EAGAN, Minn. — Here is Josh McCown, the upbeat, backward-hat-wearing, gum-chewing Minnesota Vikings quarterbacks coach. Another preseason practice is complete, and the 45-year-old former NFL quarterback and journeyman is sitting outside the TCO Performance Center, baking in the heat and playing some trivia.

Can you name all 14 of your former offensive coordinators?

He laughs.

“Sounds like you could potentially be missing some,” he says.

Did I count ’em wrong?

“Well, we’ll go down the list,” he says. “Let’s just see.”

“Rich Olson. Jerry Sullivan. Alex Wood. Keith Rowen. Mike Martz. Greg Knapp. Jeff … was it Davidson? Yep, Davidson. After Jeff, let’s see, that was … Mike Martz again. That’s a repeat. Mike Tice.”

That’s one I didn’t have.

“He was in Chicago, yeah. Marc Trestman and Aaron Kromer. That’s 10. Jeff Tedford and (quarterbacks coach) Marcus Arroyo is 11. John DeFilippo is 12 in Cleveland. Then Hue Jackson and Pep Hamilton. Then John Morton. Then Jeremy Bates. Then Mike Groh in Philly. And then, technically, Tim Kelly in Houston. I didn’t play any snaps, but I was technically on the roster.”

So, like, 18 maybe?

“I guess, yeah,” McCown says.

That was impressive.

“Yeah. And then in college, going backward, was Jim Ferguson at Sam Houston, Larry Kueck at SMU, a guy named Greg Briner at SMU. High school was Wayne Coleman and Matt Turner. So …”

You’re just showing off. But how about this: If I asked you to translate offensive verbiage from one to the other, could you do it? Like, if I said “Mike Martz” and you rattle off a play.

“He was a digits legend. Like, Trips Right Scat Right 094 F-Seam Trail. That’s the play that (current Vikings quarterback) Sam Darnold hit in the opener of the preseason this year. It’s not the same call, but that’s our play in that verbiage.”

This is incredible.

Incredible recall, certainly, but also informative upon review. From the time the Vikings set their sights on drafting a quarterback this spring, they have acted intentionally in almost every regard. This includes McCown’s hiring, which surfaced randomly at the NFL Scouting Combine. Head coach Kevin O’Connell made the move for multiple reasons, one of which was a relationship between the two men that goes back more than a decade. Another factor, though, was exactly what McCown is doing here.

Using his memory. Translating information. Not taking himself too seriously or applying too much pressure. This is McCown the quarterbacks coach in a nutshell. Plucking away at what he’s provided for Darnold, J.J. McCarthy and the Vikings organization overall, it becomes more and more clear that the package is a carefully chosen amalgamation of attributes from the names he’s just mentioned.

It’s been a full-circle moment for Josh McCown and Sam Darnold as they reunite in Minnesota.

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— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) June 12, 2024

Back to Trips Right Scat Right 094 F-Seam Trail.

This is Martz’s verbiage of the impressive throw Darnold made to wide receiver Jalen Nailor in the Vikings’ first preseason game, against the Las Vegas Raiders. Darnold released the ball before Nailor peeled off his route toward the middle of the field. McCown is still raving about it.

“The way Sam cut that ball loose, man,” McCown says, “it was just perfect.”

Like, the anticipation?

“One hundred percent,” McCown says, “and he’s learned that over time. We played together his rookie year. I probably talked about it then. I learned that from being coached by Martz and watching Jon Kitna and Kurt Warner do it. Cut the dang ball loose.”

Martz, for the uninitiated, was the St. Louis Rams’ head coach during the “Greatest Show on Turf” era. McCown first encountered him in 2006 when he was signed by the Detroit Lions at age 27. He’d been in the league for several seasons already and had started 20 games for the Arizona Cardinals after being a third-round pick in 2002. Yet when he showed up in Detroit, Martz described him as a “wild horse rider.”

