Gristick: You couldn’t see any turf. There were six inches of snow all over the field. We’re still pissed to this day: There’s not a team in the country that could have beaten us in a dome. In good conditions, Jimmy was unstoppable. He’s untouchable in domes.

Roy Wittke, Eastern Illinois assistant coach: (The season) was like watching a video game. Instead of measuring yards after contact for running backs, you had to measure yards before contact. Because defenses were so adamant to try to stop Jimmy’s passing, our backs were always in the secondary before they even got touched.

Bradd: It was so easy to score. You were almost disappointed when they didn’t get a touchdown. Even with Tony Romo, this team didn’t have that easy of a time on offense. Jimmy did whatever he wanted. Third-and-25? No problem. It was so easy for him. There were times I think he knew before he snapped the ball if it was going to be a big gain or a touchdown. 

Clint Bays, Eastern Illinois equipment manager: You’d go from the locker room joking around with him, and he’d put on the helmet and just turn into Superman.

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Urban Meyer, Ohio State coach who saw Garoppolo’s film of Eastern Illinois smashing San Diego State 40-19, speaking in 2013: I think I just saw one of the best quarterbacks I’ve ever seen, and nobody knows what his name is.

Gristick: Being a part of that was the moment where us as a team, and everybody that was close to him said, “Shit just got real.” Urban Meyer just said he was one of the best quarterbacks he’s ever seen. That changed the game. To get validation from one of the best coaches of all time was insane. That’s when everyone was like, “Oh my God, I think we’re underestimating this dude a little bit. He’s the real deal.”

To this day, I’ll say he was the best QB in the country that year: If you talk about his draft class, it was (Johnny) Manziel, Blake Bortles, (Teddy) Bridgewater, Derek Carr. I’d put him above all those guys. We literally had the best quarterback in the country at an FCS school.

Garoppolo invited all five of his housemates to that 2014 NFL Draft in New York, where the Patriots drafted him in the second round. Everyone, including Garoppolo’s brothers, crammed into a single hotel room. Many slept on the floor. Because only immediate family is allowed with potential draftees into the green room, Garoppolo also listed his housemates as siblings, all sharing his last name.

Jimmy Garoppolo poses with his “brothers,” his college roommates at Eastern Illinois, at the 2014 NFL Draft. From left to right: Jerone “Juice” Williams, Pete Houlihan, Garoppolo, Gristick, Wurm and Niko Foltys.

Wurm: It blew (NFL commissioner) Roger Goodell’s mind. “Jimmy has eight brothers? Because he has three and he brought five more. What? He’s one of nine brothers? What’s going on here?”

One of us was Juice Williams. He’s like a 6-6, 330 black dude. Obviously not Jimmy’s brother. But he was “Juice Garoppolo.” It was so funny. Roger Goodell came up, introduced himself and he was so stunned by that. We kept rotating name tags, because they only allowed a certain number of us in at once.

Once Jimmy explained to him, “these guys are my roommates and brothers, they’re just as excited as me to be here and I want them to be part of it,” Goodell thought it was the most incredible thing ever. He was like, “have ’em all be back here, I don’t want them to keep switching name tags.”

Goodell said, “I’m gonna hang around until you get picked.” And he was a man of his word. He actually hung around our table most of the day because he was so intrigued by that. He said, “you’re the only guy to ever bring your roommates as family.”

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Now, nearly six years later, Garoppolo makes it a point to keep a physical tie to Eastern Illinois. 

Gristick: He still wears that damn Eastern Illinois book bag from 2013. $130 million and he’s still wearing a book bag that’s six years old.

Bays: His old Nike backpack, the one he had, blew out. So his dad called me. I didn’t have any more because we don’t buy extras at Eastern. We don’t have the money that the 49ers have. I just said, “Well, mine’s sitting in the closet, I’ll just ship it out to Jimmy.” I think that’s a great story that he wants to remember EIU and his old backpack. I’m glad he still does that to keep himself humble and remember where he came from. Because we are a blue-collar university and Jimmy fit right in with that. 

Garoppolo ultimately had the original 2013 backpack patched up, so now he’s back to carrying around his original, slightly tattered Eastern Illinois backpack to all 49ers’ football functions. 

‘Feels Great, Baby’: Quiet confidence as a teammate

Taibi, on the dynamic in high school: The summer before our senior year, we did a lot together. A lot of hills, a lot of throwing. I was his receiver in high school, so a lot of route running, a lot of communication, pinpoint accuracy drills. A lot of just time spent together, where I’m going to be when I’m coming out of my route, how we’re going to do things, studying the playbook.

Wurm, on the dynamic in college: Even during practice, Jimmy would sneak over and say “Wurm, when you sit up in your stance or take two steps this way, I know you’re about to do this. … Wurm, when you’re two or three feet off the hash in this direction, I know what coverage you’re in.” He would think of the craziest stuff. He’s involved in both sides of the ball. Why is the quarterback helping the safety out?

Then there was the incident before Eastern Illinois crushed San Diego State. Babers wanted to surprise his team, many of whom had never seen the ocean before, with a trip to the beach. So the coach told Garoppolo ahead of time, but warned his quarterback to not spill the beans. 

