Pretty good article, it's long, so just going to add the section on McCown: http://www.nfl.com/qb2
When he was just barely clinging to the edge of the NFL radar a few years ago -- playing in the United Football League and coaching high school football -- Josh McCown was still the ideal backup. He wasn't merely biding his time as an assistant at a North Carolina high school while waiting for another NFL call. He was the scout team quarterback, too, taking the only practice reps he could grab while he advised the starter on what he saw. McCown admits he was not always so diligent in his preparation earlier in his career. He fell into what he called the "grind" of going to work each day, knowing he almost certainly would not play. But in 2011, when his hiatus from the NFL ended with a job backing up Jay Cutler for the Chicago Bears, he took a different approach. Now, at age 35 and seven years after he last opened a season as a starter, McCown is the redemption story that other backups around the NFL -- including Flynn and Whitehurst -- look at with wonder and hope. "Just stepping back and having gone through things I'd gone through, in and out of the league, to value every day, value every opportunity to come to work, to bring value to the team, no matter your circumstances," McCown said. "For me, it was realizing there is more self-fulfillment in that; I got more peace from doing that than to go to work every day thinking, 'I've got to do this, I've got to do this well, so I can become a starter.' The backup has to really embrace that."How did McCown do that? In Chicago, Cutler got every practice repetition with the starting offense, but Cutler and McCown spent a lot of time together studying the game plan each week, a process that McCown said was invaluable for his preparation -- and one that was undoubtedly aided by the fact that they had become good friends. After practice, McCown would stay to throw a few routes with some of the receivers. When Cutler took the snaps during the full-team work, McCown would stand directly behind the play and go through exactly the same action that Cutler was doing. He would go through the same reads, being careful not to let his mind drift, he said. "There's a difference in, after the play, saying, I would have done that, too, and while the play is going on, saying, I'm going here with the ball. (In) one, you're actually playing the position and taking the rep in your mind. In the other, you're just watching."McCown said he is most proud that last season -- with a new appreciation for his good fortune to be back in the NFL and with the maturity that comes late in a career -- he did the best job preparing that he'd ever done. Week in and week out, he said, he approached each day thinking of how he could help Cutler play better, something he admits he may have done for just 10 or 12 weeks of a 17-week season in the past. The results were obvious. Cutler wound up missing time, and McCown played in eight games, starting five. He produced, incredibly, the best football of his career, completing 66.5 percent of his passes with 13 touchdowns and one interception. And most importantly, he kept the Bears in the playoff race until Cutler returned. Lovie Smith noticed -- and not just McCown's results, but what led to them. He and Tampa Bay Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht wanted to sign a veteran quarterback to be their starter this season, one who would also be selfless enough to mentor young players, including the quarterback who might eventually take his job, Mike Glennon. So they turned to McCown, who will begin his 12th NFL season as the Buccaneers' No. 1 signal-caller.Smith said that whenever McCown's done playing, the quarterback should become a full-time coach. During the spring, McCown was spending extra time with young receivers, teaching them the offense while mastering it himself. "I embrace that part -- it's a way you can serve your team," McCown said. "It goes beyond football, trying to help that man make a roster, have an NFL career. For me, that transcends putting on a Bucs jersey." But it was a moment with Licht that might have crystallized what made McCown so successful at the most important job in sports that nobody wants. "On his second day, he was sitting in the coaches' lobby area, and I was walking around and looking for a player," Licht said. "He said, 'What's the matter?' and I said I was looking for a player. He said, 'Do you want me to go get him? Is everything OK?' "He puts out fires."
