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I’m a Mahomo!
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Mid-Missouri
Casino cash: $6771021
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Quote:
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho
Welp.
I’m now in love with Quinn Meinerz. Damn impressive stuff.
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https://theathletic.com/2410399/2021...l-preparation/
How Quinn Meinerz used a garbage can, a pizza peel and a football to get ready for the NFL Draft
by
Andy Staples
Quote:
It started with a lineman, his ball, his parents’ garbage can and the pizza peel his brother, Branden, made in shop class. Through his headphones pumped drum and bass — yes, linemen can like EDM — or Mötley Crüe.
Snap. Step. Go find the ball. Later, Quinn Meinerz would review the video he recorded on a GoPro. The worst was when the ball missed the stocky green quarterback, which once a week got emptied into a garbage truck. If he hit the can below the peel’s handle, that probably would get a real quarterback decapitated. But then there were those glorious moments — which happened more frequently the longer he snapped — when the ball hit the QB in the hands, which just so happened to be capable of removing a pepperoni pie from a fiery oven.
With more reps, he learned to adjust his trajectory and velocity based on the play and the direction he needed to step. Let’s say Meinerz needed to reach block a nose shaded on his right shoulder. That requires him to move a long way fairly quickly. So Meinerz needed to send the snap slightly left because the motion of his body would send it back toward the QB’s hands.
When Wisconsin-Whitewater’s Meinerz created that shotgun snapping routine for himself last May, he hadn’t thought about those slight adjustments that veteran centers have committed to muscle memory. At that point, Meinerz hadn’t snapped in a game in high school or college. When the 6-foot-3, 320-pound Meinerz lined up at center last month during Senior Bowl practices and squared off against 297-pound Texas defensive tackle Ta’Quon Graham and 290-pound Washington tackle Levi Onwuzurike, he still hadn’t played center in a game. And because teams in Division III didn’t play last fall because of the pandemic, Meinerz hadn’t played in any games since a December 2019 Stagg Bowl loss to North Central (Ill.) College.
It didn’t show.
“That’s a hard skill, to snap a ball and get that snap hand back up in place and get somebody blocked,” Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy said. “And he did it. It was really, really incredible. … He was phenomenal. I just can’t wait to see where he ends up in April.”
The only bigger attraction than Meinerz’s blocking was his belly, which hung proudly in the Mobile, Ala., air beneath a crop top practice jersey. Meinerz has bared his midriff since his days at Hartford Union High in the Milwaukee suburb of Hartford, Wis.: “I don’t care where you’re at — it gets hot in fall camp. Even in Wisconsin. So always rock the crop top. Let the belly breathe.” After that belly’s star turn on NFL Network, Meinerz might do for the keg what Ezekiel Elliott did for the six-pack.
Whether Meinerz plays center in the NFL remains to be seen, though. He was a first-team All-America selection at guard in 2019, but he felt that as an interior lineman coming out of Division III, he needed to have as many skills in his toolbox as possible to have a chance. “You don’t just play guard unless you’re someone like (Colts lineman) Quenton Nelson, where it’s like ‘Yep, I’m left guard,’” Meinerz said. “Most people are not ‘I’m left guard.’ So most people need to know how to play the interior three.”
Meinerz mauled so many people in Senior Bowl practices that his team’s defensive linemen voted him the most outstanding offensive lineman. He didn’t get to play in the actual game until the final snaps because he broke his hand in practice. He doesn’t know how it happened. All he knows is he taped it up and it didn’t hurt bad enough to stop playing. He begged Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores to let him play in the game, but Flores told Meinerz he’d proved everything he needed to prove. Meinerz wasn’t satisfied, though. So coach and player reached a compromise. If the team had a chance to kneel in victory formation at the end of the game, Meinerz could play. When that moment came in the fourth quarter, Flores yelled for Meinerz but couldn’t find him.
“I was already in the huddle,” Meinerz said.
The question now is which NFL team’s huddle Meinerz will join. A month ago, he probably would have been a late-round pick. After Senior Bowl week, he might go on the draft’s second day (the second and third rounds). But he almost didn’t get to show off his blocking or his snapping in Mobile. His 2019 tape from Wisconsin-Whitewater had intrigued Senior Bowl officials, but they didn’t initially give him an invite. The hesitation wasn’t because Meinerz played in Division III. Ali Marpet from Hobart (2015) and Ben Bartch from St. John’s (2020) each earned Senior Bowl invites and improved their stock. Marpet wound up going in the second round to the Buccaneers and has started for his entire career. Bartch went to the Jaguars in the fourth round and started games as a rookie. But Meinerz’s tape wasn’t as polished as Bartch’s.