Martz tells a story about a particular throw in McCown’s first practice with the Lions. Martz asked the quarterbacks to throw a deep in-cut over the middle of the field. McCown, noticing the safety floated down toward the in-cut, threw over the top on a deep post pattern instead. It went for a touchdown.

“I said, ‘What the f— was that?’” Martz recalls. “He looked at me and said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘What the f— was that? You kinda just do what you want to do?’ He didn’t understand.”

You could say Martz was simply being a hardass, but McCown acknowledges this was the first time he’d played in an intentional NFL passing game. He could not just catch the snap, take his drop and scan the field, looking for the open man. Martz’s offense dictated that he look in specific spots for different reasons — and throw the ball at the proper time.

Kitna, with whom McCown competed that season for the Lions’ starting job, assisted with the minutiae. The plays in Martz’s playbook were just a guide. On the field, other factors, like the speed of his receiver and the tendencies of the opposing defense, forced him to adapt. Think of learning an offensive system like an actor learning his lines: The script says one thing, but the actor’s flair is often what brings the production to life. Knowing what words to change or adaptations to make is a skill only developed through experience.

“It’s easy to just give a guy a play and say, ‘Find the open guy,’” McCown says. “And then you come in Monday morning as the coach and hold the clicker and go, ‘You probably should’ve thrown it to that dude.’ Well, yeah, right. Thank you.

“It’s harder work for the coach to go: ‘This is who we think is going to be open. This is where you’re going to start your eyes. And then react to that play, off of that, being as detailed as you can.’”

The challenge, of course, is balancing the details: the need to be purposeful with every aspect of your drop and eyes and decision-making, and the need to keep your mind quiet when you’re in the pocket and the crowd is yelling, the pass rushers are barreling in on you and the defense is swarming across the field.

If Martz, Kitna and Warner explained the need for specificity, Trestman focused on eliminating the gray area. Trestman simplified the amount and extent of McCown’s post-snap decision-making. More than at any other point in his career, McCown, who was 34 with the Chicago Bears in 2013, felt he knew where he was supposed to go with the football. And as long as he operated correctly, Trestman gave him affirmation on the back end — kind of like a catcher who shrugs when the pitcher throws the perfect pitch in the suggested spot and the hitter crushes it anyway. Right process, unfortunate result.

In O’Connell, McCown found someone who could relate to his experiences with other coaches. They met in 2015 in Cleveland. O’Connell was the Browns’ quarterbacks coach, and together they talked about their favorite concepts, verbiage and teaching philosophies. They worked with Johnny Manziel through that brutal 3-13 season. But McCown appreciated O’Connell’s approach and humility. The first-time NFL coach, six years younger than McCown, would seek advice from him.

They maintained contact after that season as O’Connell began to create a system of his own and McCown played for another five years before becoming the Carolina Panthers’ quarterbacks coach last year. McCown played in 102 NFL games and posted a 98:82 touchdown-to-interception ratio, but his experience with Bryce Young cemented something he says frequently about playing quarterback: This is freaking hard, man.

“In any span of three to five years, there’s maybe five to seven transcendent players at the position,” McCown says. “The rest of them need people around them.”

People, he says, referring mostly to talent on the field.

But the quarterbacks coach is important, too.

Josh McCown was the Carolina Panthers’ quarterbacks coach last season, working with No. 1 pick Bryce Young. (Rich Schultz / Getty Images)

O’Connell describes his teaching philosophy with quarterbacks by saying, “We want to tie the quarterback’s feet and eyes together.” In a general sense, this is the throughline between being detailed and not clouding the quarterback’s mind.

After naming all of his former offensive coordinators, McCown explains.

“When you watch a quarterback drop and you watch his helmet and it turns to the left, he’s looking left,” McCown says. “If you pause it, you’ll hopefully see the quarterback’s lower half and his feet start to move in that direction to then throw the ball. You’d be shocked, but so many guys — especially younger ones — they’re not connected. Their feet and eyes are all jacked up.”

