It was getting late on campus last fall and former Gophers quarterback Max Brosmer was finishing up studying.
After spending most of the evening going over the game plan to make sure he was prepared for an upcoming matchup with No. 4 Penn State, Brosmer was winding down when he got a call from Gophers offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh.
“I was in bed,” Brosmer said. “He hit me on FaceTime, like, ‘Yo. Get back into the facility. I noticed something on film.’”
In his preparation, Harbaugh figured out the Nittany Lions were tipping some of their blitzes, and felt the Gophers might be able to take advantage. As soon as Brosmer got to Harbaugh’s office, they spent the rest of the night adding to the already robust game plan.
Never mind that Brosmer had a lot on his plate a few days later when he walked out of the tunnel at Huntington Bank Stadium. He had complete ownership of the game plan, including more than 60 ways to change the play at the line of scrimmage, which was based solely on what he was seeing in front of him before the snap.
“It was a lot,” Brosmer said. “There was basically a check or alert every single play.”
Not once did Brosmer look overwhelmed in the heat of battle. He’s unflappable when he puts the pads on. He prides himself on being cool, calm, and collected, regardless of what’s going on around him.
“He’s a maniac when it comes to football,” Harbaugh said. “There’s nothing that Max can’t handle.”
Maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise then that Brosmer has proved be a fast learner since signing with the Vikings as an undrafted free agent.
He turned some heads in organized team activities with how he was able to pick up the playbook, then continued to impress in training camp with his command of the offense despite not getting very many reps in practice.
That helped Brosmer put himself in position to make the team with roster cuts coming up this week. He’s gone from being a fun story to a legitimate part of the discussion for the Vikings when it comes to their backup quarterback.
Need proof? Listen to the way Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell has talked about him.
Asked about Brosmer this spring, O’Connell offered up praise, saying, “I think Max is as smart as any young player that I’ve been around.”
Asked about Brosmer this summer, O’Connell added to his assessment, saying, “He plays with very fast eyes and very rarely does he puts the ball at harm’s way when he’s doing it.”
That’s pretty much been the scouting report on Brosmer since he was a kid growing up in Roswell, Georgia. Though he has been blessed with a lightning quick release and the arm talent to make all the throws, his superpower has always been his ability to process an immense amount of information in real time.
“It’s impossible to give him too much,” former Centennial High School head coach Michael Perry said. “He’s got a computer brain.”
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That manifested itself in practices and games as Perry taught Brosmer about different coverages, then eventually gave him permission to audible depending on the look he was getting at the line of scrimmage. That was the first taste Brosmer got of being able to manipulate the defense with his mind.
The game within the game fascinated Brosmer, and while he was lightly recruited as a teenager, as soon as he got to the next level, New Hampshire head coach Rick Santos realized he had something special.
“We switched to a little bit more of a pro style offense,” Santos said. “We wouldn’t have done that unless we knew he could handle it.”
After earning the starting job as a true freshman, Brosmer slowly but surely started to have a hand in the game plan. His routine after most practices featured him taking a shower, grabbing something to eat, then staying at the facility to watch film with members of the coaching stuff.
“We gave him some autonomy,” Santos said. “We added the mechanism of calling multiple plays in the huddle. He could make a change at the line of scrimmage depending on what the defense was doing. That was an element to the game plan that we didn’t have before him.”
That served Brosmer well when he transferred to the Gophers to finish his college career.
The jump from the FCS level to the FBS level felt less jarring for Brosmer because of the way he thought the game. That was on display as soon as he arrived in Dinkytown as Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck credited Brosmer with being the best processor he’s ever seen.
The campaign that Brosmer put together spoke for itself as he completed 66.5 percent of his passes for 2,828 yards and 18 touchdowns, while proving to be the best quarterback the program has seen in the past decade.
As he reflected on his time with the Gophers last week, Brosmer spoke highly of Harbaugh and the countless hours they spent together game planning.
“My time with the Gophers has made the transition to the Vikings a little bit easier,” Brosmer said. “It was such a pro style offense. I got used to all the checks and alerts. He’d trust me to do all that stuff.”
As much as the Gophers prepared him for the the future, however, Brosmer still briefly felt like his head was spinning shortly after signing with the Vikings an undrafted free agent. There was a position meeting early in rookie minicamp, in particular, during which Brosmer vividly remembers being astounded by the way O’Connell talked about the game.
“I felt really confident about my knowledge about ball,” Brosmer said. “It was like he was speaking a foreign language.”
It was only a matter of time before Brosmer became fluent.
The whole operation looks smooth when he’s running the show. There’s conviction in the huddle. There’s control at the line of scrimmage. There’s decisiveness about where to go with the ball after the snap.
The comfort Brosmer has is in the offense is even more impressive when considering he’s mostly been working behind starting quarterback J.J. McCarthy, backup quarterback Sam Howell, and reserve quarterback Brett Rypien.
“You come here and have to learn to learn a different way,” Brosmer said. “You’re not going to be taught everything by doing it on a daily basis. You have to learn by listening and then watching other people do it. There’s been a lot of that.”
None of it has been too much for Brosmer. It never has been. It never will be.
“That’s what they’re finding out over at the Vikings,” Harbaugh said. “You throw anything at him, and he’s going to learn it.”
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