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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Amy Lindgren

Quiz: What’s more difficult than leaving a job you don’t love? Staying in that job, of course.

At a time when online job boards have made it seem simple to change employers, it can take Herculean effort not to browse the postings whenever your boss makes an unreasonable demand. Even more difficult is resisting the temptation to switch employment when promotions aren’t forthcoming: Job hopping is a well-known strategy for climbing the ladder faster.

So why should anyone keep a job they don’t love? Besides the fear that there isn’t another job out there, I count three reasons: To gain more experience in one’s field; to avoid the hassle of a job search; to leverage specific benefits such as tuition reimbursement.

And of course, the classic reason, which is to ride things out until you can retire. Since anyone trying to last until retirement doesn’t need encouragement to keep a job, I’ll focus on folks who are still building their careers.

For perspective, remember that we’ve just come through a period when employers were conducting bidding wars for some workers. For a brief window after COVID, offers were generous and seemingly abundant, making it feel like a no-brainer to keep switching jobs. Why wouldn’t you promote yourself, so to speak, by taking better and better positions?

The answer to that question was never really obvious, at least to me. In some cases, I watched while hard workers finally got the recognition they deserved as they sprang up three rungs on the career ladder. But in other cases I feared the worst as workers landed in jobs they barely understood, and not always with the support needed to succeed.

In all cases, I was running the checklist: Was the new job really better, or was the worker making the leap before knowing what could be possible if they stayed? Would they be vulnerable in the new workplace, having been last-hired? And if this was the second or third switch in a short time, were they developing a “bad brand,” so to speak?

If you’re in a stay-or-go quandary right now, these questions are relevant to your decision. But if you’re in a can’t-go situation because you perceive the job market won’t accommodate a switch, you might be feeling trapped.

What to do?

I’m going to argue for staying if you’re on the fence, and for making lemonade if you’re feeling trapped. In both cases, you’ll wake up to the same job next week as this week, so let’s look at the advantages that might bring.

First, and not insignificantly, deciding against job search removes a time-consuming task from your to-do list. Until you’ve done it, it’s hard to appreciate how much lighter you feel not facing online job boards and a pile of obligatory emails every day while you search for new work.

Next, knowing that you are staying lets you develop yourself in the job you have. Instead of splitting your attention with a job search, now you can focus on the resources around you. Can you cross-train for a new set of skills? Is there a committee you can join for contact with other departments? Perhaps you’ve been thinking about finishing your degree — is there tuition assistance available?

Intentionally staying put also frees you to set work goals. For example, have you considered becoming a manager? That could be as simple as waiting for other managers to quit, but in most cases it will require some planning.

This is a discussion best suited for your own manager or perhaps a mentor, but becoming a manager yourself might require leadership training or specific skills such as project management or scheduling, or an improvement in your understanding of budgets or human resources. You can make some educated guesses on what you’d need, but a better plan is to gather information and put yourself on a timeline.

Here’s how that could look. Goal: To be a manager in three years. Requirements: Leadership classes, project management training, supervision experience. Steps: Assign each of these to a specific year for completion. For example, take leadership classes in year one, supervise someone (even an intern) starting in year two, schedule project management cross-training in year three.

This is just an example, of course. You may have no interest in becoming a manager, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find something to shoot for over the next three or five years. Once you’ve identified the goal, your success will depend on staying in the job long enough to make it happen.

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Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.

By JESSICA DAMIANO

If you’d love to grow fruit trees but think you don’t have the space, think again. You don’t need an orchard or even a large backyard to enjoy garden-picked fruit.

Instead, use a method perfected by Louis XIV’s gardeners back in the 1600s at Versailles, when cold, windy winters, not a lack of space, inspired them to train trees to grow flat against walls. Their goal was to use the masonry as a windbreak and insulator, but the method they called “espalier” also made excellent use of a tiny footprint.

The trees’ form maximized their exposure to sunlight, and also enabled the trees to withstand chilly temperatures better than their untrained cousins. Surprisingly, perhaps, they also produced more fruit.

Which trees are good for espalier?

