Being Tom Brady’s backup has brought stability, if not snaps, to Blaine Gabbert

TAMPA — Back when he was finding zero traction in his NFL career, cycling through one coordinator a season and hearing fans and pundits cast dispersions, Blaine Gabbert would just, well, cast.

Streams became his sanctuary, offseason fly-fishing his decompression. The technique involves some physics, a sliver of science and a bit of artistry. In fact, the prerequisites for successfully hooking cutthroat trout in the western Wyoming stretch of the Snake River provide a metaphor for Gabbert’s professional life.

“It’s patience,” Gabbert said after a recent practice at AdventHealth Training Center. “And it’s more finesse. It’s not like you’re bottom-fishing or trolling, it’s all placement, presentation, so there’s a lot of work that kind of leads up to it all.”

Entering his fourth season in Tampa Bay, Gabbert hasn’t budged from the spot he assumed upon his arrival: One heartbeat — or change of heart, in the case of Tom Brady — from taking the wheel of the Bucs offense.

While patience hasn’t necessarily fostered tranquility, it has borne stability. Saddled with a different offensive coordinator each of his first nine NFL seasons, Gabbert has spent nearly a half-decade in his current system.

During Brady’s extended training-camp absence for what has been described as “personal reasons,” Gabbert has been the Bucs’ starter by default, both in the preseason opener against the Dolphins and in joint practices with the Dolphins and Titans.

“It’s been great for him mentally,” Bucs coach Todd Bowles said Thursday at the end of the second joint workout with Tennessee.

“The plays might not be there all the time, but the mental reps and what he’s getting and making the right play is very important, not just making a ‘wow’ play. He’s been making the right plays, so it’s been great to have him there.”

Before signing with the Bucs in March 2019, Gabbert spent the 2017 season in Arizona, where current Bucs coordinator Byron Leftwich was his position coach and current Tampa Bay run-game coordinator Harold Goodwin served as head coach Bruce Arians’ coordinator.

Before that, one has to backpedal to Gabbert’s college career at Missouri (2008-2010), where he threw for nearly 7,000 yards and led the Tigers to a pair of bowl games, to find a stretch where he had the same coach or coordinator in back-to-back seasons.

“You look back in 2017, it’s like you’re studying every night, learning the formations, just trying to keep your head above the water,” said Gabbert, who has attempted 27 regular-season passes in a Bucs uniform.

“And now you have more freedom. You know exactly what you want to get to, how to get to it, where are we supposed to be, when they’re supposed to be there. You can really take that next step in not only your own maturation process of playing football, but helping the young guys. That’s what I enjoy the most really today.”

Learning the languages

Know this: Had Brady remained retired, Gabbert almost certainly would’ve inherited his job and Arians still would be coaching him, if for nothing more than to prove Gabbert’s competence as a starter and to spite the rest of the league.

For years now, Arians has sworn by the guy fans once enjoyed swearing at. At 32, Gabbert still brandishes the velocity befitting a No. 10 overall draft pick (in 2011). And during this haphazard NFL journey, he has acquired a degree of moxie and locker-room respect.

“Blaine’s my guy,” Bucs second-year receiver Jaelon Darden said. “He kind of took me under his wing and helped me with the offense, for sure. My first year here, he was definitely getting me in the right spot because I was all over the place, but it’s definitely been a blessing learning from him because he’s a great quarterback as well.”

All of which may prove that spin rate is rendered moot without stability, and that not even generational quarterbacks can elevate franchises that whiff on personnel decisions and go through coaches like sneakers. Until arriving in Tampa, Gabbert annually was learning new systems on the fly, if not on the run.

“I always try and equate it to just learning a new language every year,” said Gabbert, 13-35 in his career as an NFL starter. “And then you have to speak that language when 11 guys on defense are running after you full-speed. So, things aren’t necessarily clicking as fast as they should be. It’s not truly muscle memory when you’re always still trying to just learn.”

His head coaches have ranged from Jim Harbaugh (49ers, 2014) to Jim Tomsula (49ers, 2015). His collection of coordinators has included Dirk Koetter (Jaguars, 2011), Geep Chryst (49ers, 2015) and Matt LaFleur (Titans, 2018). In one six-season span, Gabbert played on five teams that lost at least 10 games.

“People may not like the overall record, but Blaine had eight head coaches and eight coordinators his first eight years,” Arians said earlier this year. “He beat Jacksonville their best year (in 2017, while with the Cardinals) and beat Tennessee their big year for us in Arizona (also in 2017). And he’s been in the system now.”

32 going on 25

That newfound stability has brought not only peace, but preservation. The flip side to existing in Brady’s shadow: Minimal wear on the body. And like many inside AdventHealth Training Center, Gabbert has embraced the TB12 method and its emphasis on hydration, pliability and nutrition, among other Brady tenets.

Moreover, he just became a dad. His wife Bekah, a former Missouri basketball player, gave birth to the couple’s first child — daughter Leyton — earlier this summer.

“Really the last few years, I’ve taken kind of the whole TB12 process to heart,” said Gabbert, who enters 2022 with a 56.3-percent career completion rate, with 50 touchdowns and 47 picks. “I’m big, I’m strong, I’m fast, but there was always something missing. I need to be more flexible, more durable so you don’t have the muscle strains.

“Everybody’s different, everybody’s body responds to different treatments or different trainings differently, but for me, personally, that’s what’s worked for me the best, and I feel better than I did at 25. And I’m 32.”

Now, it’s just a matter of exercising that patience, fostered in those frigid streams. Time, technique and placement could yield one more whopper of an opportunity, perhaps in Tampa.

And perhaps sooner rather than later.

“We have such a great group of guys, great coaching staff, great front office,” Gabbert said. “It’s a lot of fun to come to work. I don’t even call it work, it’s just hanging out with the guys every day, and hopefully I can stay here a lot longer.”

Contact Joey Knight at jknight@tampabay.com. Follow @TBTimes_Bulls.

• • •

Sign up for the Bucs RedZone newsletter to get updates and analysis on the latest team and NFL news from Bucs beat writer Joey Knight.

Never miss out on the latest with the Bucs, Rays, Lightning, Florida college sports and more. Follow our Tampa Bay Times sports team on Twitter and Facebook.