Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Gardner Minshew once tried to break his hand with a hammer in a bizarre tactic to prolong his college football career.
Minshew, who recently entered his sixth season in the NFL, spent his freshman year of college with Northwest Mississippi before transferring to East Carolina in 2016.
With two senior quarterbacks ahead of him on the depth chart at the time, the Mississippi-born star hoped to redshirt that season and start with the East Carolina Pirates the next three years.
However, when the other two quarterbacks were moved to a different position and injured respectively, Minshew came up with a plan to earn a medical redshirt and preserve his three years of eligibility.
Raiders quarterback Gardner Minshew once tried to break his hand with a hammer.
In an interview resurfaced in Barstool’s ‘Pardon My Take’ Podcast from 2019The Raiders man said: “I started looking around at what I could do and the options were, and the only thing I could do was get a medical redshirt.” But if he played the next game, that would be off the table.
—Then I have an idea. I come home, grab a bottle of Jack Daniels and grab a hammer. And I go back to my room, I take a shot of Jack Daniels, I put my hand back on the table and boom boom boom, one two three, it hits my hand, man.
“I’m sitting there shaking, but I know it’s not broken, so I’m like, ‘God, come on.’ Give it another pull, one two three, do it again. Still nothing, I’m shaking right now, buddy.
‘I knew it wasn’t broken. Once again, another tug, another three… and that was all I could take. I couldn’t break my hand.
“But when I told the guys I asked them: what would you do for more football?” Because I would do almost anything.
Minshew wanted to earn a medical redshirt while playing for the East Carolina Pirates.
Minshew said he was left with a “swollen hand for a few weeks” and told trainers he had slammed it into a car door.
Still, he was forced to play in seven games that season, including two starts, before becoming the team’s full-time starter the following year.
The future NFL quarterback then moved to Washington State, where he spent one season before being selected by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the sixth round of the 2019 NFL Draft.