Babers: We go to the beach, we get there, the bus stops. All of a sudden, the offensive linemen start pulling off their clothes, and they’ve all got Speedos on. And I’m like, “What the hell — what are they doing wearing Speedos underneath their clothes? I’m like, Garoppolo — what the heck?”And Jimmy goes: “Coach, I had to tell the offensive line, they’re my guys. I had to tell them we were going to the beach!”

Gristick: I remember I was pissed off at the O-line. “Guys, we’re about to play an FBS opponent in two days, we’ve gotta save some energy here!” And they did not give a hell. They were out there wrestling in the ocean. And we went out there and kicked (San Diego State’s) ass, so it kind of worked out. But initially, it was like, guys, relax, we’ve got a game in two days!

Bays: Jimmy was kind of like Ferris Bueller. Everybody just loved Jimmy. Whatever group or clique on a roster, or position group, everybody loved Jimmy.

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Garoppolo’s agents recently filed trademarks for “Feels Great, Baby.” Those were the quarterback’s famous words to Erin Andrews in a postgame interview after a Week 9 win over Arizona this season. 

Wurm: Feels great, baby.” That was like our language. We’d walk in and be like “hey baby!” That’s how we would talk to each other in the house. We’d call each other “baby.” It was like a natural thing. I don’t know how the hell it started, but it did. 

Erik Lora, Garoppolo’s leading receiver at Eastern Illinois: People are just recognizing who he is. He’s a funny guy. He knows what to say and when to say it. He’s a funny character. “Feels great, baby” sounds exactly like something he would say: short, sweet and to the point. 

Taibi: When he comes home in the offseason, he’s always hanging out with us. He hasn’t changed a bit. I’ll tell you that, straight up. He’s the same guy.

Buscarini: You know the classic good-looking quarterback who slicks back his hair, drives a convertible, takes a girl and drives off? That’s not Jim. Jim was very humble, very nice. Great-looking dude, very nice, very popular, all that jazz. But you could talk to him. He wasn’t above anyone. I know his family. I know his brothers. They’re just a very humble family.

Garoppolo poses with Jarrett Payton after winning the Walter Payton Award in 2013 as the most outstanding offensive player in the FCS. (Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)

Gristick: He made an Instagram post about quiet confidence a few weeks ago (“Beware the quiet man,” it read). In Jimmy’s mind, he truly believes he’s the best quarterback in the country and I think he’s believed that for a long time. 

When he got to school his freshman year, Jimmy wrote down every single passing record at the school in a notebook. He didn’t tell anybody about that. He wrote those down freshman year and he broke every single one. That quiet confidence about him is a pretty cool dynamic to study. 

I just want to know what’s in his brain sometimes. How does he do what he does? When he wrote that, it struck me like damn, I think he’s just extremely confident in his mind. He doesn’t let it get out because he doesn’t want to be labeled as arrogant or cocky. But I think that’s his superpower.

Garoppolo to the NFL playoffs: A full-circle journey

Maciaszek: Jimmy is a great example, in my opinion, of you don’t know how kids are going to develop from high school to college, what’s going to happen physically and mentally. Will they get in the right situation? Going to Eastern was a great situation for him. Maybe if he would’ve, say, gone to play D-I, he could’ve sat around on the bench and maybe none of this happens. He made the most of it and a lot of kids don’t and that’s the difference.

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Buscarini: This guy started as a sophomore outside linebacker, and now he’s going to throw the rock. “Yeah, we’re going to play quarterback, we’ll see how the dice rolls.” And it looks like he hit Yahtzee.

Taibi: Being one of his best friends, I’m just so proud. I hope he keeps going and wins 10 more championships.

Henry: Sometimes you hear those guys get interviewed after games, it’s like lip service. But Jimmy, he means it. He appreciates everything that is going on around him. I hear it when I hear Richard Sherman and George Kittle talking about him. “He’s our leader and we’ll go to bat for him and he doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves.” He is the same kid. I think that’s how he’s always been. I absolutely do think that he is that same kid that we saw 10 years ago in high school.

Bradd: The more I think about it, thinking about what we saw in the first couple of games Jimmy played to where he was by the time he left. Man, it’s just amazing how far he came.

Wurm: He’s seen the fire. He’s been through it. He loved it, loved every second of it.

Lora: It’s his presence that allows that team to be as competitive as they are and win. People forget that the underlying purpose of football is to win. You can say he’s a game manager, you can say he’s a gunslinger. It doesn’t matter how you categorize him. That’s an opinion. What is a fact is he’s a winner.

And no matter what you want to categorize him, stop trying to make a reason or excuse why he’s not a top 10, top 5, and just enjoy what he’s doing. He’s winning. He’s brought back a franchise with history and tradition and given them excitement. He’s given them an opportunity to be themselves again. That’s why he’s a max player. That’s why he’s making all that money. And that’s why he’s worth it.

Quotes from Dino Babers, Jeff Christensen and Roy Wittke are taken from interviews conducted in 2017. 

(Top photo: Jim van Antwerp / Rolling Meadows)

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