So, you’re trying to get them synchronized?

“Exactly,” McCown says.

How do you teach that?

“Reps,” he replies, describing one of the drills the Vikings quarterbacks do daily. They receive the snap, glance over at a receiver on the right sideline, line up their body and throw. Then they catch another snap, shift their eyes to the left, line up their feet and throw again. Some days, they move from the right sideline to the left, as if they’re mimicking four progressions.

“You build that out until you get 22 people out there,” McCown says.

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Do you mean, like, adding the pass rush, which probably makes it harder to be as calm and disciplined with the feet and eyes?

“Now you’re getting it,” he says, “which takes us all the way back to Martz and to knowing exactly what you’re doing. If you aren’t confident on your end, then your own offense presses on your brain before you even start. Then it’s, ‘Uhhh, what do I? … Oh, no …’ If you know what you’re doing, if you can get guys to play in a system for years, it’s like: ‘Boom. There’s a ball. Boom. There’s another. Boom, boom, boom.’ You’re playing fast, processing. Stress hits, and they know the answer to the test.”

Experience is not required to learn all of this, but it does give him a distinctly empathetic viewpoint as a coach.

McCown encourages. He pats his quarterbacks on the helmet after good throws and offers criticism with a fist bump after bad ones. If he spots something wrong, he doesn’t allow much time to pass before mentioning what he saw. But he does not holler, scream or yell because it’s not authentic to him.

The position is hard enough, he says.

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(Top photo: G. Newman Lowrance / Associated Press)

When the Pittsburgh Steelers acquired Justin Fields in a trade, they already had another quarterback in the room.

The Steelers got Fields from Chicago, which had the rights to Caleb Williams, about a week after the Steelers signed Russell Wilson to a one-year deal.

Fields arrived as the likely backup, but with just over two weeks until their season begins, head coach Mike Tomlin has yet to name a starting quarterback.

Fields is just one of three quarterbacks ever to rush for 1,000 yards in a season, joining Michael Vick and Lamar Jackson. But his passing stats are less impressive.

However, Fields says he’s done enough to win the job.

“I think I’ve shown what I can do,” Fields told reporters Thursday. “I think the time that I did have with the [first team] practicing in training camp, I think that went well. I think we grew a lot each and every day. But, at the end of the day, it’s not up to me. I mean, I’m just going to come in here every day, each and every day, the same person, being a leader for this team and work my butt off, and everything else will be handled.”

Russell Wilson (3) alongside Justin Fields (2) of the Pittsburgh Steelers during an offseason workout at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex June 6, 2024, in Pittsburgh. (Joe Sargent/Getty Images)

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“I try to not think about stuff that I can’t control,” Fields added. “I try to just think about the stuff that I can control. So, I can’t control whether or not I’m going to be named the starter. I can control how I come in every day, how I work every day and how I treat my teammates and every day.”

The Bears drafted Williams after acquiring the Carolina Panthers’ first-round selection and Carolina finished with the worst record in the league.

As a starter, Fields is 10-28 while completing 60.3% of his passes for 6,674 yards, 40 touchdowns, 30 interceptions and 11 fumbles lost.

Justin Fields of the Pittsburgh Steelers warms up before a preseason game against the Houston Texans at Acrisure Stadium Aug. 9, 2024, in Pittsburgh. (Justin Berl/Getty Images)

The good news for Tomlin is it simply may not matter. The Steelers haven’t finished under .500 since 2003.

Pittsburgh concludes its preseason Saturday, and Wilson will get the start.

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

In late July, Tony Clark, the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, visited Japan to announce support for players in the country’s top league, Nippon Professional Baseball. Japanese ballplayers are trying to take control of their name, image and likeness rights, or NIL — a fight familiar to college athletes in the United States. The NPB clubs hold those rights, and therefore, the final say over the endorsement deals players make.

But NIL is not the only battle underway for the Japan Professional Baseball Players Association. It may not even be the most ambitious. NPB players, who are not known for aggressive labor tactics, are pushing to become free agents earlier in their careers — including a change that would allow players to join Major League Baseball sooner.