Most trees with long, flexible branches, such as apple, cherry, fig, peach, pear, plum and quince lend themselves nicely to the espalier method. Even ornamental trees like magnolia, firethorn and witch hazel are good candidates.

The name “espalier” comes from French, indicating something to lean a shoulder against, as the trees lean on their supports.

This undated image provided by Missouri Botanical Garden shows a mature espaliered dwarf Moonglow pear tree in the Kemper Center for Home Gardening at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. (Tom Incrocci/Missouri Botanical Garden via AP)

But the 17th century French didn’t invent espalier; it is believed to have been practiced in the Middle Ages and even as far back as ancient Egypt. The Versailles gardeners, however, gave the method a name — and fame.

How it works

Training an espalier tree requires equal parts pruning and patience. You remove undesired branches and coax the remainder to grow sideways by affixing them to walls or fencing with wires or frames until they submit to the process and adapt to the pattern.

Trees will send up shape-spoiling shoots that will continually need to be clipped, but the desired branches will take longer to establish.

To accelerate growth, apply a dose of high-nitrogen fertilizer (look for a ratio of 12-4-8 or 16-4-8 on the package label) three times per season — in mid spring, early summer and late summer.

This 2025 image provided by Planting Fields Foundation shows a free-standing espaliered pear tree at Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park in Oyster Bay, N.Y. (Planting Fields Foundation via AP)

Don’t expect flowers or fruit during this stage, which can take several years. The point of the fertilizer is to force the trees to direct most of their energy on growth, not production.

When the tree has achieved the shape and size you desire, switch to a fertilizer specifically formulated for fruit trees and cut down the frequency to just one application per year, in spring, following the dosage recommended on the package. (If growing a non-fruiting tree, seek out a product intended for the species).

The method, however, can lead to increased pest and disease problems, as growing a tree pressed against a wall will restrict air flow around it. So be sure to monitor trees closely, and address issues quickly if they arise.

All that TLC will pay off with a beautiful, living garden sculpture –- and a great story to tell as you await your juicy harvest.

Jessica Damiano writes weekly gardening columns for the AP and publishes the award-winning Weekly Dirt Newsletter. You can sign up here for weekly gardening tips and advice.

For more AP gardening stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/gardening.

By Julie Appleby, KFF Health News

People thinking about starting a business or retiring early — before they’re old enough for Medicare — may want to wait until November, when they can see just how much their Affordable Care Act health insurance will cost next year. Sharp increases are expected.

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Premiums for ACA health plans, also known as Obamacare, which many early retirees and small-business owners rely on for coverage, are going up, partly due to policy changes advanced by the Trump administration and Congress. At the same time, more generous tax subsidies that have helped most policyholders pay for coverage are set to expire at the end of December.

After that, subsidies would return to what they were before the covid-19 pandemic. Also being reinstated would be an income cap barring people who earn more than four times the federal poverty level from getting any tax credits to help them purchase coverage. Although Congress potentially could act to extend the credits, people weighing optional life changes should factor in the potential cost if lawmakers fail to do so.

“I would hate for people to make a big decision now and then, in a few months, realize, ‘I’m not even going to qualify for a tax credit next year,’” said Lauren Jenkins, an insurance agent whose brokerage helps people sign up for coverage in Oklahoma. “Coupled with the rate increases, that could be significant, especially for someone at or near retirement, when it could easily cost over $1,000 a month.”

Still, how things play out in the real world will vary.

The key factor is income, as the subsidy amount people receive is primarily based on household income and local insurance costs.

People experiencing the biggest dollar increase in out-of-pocket premiums next year will be those who lose subsidies altogether because they earn more than 400% of the federal poverty level. This year, that’s $62,600 for a single person and $84,600 for a couple.

This “subsidy cliff” was removed in the legislation first enacted during the covid pandemic to create enhanced subsidies, but it will be back next year if they expire. About 1.6 million people who earn more than 400% of the poverty threshold bought ACA plans this year, many of them getting some tax credits to help with the premiums, according to KFF data. KFF is a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

“A lot of small-biz owners fall around that level of income,” said David Chase, vice president of policy and advocacy for the Small Business Majority, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, which is urging Congress to extend the credits.

