Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Gardner Minshew once tried to break his own hand with a hammer in a bizarre tactic to extend his college football career.
Minshew, who recently began his sixth season in the NFL, spent his freshman year at 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 for the East Carolina Pirates the next three years.
However, when the two other quarterbacks were moved to different positions and injured respectively, Minshew devised a plan to earn himself a medical redshirt and maintain his eligibility for three years.
Raiders quarterback Gardner Minshew once tried to break his own hand with a hammer
In a resurfaced interview on Barstool’s 2019 ‘Pardon My Take’ podcastsaid the Raiders man, “I started looking around a little bit at what I could do and what the options were, and the only thing I could do was get a medical redshirt. But if I played in the next game, that would be off the table.
“So I get an idea. I go home, I grab a bottle of Jack Daniels and I grab a hammer. And I go back to my room, I take a hit of Jack Daniels, I put my hand back on the table and boom boom boom, one two three, hit the fuck out of my hand dude.
“I’m sitting there shaking, but I know it’s not broken, so I’m thinking god, come on. Take another puff, one two three, do it again. Still nothing, I’m just shaking at this point man.
‘I knew it wasn’t broken. Another pull, another pull, another three – and that was all I could tolerate. I couldn’t break my own hand.
‘But when I said to the boys: 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 had a “swollen hand” for a few weeks and told the coaches he hit it on a car door.
Still, he had to play seven more games that season, including two starts, before becoming the team’s full-time starter the following year.
The future NFL quarterback then transferred to Washington State, where he spent one season before being selected by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the sixth round of the 2019 NFL Draft.