To get it done, the JPBPA is preparing a legal challenge to the league’s reserve system on antitrust grounds. Tak Yamazaki, outside counsel to the Japan Professional Baseball Players Association, said he could not specify exactly when the action will be brought, but that it would be this year.

“It will happen soon,” Yamazaki said.

Players in Japan have two forms of free agency: domestic and international. Domestic free agency, the freedom to switch to another NPB team, is achieved after seven or eight years in the league, depending on whether the player was drafted out of college or high school.

But to leave as a free agent for a foreign league like MLB, the wait is nine years. Players can depart sooner, but only if their team posts them for bidding. Instead, NPB players want what’s in place in MLB: free agency after a blanket six years, regardless of entry or destination.

The two-pronged push for change is remarkable for a players’ association that does not have the same might as its U.S. counterpart. Club owners hold most of the power in NPB, in part because labor unions in Japan are generally not as strong as they are in the United States. Coincidentally, next month marks the 20th anniversary of the only strike NPB players have held in their history, a two-day effort to stave off club contraction.

A second NPB player strike does not appear to be in the offing any time soon. But the JPBPA regards the body that oversees antitrust law, Japan’s Fair Trade Commission, as perhaps the best vehicle to attack the reserve system. That’s a relatively new development: in 2019, the commission issued a report that gave the nation’s athletes newfound leverage.

“There was legal argument whether antitrust law is applied to sports matters,” Yamazaki said. “They changed the interpretation, making it clear that the antitrust law will apply. … That has changed the whole landscape.”

One smaller test case in front of the commission has already gone the JPBPA’s way, leading to the repeal of an unwritten rule in NPB in 2020. The “Tazawa Rule” was named for former big-league pitcher Junichi Tazawa, who had been effectively barred from playing in NPB at the end of his time playing in the U.S. because he had skipped NPB’s amateur draft to pursue a major-league career.

A person briefed on management’s thinking who was not authorized to speak publicly said NPB has been preparing for this next challenge, and that the league has proposed reducing the time to domestic free agency. The offer did not include a reduction with international free agency.

“Six and seven years was on the table at the end of January,” the person said. “If they were willing to negotiate several months ago, I think we would have been able to successfully come to an agreement before Opening Day.”

Yamazaki said the league’s offer was more complex than a straight reduction.

The other change NPB players seek, to their NIL rights, creates a contrast to the U.S., where NIL is a relatively settled matter in pro leagues. But it’s been a dominant topic in college athletics, reshaping the NCAA.

The JPBPA intends to continue to pursue player NIL rights via negotiation. Theoretically, though, the players could also take up an antitrust fight in that space, too. The topic is longstanding. The players sued over publicity rights on different grounds back in 2002, and years later, the case wound up in the Supreme Court of Japan, where the league prevailed.

But that was before 2019. An antitrust case in the U.S. was notably at the center of vast change of NIL for college athletes, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the NCAA in 2021.

NPB teams take a cut of player endorsements, and the clubs are protective of their own sponsors.

“There will be a certain amount of commission, and also it is not absolutely free (choice),” Yamazaki said. “For example, if a company that is offering an endorsement deal to the player is a competitor of club sponsors, it can be denied. Also, for example, setting up a YouTube channel: some clubs allow it, but some clubs don’t.”

The person briefed on NPB management thinking contended that because the clubs have been successful in merchandising, the current setup allows players to maximize their income. Clark, meanwhile, believes players can unlock greater value in group licensing. International unions have “rarely, if at all … taken advantage of or realized the value of their name, image and likeness rights,” he said.

“We believe there’s a better opportunity on the heels of (Shohei) Ohtani coming here, and on the heels of nearly a third of our membership at the major-league level being international, to build on that in a way that hasn’t happened yet,” Clark continued.

