That shaggy beard hides the truth. Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer has gone corporate on us. He’s the new CEO of common sense and the model of NFL efficiency.
His wild hairs are the last crazy strands of the old, unreliable Plummer, who used to be as dangerous and as trustworthy as a Snake.
These days, Plummer is no more flamboyant than an accountant in a football helmet.
Crunch the numbers, though, and it all adds up. He’s a winner.
In a 49-21 trouncing of Philadelphia, the bottom line on Plummer has never been more impressive: 309 yards passing, four touchdown strikes, no bonehead mistakes.
What the Broncos see in Plummer is something that once seemed foreign to his old impetuous, call-off-the-marriage, don’t-give-a-flip personality.
“Calm,” Broncos veteran Rod Smith said. “Honestly, in the three years I’ve been with him, I’ve never seen (Plummer) so calm in the pocket, so calm in practice, so calm in the meetings.”
His football work done at the office, Plummer peeled away the No. 16 of his blue business suit, hit the showers and pulled on more comfortable clothes.
If a man’s T-shirt can be a window to the music in his soul, then the one Plummer wore after beating the Eagles struck all the right notes.
When he left the building, Plummer’s chest was covered with a silkscreen cartoon of a superfly Jimmy Cliff, the reggae musician whose signature song was “The Harder They Come.”
The harder they fall, one and all.
And didn’t that used to be the soundtrack to this quarterback’s life?
“Jake is one of those guys where his whole NFL career was always a struggle,” Smith said. “We try to take the worry off him.”
In more than a decade operating the Broncos, Mike Shanahan has not done a more masterful job of coaching than this transformation of Plummer.
When Denver signed Plummer as a free agent in 2003, you wondered how much indigestion Shanahan could stomach.
During six seasons in Arizona, Plummer threw 24 more interceptions than touchdown passes.
After 35 regular-season starts for Denver, that ugly number has been erased. For the Broncos, Plummer has recorded 24 more TD passes than interceptions.
The lessons Plummer learned have been hard ones, and seldom subtle. To a man, Denver players say the coaches have been in their quarterback’s face all year long, bluntly informing Plummer that stupidity was no longer in the playbook.
“I’m trying to lead the best I can,” Plummer said. “With this run game we’ve got going, there aren’t many quarterbacks who wouldn’t be on a roll.”
Plummer has turned the harmless incomplete pass into an art form.
Sometimes, it seems Plummer’s favorite receiver is his girlfriend. She’s the one shaking pompoms on the sidelines, in the stadium, yet far from harm’s way.
No wonder Plummer has thrived through 171 consecutive attempts without a momentum-wrecking interception.
With that old Snake, you never knew quite what you were going to get from one NFL game day to the next.
Shortly after church let out, Plummer could play the hero looking sharp, at his Sunday best.
But, by dinner time, he could be the hellion rubbing the pot roast all over his chest.
In this town, Plummer still elicits more head-scratching than genuine affection. For sentimentalists who still dream John Elway might come swaggering through the stadium tunnel in full uniform, some dude in a beard and skullcap looks more like a coffee-house slacker than a football hero.
Appearances, however, never count as much as wins and losses.
In QB rating points or GQ style points, Peyton Manning will beat Plummer every time.
But the AFC representative at the Super Bowl will be determined only by the points Plummer can put on the scoreboard. And, right now, it sure seems as if Plummer will get a shot in the playoffs at Manning.
“I tell Jake all the time: ‘Let us make you great,”‘ Smith said.
The Snake? That slippery, not-to-be-trusted beast got left behind in the Arizona desert.
In Colorado, it’s better to call Plummer what he has become for the Broncos: No-Mistake Jake.
Boring nickname. Winning quarterback.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
