On the journey of Chiefs backup QB Blaine Gabbert, making first NFL start since 2018

In the weeks before the 2011 NFL Draft, then-Mizzou quarterback Blaine Gabbert was on the cover of Sports Illustrated along with fellow prospects Cam Newton and Jake Locker.

The night before the draft to be held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, he was one of five draft candidates to be invited to dinner at the Waldorf Astoria with the President of the United States. Never mind that there were another 150 people there and the closest he got to President Barack Obama was 10 feet away.

It was the stuff dreams are made of, really. But the intense spotlight, which also included months of being probed and dissected by the NFL, also came with something heavy.

So by the time Gabbert was selected 10th overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars, he was mostly just relieved.

“It’s definitely a weight lifted off your shoulders,” he said that night.

Just the same, it was a long way from shouldering the expectations that came with all that through an ever-changing career arc to the man now so at ease in his own skin as he steps back into the spotlight.

On Sunday in Los Angeles, Gabbert will make his first NFL start since 2018 with Tennessee. It also will be his first for the Chiefs since Patrick Mahomes is being rested against the Chargers with the team’s playoff seeding (third in the AFC) assured.

“So, I am starting this week,” Gabbert said with a lighthearted comedian’s touch on Wednesday as he stepped to the media room podium for the first time this season. “I don’t know if Coach Reid told you.”

In fact, coach Andy Reid moments before had let it be known and, predictably enough, suggested the suddenly 34-year-old Gabbert would be excited by the opportunity.

With his smile alone, Gabbert affirmed Reid’s point and spoke to the message he’ll have for younger teammates.

“I’ve been fortunate to start quite a few games in the NFL, and these opportunities don’t come around too often,” said Gabbert, who is 13-35 in those starts. “Just make the most of them, have fun, cut it loose and let’s go play ball.”

Early in his NFL career, Gabbert no doubt had to remind himself of all that.

After all the fanfare to get there, he had four head coaches in three seasons in Jacksonville, during which time the team went 11-37 and he struggled. He ultimately played for nine head coaches with four franchises in his first eight seasons — and five teams overall before the Chiefs signed him.

Maybe it would have unfurled differently with better structure and support around him to begin with. And, of course, he wishes he’d become “a franchise guy” and won some Super Bowls as a starter, he told me during camp in St. Joseph.

But some things in his control didn’t go as he’d wished, he said then, and some things felt beyond his control.

And reconciling all that has been vital not only to his career, but to who he is as a person.

Most importantly, that’s as a husband (his wife, Bekah Mills, played basketball at Mizzou) and father with perspective on what really matters — underscored in an episode 13 months ago when Gabbert and his two younger brothers were jet-skiing in Florida and helped rescue victims of a helicopter crash.

“I’ve come to peace with everything that’s happened throughout my career: decisions made, decisions I didn’t make,” Gabbert said in that August interview. “Everything happens for a reason. There’s a reason I ended up in Tampa. There’s a reason I ended up here.”

Part of that reason was to be closer to family, both in St. Louis and Towanda, Kansas, where Bekah grew up.

Part also was through the matchmaking of former Chiefs backup quarterback Chad Henne, with whom Gabbert played in Jacksonville and who advised Reid that Gabbert would be a good fit to succeed him.

No doubt backing up Tom Brady in Tampa Bay the last few seasons was part of what made him appealing to Reid.

That also girded Gabbert for a similar role he likes to say requires a “symbiotic relationship” in learning to see the game the same way as the superstar starters.

The real challenge, of course, is to stay ever-ready with few opportunities to stay sharp.

Gabbert so far has appeared in only one game this season, completing 3 of 5 passes with two interceptions in the 41-10 blowout of the Bears. He might well have gotten a chance to play for the flu-ridden Mahomes in Denver, where the Chiefs lost 24-9.

Except …

“I think I was probably the one who gave it to him,” Gabbert said, laughing. “So we were both kind of battling it there in Denver.”

Getting the work Sunday figures to help Gabbert be more ready in the wretched event of Mahomes suffering an injury — a potential postseason calamity that Henne twice weathered with distinction.

“It’s a great dry run,” Gabbert said.

And another opportunity that hasn’t come around too often recently — making it all the more to be savored all these years later with the most important appearance of his career looming only an injury away.