The MLBPA is billing its involvement as a business opportunity, not just union camaraderie. When Clark traveled to the city of Sapporo last month, he announced that the MLBPA and a licensing business it owns about 20 percent of, OneTeam Partners, are going “to support Japanese players in reclaiming their NIL rights from Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and to manage these rights in the future through the creation of a commercial program, run by OneTeam International,” per a memo the MLBPA sent to its players.

The JPBPA became a union in 1985. That’s almost two decades after the MLBPA created a group licensing program in 1966. Big leaguers at the time quickly began a boycott of Topps, in effort to force the trading card company to deal with the players en masse.

Today, that licensing program brings in huge dollars for players and the union. A financial statement the MLBPA filed with the Department of Labor lists $152 million in net licensing royalties for 2023, although that figure doesn’t account for every stream.

The work requires enforcement. Just last week, the PA’s business arm sued the Pittsburgh Pirates and the gas station chain Sheetz for alleged unlicensed use of player images. A settlement has been tentatively agreed to. But the income has ripple effects: the funds help players prepare for work stoppages, creating bargaining leverage.

Clark acknowledged the MLBPA’s support for the Japanese players comes with costs to players stateside, but said players will benefit stateside as well.

“Someone may look at it from the outside in and suggest, ‘OK, well, that really doesn’t affect me,’ but the truth is, the global sports community is more connected than people think,” Clark said. “Yes, there is a financial investment. Yes, there is a sweat equity component of this.”

Per the MLBPA memo, OneTeam’s international division, which was started this year, is also in partnership talks with football and soccer unions across England, Italy, France, as well as the International Rugby Players Association and various unions across Australia and New Zealand. The memo did not touch, however, the JPBPA’s reserve-system battle — an omission perhaps made out of sensitivity to another union’s bargaining positions.

Cultural chasms

When the MLBPA started its group licensing program, the union was run by the late Marvin Miller, an economist who rose to prominence with the steelworkers and built the PA into a titan. Miller’s son, Peter, is a longtime resident of Japan who served as a consultant to the MLBPA in Japan from 1994 to 2011.

Peter Miller said the relationship between players and owners in his time was “very different from the adversarial relationship that is considered essential in U.S labor-management relations.”

“For example, when they called a strike, they expressed remorse to the fans,” Miller said. “Because it was just really not part of the culture at all.”

Yet, at the same time, the JPBPA has also stood out amongst unions in the country according to Matt Nichol, a lecturer who studies sports law and labor in the College of Business at Central Queensland University in Australia.

“Even though the Japanese players’ union doesn’t have the strike history that the MLBPA does, and there wasn’t that period of industrial action from the formation of the MLBPA through to the strike in 1994, for Japan, the Players Association is quite a militant union,” Nichol said. “Litigating over NIL … taking on the league when they tried to reduce the teams from 12 to 10. Those actions by the Players Association are quite important, and quite dramatic in the context of Japanese labor relations. So the JPBPA is becoming more assertive.”

The differences between the two countries’ systems are vast. For example: There is no set term for the collective bargaining agreement in NPB, creating a rolling nature of negotiations, as opposed to the five-year terms MLB players and owners agree to. NPB players also don’t always explore free agency, even when eligible.

“Players, when they become free agents, don’t always change teams, so there’s not a huge free-agent market like in the U.S.,” Nichol said. “In the last 10, 15 years, players have been moving domestically a little bit more with free agency, but it’s nothing like the U.S.”

In some ways, NPB operates “probably a bit fairer system” than what’s in place in MLB, according to Nichol, who noted teams rarely release players midseason. NPB also has a smaller gap between the highest and lowest paid players and has long provided housing accommodations to minor leaguers — a contrast to the U.S., where minor leaguers took up a public fight for housing in recent years.

The person briefed on NPB management’s thinking made similar points, and argued it was folly to compare the reserve systems in the two countries.

“We only have one minor-league level,” the person said. “If you sign out of college, on average, you will make it (to the major-league level) in less than two years. That, plus seven years, means about nine years.

