THERE ARE, OBVIOUSLY, some considerable physical skills that helped Minshew -- who is barely 6 feet tall and who attended four colleges in search of consistent playing time -- find success. To offset his (relative) undersize, he is so strong he can lift weights with the linebackers, and his intensity during practice runs so hot that one of his old quarterbacks coaches, Alex Williams, remembers Minshew literally hitting himself in the face if he missed an easy throw during a training drill. ("Not hard or anything, but still," Williams says.)

Nearly everyone who comes into contact with Minshew, however, ends up with the same conclusion: His biggest weapon is his brain. Mike Leach, who coached Minshew at Washington State in his last (and best) college season, tells me, "He has genius tendencies," and those smarts were a big part of what led the Jags to take a flier on Minshew in the sixth round of April's draft. Tom Coughlin, the Jags' head of player personnel, immediately highlighted Minshew's ability to be "quick" in carrying what he learned in the film room to the field. "He's very smart; he's very sharp," Coughlin said then. "He will suck up all that information, and then, based on what we have seen, he will go onto the practice field and carry it with him."

Turns out, Coughlin was right -- only it wasn't on the practice field. When Minshew thrived so quickly after taking over in Week 1, Marrone was legitimately surprised, he says, because the playbook had been designed for Foles, not Minshew.

"The game plan is written for a different quarterback and he just goes in there and executes it?" Marrone tells me after the team's workout one day. "A lot of players don't have the head to do that."

Shove the guitar up his A$$... he hasn't played our defense.