Life changed for Jake Plummer with an incomplete pass.
He was 10, playing in a Boise, Idaho, youth football league for a coach named Gerry Armstrong.
“I was playing receiver,” Plummer said. “The quarterback overthrew me, I threw the ball back to him – on the run, right to him, tight spiral – and Coach said, ‘Hey, let me see you throw a little more.”‘
And the rest is history.
When Armstrong attends the Broncos’ home game Sunday against the Washington Redskins as Plummer’s guest, he may not be the only one who notices how much the quarterback has grown.
“He always was good at throwing the ball on the run,” said Armstrong, who coached Plummer from ages 10 to 12.
“Under Mike and (offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak), Jake’s had an opportunity to grow and become extremely bright,” said Joe Theismann, a broadcast football analyst and former Redskins quarterback.
In his third season directing the offensive system devised by Broncos coach Mike Shana- han and Kubiak, Plummer has been described in many ways. An improviser, a scrambler, Jake the Snake, Good Jake/Bad Jake. And now, to repeat, Theismann just said Plummer has become extremely bright.
“Because Peyton (Manning) is so visual with all his movements, people say Peyton is the brightest quarterback in football,” Theismann said. “And it’s probably true; he calls the plays and knows what’s going on. But to say other guys in this league don’t is wrong.
“I know the system Mike runs. There’s a complexity to it that I don’t think people appreciate.”
Come to think of it, has anybody seen Bad Jake lately? It’s as if he has disappeared. Review the past two Broncos games, against Kansas City and Jacksonville, and it appears Good Jake/Bad Jake has become No Mistake Jake.
In neither game did he approach 200 passing yards. In neither game did he throw an interception.
In both games, the Broncos won decisively. The conservative passing attack follows a trend: The Broncos are 8-1 when Plummer passes for fewer than 200 yards.
“People forget, when we won our first Super Bowl (against Green Bay in 1998), we had (79) yards passing after three quarters,” Shanahan said.
John Elway finished with only 123 yards – and one helicopter run – that day, but the Broncos scored 31 points. By comparison, Plummer’s 152 yards against the Chiefs on “Monday Night Football” were “Air Jake” material.
Since the Broncos’ season-opening loss at Miami, Plummer’s typical pass has been complete (67.9 percent) for short yardage. His 6.1 yards per attempt ranks 28th in the NFL, ahead only of the uninspiring likes of David Carr, Gus Frerotte, Joey Harrington, Kyle Orton and J.P. Losman. None of those quarterbacks, however, has Plummer’s 3-1 record.
“You look around the league and when you try to get in a throwing contest, it’s tough with the skill teams have up front,” Plummer said. “When you’re running the ball as effectively as we did the last couple weeks, you take some shots (downfield), but most of your throws are going to be, get the first down, stay on the field.”
Staff writer Mike Klis can be reached at 303-820-5440 or mklis@denverpost.com.