And a good chunk of ACA enrollment consists of small-business owners or their employees because, unlike larger firms, most small businesses don’t offer group health plans.

In the Washington metropolitan area, “seven out of 10 people who qualify for lower premiums [because of the tax credits] are small-business owners,” said Mila Kofman, executive director of the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority.

Congress must decide by the end of December whether to extend the subsidies a second time. Permanently doing so could cost taxpayers $335 billion over the next decade, but not acting could cause financial pain for policyholders and pose political repercussions for lawmakers.

Because new premiums and smaller subsidies would take effect in January, the potential fallout has some Republican lawmakers worried about the midterm elections, according to news reports.

Republican pollsters Tony Fabrizio and Bob Ward warned the GOP in a memo that extending the enhanced credits could mean the difference between success and failure in some midterm races, because support for the premium help “comes from more than two-thirds of Trump voters and three-quarters of Swing voters.”

While supporters credit the enhanced subsidies for a record 24 million sign-ups for this year’s ACA plans, critics have blamed them for instances in which sales brokers or consumers engaged in improper enrollment.

“The expanded subsidies were a temporary covid pandemic policy enacted by congressional Democrats on a party-line vote and scheduled to end after 2025,” said Brian Blase, president of the Paragon Health Institute, a conservative think tank. “They have led to tremendous fraud and waste, they reduce employer coverage, and they should be permitted to expire.”

Ed Haislmaier, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, acknowledged that people earning more than 400% of the poverty level would not be happy with losing access to subsidies, but he expects most to stay enrolled because they want to avoid huge medical bills that could threaten their businesses or savings.

“They are middle-class or upper-income people who are self-employed, or early retirees with significant income, which means they have a lot of assets behind that income,” he said. “These are people who view insurance as financial protection.”

He thinks lawmakers would win political support from voters in this category by addressing two of their other major ACA concerns: that annual deductibles are too high and insurers’ networks of doctors and hospitals are too small.

“If you just give these people money by extending subsidies, it’s only addressing one of their problems, and it’s the one they are least upset about,” Haislmaier said. “That is the political dynamics of this.”

Here’s how the expiration of subsidies could play out for some hypothetical consumers.

People in households earning less than four times the poverty rate would still get subsidies — just not as generous as the current ones.

For example, those whose earnings are at the lower end of the income scale — say, just over 150% of the poverty threshold, or about $23,000 — will go from paying a national average of about $2 a month, or $24 toward coverage for the year, to $72 a month, or $864 a year, according to a KFF online calculator.

On the other end of the income spectrum, a 55-year-old Portland, Oregon, couple with a household income of $85,000 would also take a big hit on the cost of their benchmark plan. They currently pay about $600 a month in premiums — about 8.5% of their household income — with subsidies kicking in about $1,000 to cover the remainder.

Next year, if the tax credits expire, the same couple would not get any federal help because they earn over four times the poverty limit. They would pay the full monthly premium, with no subsidies, which would be about $1,800, based on initial 2026 premium rates filed with state regulators, said Jared Ortaliza, a policy analyst at KFF.

People should begin to see insurance rates late this fall, and certainly by Nov. 1, when the ACA’s open enrollment season begins, said Jenkins, the Oklahoma insurance agent. That gives them time to mull over whether they want to make changes in their plan — or in their lives, such as quitting a job that has health insurance or retiring early. This year, open enrollment extends to Jan. 15. Under new legislation, that open period will shorten by about a month, starting with the 2027 sign-up period.

Those who do enroll for 2026, especially the self-employed and people retiring early, should closely track their incomes during the year, she said.

It would be easy to bust through that income cap, she said.

If they do, they’ll have to pay back any tax credits they initially qualified for. Their income might rise unexpectedly during the year, for example, pushing them over the limit. An income bump could come from drawing down more money from retirement accounts than planned, landing a new customer account, or even from winning big at the casino.

“Maybe they win $5,000 at the casino, but that puts them $500 over the limit for the year,” Jenkins said. “They might have to pay back $12,000 in tax credits for winning a few thousand at the casino.”

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.