Last August, in the midst of NFL training camps, I visited the Minnesota Vikings and found myself camped out with a member of the team’s brain trust. Not far away, Sam Darnold and J.J. McCarthy were alternating in 11-on-11 drills when the conversation turned into an art versus science debate about when to turn a team over to a young quarterback.
“I’d love to pick [head coach] Andy Reid’s brain,” the Vikings official said. “I’d like to ask him how he kept that Ferrari in the garage so long.”
The “Ferrari” was Kansas City Chiefs rookie quarterback Patrick Mahomes, whom Reid impressively kept off the field for all but the final regular-season game of his rookie year — before eventually turning the starting job over to Mahomes the next season, following a trade that sent Alex Smith to Washington.