“(Meinerz) was obviously a big boy at the D-III level, and he just kind of bullied people,” Nagy said. “But he wasn’t the most fit-looking guy in the world.”
A few things happened to get Meinerz to Mobile. First, he spent much of last offseason reshaping his body. That included workouts at his uncle’s fishing camp in Canada that looked like the training montage in “Rocky IV.”
After he decided to begin preparation for the draft instead of waiting to play a spring season at Wisconsin-Whitewater, he went to Texas to work with coach Duke Manyweather at OL Masterminds. There, Meinerz worked out alongside Northwestern offensive tackle Rashawn Slater, who is projected to be a first-round pick. Meinerz and Slater obviously have different bodies and skill sets, but Nagy and his staff began getting reports that Meinerz was holding his own next to a Power 5 player with first-round traits. That convinced Nagy to take another look. Then, when Alabama center Landon Dickerson damaged ligaments in his knee in the SEC title game against Florida, the bowl needed another interior lineman. So Meinerz got the call.
Nagy and his staff did a far better job evaluating Meinerz than the coaches in the Big Ten and the MAC did while recruiting the class of 2017. Typically, when an offensive lineman comes from a lower level and turns into an NFL prospect, that player was small coming from high school or played a different position. Meinerz wasn’t small. He stood 6-foot-3 and weighed about 315 pounds in high school. He was honorable mention All-State on the offensive and defensive line. He wrestled. He threw the shot put. He was fast enough to play tight end if his high school team had needed him to. He could do this.
Paul Shelsta, the offensive line coach and offensive coordinator at Hartford Union, couldn’t understand why Meinerz — who was pretty much the ideal lineman in high school — didn’t get more looks from Division I programs. “This guy never had a bad practice,” Shelsta said.
Shelsta guessed the issue might be height, but Meinerz was 6-foot-2 and grew to 6-foot-3 by the time he graduated. That’s not ideal, but it certainly wouldn’t disqualify a player who met the other criteria. Meinerz checked practically every offensive line box, but recruiting interest was slim. His only scholarship offer came from Division II St. Cloud (Minn.) State, which wound up dropping football after the 2019 season.
So Meinerz chose Wisconsin-Whitewater, a Division III powerhouse that won six national titles between 2007 and 2014. In Meinerz’s sophomore year, the Warhawks reached the national semifinals. In his junior season, they reached the national title game. After that, Meinerz faced a choice. He could try to transfer up to Division I — where there certainly would be interest in a normal year — or he could play his final season at Wisconsin-Whitewater. Then the pandemic hit and essentially made his choice for him. Throughout most of the summer, it was unclear whether FBS teams would play. So transferring would have been risky. When the Division III season was moved to the spring, Meinerz decided to keep working out for the draft and try to impress some decision-makers. He did that at the Senior Bowl.
He also made his old O-line coach cry. Each Senior Bowl player had a yellow heart sticker on his helmet. Each was asked to write on the sticker who he’d be playing for in the game. Meinerz called Shelsta and told him he’d be playing for Hugs 4 Alaina.
Alaina is Shelsta’s 14-year-old daughter. She was born with a rare condition (about 300 people in the world have it) called GLUT1, which prevents spinal fluid from carrying glucose to the brain properly. This results in frequent seizures. For most of Alaina’s life, Paul and Chris Shelsta thought she had epilepsy. Alaina wasn’t diagnosed properly until a doctor performed a spinal tap when she was 9. Since the diagnosis, the family has traveled frequently to Madison and New York for treatments. Meinerz watched his coach teach class, work practice, then go home to care for his daughter. He knows the financial strain the travel for treatments has put on the Shelstas, so he wanted to shine a light on the fundraising effort to help the family.
“I broke down,” Paul Shelsta said. “That’s amazing. He’s taking care of business all week at the Senior Bowl. And now he’s thinking of my daughter right before meetings right before the game?”
Meinerz realized the exposure bump the Senior Bowl gave him will allow him to do even more. He has commissioned a T-shirt starring his gut emblazoned with the words “BELLY OF THE BEAST.” Proceeds from the sale of the shirt will go to Hugs 4 Alaina.
So this will be the only time Meinerz doesn’t recommend letting the belly breathe. He hopes you’ll cover your keg with his to help a family he loves.
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01-27-2021, 11:49 AM
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