The last time Trevor Siemian started a game that counted, he was escorted off the field by two Northwestern trainers.
But a week from Thursday, and 656 days since he tore his ACL in his final college game, Siemian will be under center for the defending Super Bowl champs on one of the NFL’s biggest stages. And when the Broncos’ quarterback takes his second snap in the nationally televised season opener, that’ll give him more regular-season experience than he gained last year.
As a third-string rookie behind Peyton Manning and Brock Osweiler, Siemian’s only snap in 2015 was a kneel-down in a Week 15 loss to the Steelers.
If you think all that sets up pretty nicely for the Panthers, Sean McDermott disagrees.
“I'll equate it to a baseball analogy where you get a first-time pitcher who's always going to have more success early because people really don't know his stuff as well,” Carolina’s defensive coordinator says. “Whereas if you get him on tape and there's more eyes on him, scouting reports, so on and so forth, then you get a little bit more familiar with him.”
Of course, most NFL coaches would talk up a Pop Warner team if it was next on the schedule. So even though the Panthers are going from facing a guy in the Super Bowl who passed for the most yards in league history during his Hall of Fame career to someone who ranks fourth all-time in Northwestern history, McDermott’s not about to celebrate.
“He's done a nice job in the preseason,” he says of Siemian, who beat out veteran Mark Sanchez and rookie Paxton Lynch this summer. “I can see why they named him the starter.”
But how much can you really learn from the tape of a quarterback who threw for 285 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions against vanilla game plans in three exhibition games?
“That's the hard part, too,” McDermott says. “You'd love to have about three or four games in the regular season and say, ‘OK, we've got him in game five.’”
Both McDermott and coach Ron Rivera admitted they might pop in Siemian’s Northwestern tape, but that’s not anything they can game plan around.
“You’re going to have to look at what (the Broncos) do,” says Rivera.
And if that’s anything like what they morphed into once Manning’s arm was no longer a downfield threat, the Panthers will again face a run-first offense that won’t take many deep shots. With Denver’s nasty defense, Manning was essentially a game manager. It stands to reason the 250th pick of the 2015 draft will be the same.
But here’s another example where McDermott’s thinking is different.
“I think that's an overused term,” he says. “The quarterback position is so important. He's got the ball in his hand every snap on offense. I don't know how you can really say that's a game manager.”
As we head into the most anticipated season opening game week in Panthers’ history, it’s understandable if many outside the building wonder how Carolina could lose to some guy named Trevor Siemian. Inside, McDermott will be consumed by how it could happen.
“Obviously the more you know, the better you feel and the more prepared you are,” he says. “We’ll do our due diligence and get to know him as best we can.”