“But in Major League Baseball, in America’s case, you have to spend about an average of four years in the minors. Plus six years free agency. So, 10 years. Although it’s a long reserve system, you would spend less number of years at the minor-league level in Japan.”

NPB players today sometimes do leave for the U.S. sooner than nine years, but only when their club chooses to post them for bidding. And the best players bring NPB teams hefty payments. The Los Angeles Dodgers, for example, paid the Orix Buffaloes $50.6 million to sign Yoshinobu Yamamoto last offseason, on top of the $325 million the Dodgers committed to the pitcher in salary over 12 years.

The posting agreement — which determines that club-to-club fee structure — is technically separate from the reserve system. But, if the NPB reserve system changes, there’s a clause allowing the posting agreement to be changed. The posting agreement is actually a deal amongst three parties: MLB, MLBPA and NPB. The players in Japan are not formally a party, but Yamazaki said the MLPBA has well represented their interests.

Former MLB pitcher Junichi Tazawa’s case helped set a precedent for player movement in Japan. (Chris Covatta / Getty Images)

More than the number of years to free agency, what might be most pressing to NPB players is who decides it. The MLBPA toppled club control over the reserve system in the 1970s.

“Our reserve system, just like back in pre-1976 MLB, has been unilaterally imposed by the clubs,” Yamazaki said. “That’s the biggest difference between the MLBPA and the JPBPA.”

Working in the JPBPA’s favor could be the success it has had in front of Japan’s antitrust administration already.

The Tazawa Rule forbade a player who skips the league’s amateur draft from joining NPB until at least two years following the conclusion of his career abroad. It was intended to deter players from bolting for MLB. Tazawa made 388 appearances in MLB from 2009-18, mostly for the Boston Red Sox,  but he could not play in NPB once returning home.

In 2020, the JFTC found the NPB had likely violated the law. NPB repealed the rule during the investigation, so no discipline was issued. Now, the JPBPA could try to repeat that playbook: using the complaint to pressure change.

Money on the table?

Shohei Ohtani’s global sponsorship portfolio, like his dual talent as a pitcher and hitter, is unique. For the general player population in Japan, there’s a question of how robust a market they would find if they do take over their NIL.

Josh Persell, who runs JP Sports Advisors, an agency that specializes in bringing players from NPB to MLB and vice versa, said that the endorsement rules in the nation limit what players can do, but only to an extent.

“The licensing landscape is far different than it is here. It’s a smaller country, there are less brands, companies, and categories participating,” said Persell. “The league does well with their general marketing campaigns, but it’s on a smaller economic scale. Is there a broader licensing play which rises the tide and benefits the league, the owners and the players?”

An executive who brokers endorsements for NPB players said the league’s top players make only $150,000 in endorsements annually. But, the executive believes more opportunities could open if clubs relinquished the rights.

“Yes it’s cheap,” said the executive, who was granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the business dealings, “but that’s what it is.”

A second marketing executive, one who arranges sponsorships for MLB players, said consistently good players in the States make at least double, adding that one or two players per team might reach seven figures.

Peter Miller said the licensing rights have long been desired by Japanese players.

“The Japanese baseball clubs are all potentially advertising entities,” Miller said. “It’s expected that the Yomiuri Giants will support all the Yomiuri newspapers and be identified in pictures and with their uniforms and everything. When you look at it in that way, it’s a little bit hard to imagine an owner wrapping his mind around the idea of a player having his own image rights.

“From a Japanese point of view, it just doesn’t compute.”

Between the two pursuits, Yamazaki thinks NPB players have arrived at a crucial moment.

“Absolutely,” he said. “The biggest ones came at the same time.”

Although Yamazaki declined to reveal exactly when the JPBPA plans to file its challenge to the reserve system, he did share the timing of a different event: the union will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the two-day strike in December.

(Top photo of Yomiuri Giants players celebrating a win earlier this year: Kyodo via AP Images)