Sam Ehlinger

[GringoSalado 1652]

1 hour ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Glad Sam’s having a good camp, but some of y’all need to tap the breaks. The likelihood of significant snaps this season is low. Can only hope he puts out good tape in the pre-season and/or the Colts start valuing him higher than 3rd string. 
 

Not to say you shouldn’t enjoy the positive press, but perhaps the jersey purchases should stay on hold

 

*brakes. At least you went with "tap" instead of "pump," which I hate because it makes no sense.

As for the jersey he seems to have a roster spot all but locked up at this point, no? Anyway I can't imagine things having gone better for Ehlinger's young NFL career to this point, and that is why imo we're all almost as excited as Nicole.

[shadow_operative 15932]

On 8/4/2021 at 6:10 PM, Laxtonto said:

It is going to really piss me off when Sam blossoms into a solid NFL starter knowing that Herman wasted his talents as well…

 

It is infuriating to see how many guys tied to Herman all seem to “blossom” in the league…

imo Sam has little to no shot ay being one of those guys. he just doesn't have it. it's one thing for a DB or a RB or a WR to get misused and poorly coached in college only to see them blossom in the NFL, but it's another thing entirely to be a Major Applewhite/James Brown-level QB for four years in college and suddenly blossom into an NFL starting caliber QB. Colt McCoy was/is twice the QB that Sam is and he's a career journeyman backup. i wouldn't count on Sam having some long, successful career in the league, or ever even earning a starting job for that matter. 

[Duane Moore 5250]

1 hour ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Glad Sam’s having a good camp, but some of y’all need to tap the breaks. The likelihood of significant snaps this season is low. Can only hope he puts out good tape in the pre-season and/or the Colts start valuing him higher than 3rd string. 
 

Not to say you shouldn’t enjoy the positive press, but perhaps the jersey purchases should stay on hold

The owner just compared him to Montana and Brady #allgasnobrakes

 

[ElChupacabra 254]

9 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

imo Sam has little to no shot ay being one of those guys. he just doesn't have it. it's one thing for a DB or a RB or a WR to get misused and poorly coached in college only to see them blossom in the NFL, but it's another thing entirely to be a Major Applewhite/James Brown-level QB for four years in college and suddenly blossom into an NFL starting caliber QB. Colt McCoy was/is twice the QB that Sam is and he's a career journeyman backup. i wouldn't count on Sam having some long, successful career in the league, or ever even earning a starting job for that matter. 

I guess thank God he has that degree from Texas and McCombs huh? Better than 98% of his peers right out of the gate. 

 

Also, the trait that McCoy and Sam share is they were both completely selfless teammates and both very diligent learners. If Colt can be a career clipboard holder then Sam can absolutely do the same. I've said for a few years now that Sam's true calling in life is to be a coach. He loves the game, he's a leader, he has a story that brings a tear to damn near anyone's eye, he knows offense and, being a QB, he probably knows more about defensive schemes than most defensive players do. Maybe Ehlinger has a decent run in the NFL then puts on his coaching hat for a while only to return to Texas and become the next DKR. That would be fucking awesome.

Edited August 13, 2021 by ElChupacabra

[shadow_operative 15932]

4 minutes ago, ElChupacabra said:

I guess thank God he has that degree from Texas and McCombs huh? Better than 98% of his peers right out of the gate. 

 

Also, the trait that McCoy and Sam share is they were both completely selfless teammates and both very diligent learners. If Colt can be a career clipboard holder then Sam can absolutely do the same. I've said for a few years now that Sam's true calling in life is to be a coach. He loves the game, he's a leader, he has a story that brings a tear to damn near anyone's eye, he knows offense and, being a QB, he probably knows more about defensive schemes than most defensive players do. Maybe Ehlinger has a decent run in the NFL then puts on his coaching hat for a while only to return to Texas and become the next DKR. That would be fucking awesome.

this i agree with. i can definitely see him continuing to learn and grow while being a career backup who eventually becomes a coach, hopefully returning to coach at Texas one day. 

[Ebeye 116]

1 hour ago, Nicole44 said:

I don’t have a subscription to The Athletic (I’m out of free articles)

I understand the “pump the brakes” mentality…but Sam can pull this off. I believe. First Longhorn QB in what feels like forever to have this kind of buzz and sports reporters saying he has a real shot to be the starter. Big test this weekend.

4-6 tonite another dual practice with the Panthers. Then they are off tomorrow until Sunday’s preseason game. I am jacked! I want to see what everyone is writing and talking about. The fact in essentially 12 practices, Sam is very much in the conversation is outstanding.   I know Wentz will be back at some point but I think Sam will beat out Eason for the starter role. Wentz cannot stay healthy and while I have nothing against him Sam got drafted to the best possible team. And as it turns out, he wasn’t a throw away pick—the scouts and coaches really wanted him.

Spoiler

It’s the sound that’s stayed with her all these years, the screams she can still hear in her head, the ones that come after a mother sits her three children down and tells them father’s gone and he’s not coming back.

“This wasn’t crying,” Jena Ehlinger says. “This was wailing.”

Her oldest was 14. In the eighth grade. Sam had spent that Sunday morning at home, with his younger brother and sister, finishing his homework and waiting on results from dad’s race. Now mom was in tears, stammering through her words, trying to tell them that something had gone terribly wrong, that dad might’ve had a heart attack, that they tried to save him but couldn’t.

Ross Ehlinger had gone to San Francisco for a triathlon. He never made it to the finish line.

Now Sam couldn’t sit, couldn’t think, couldn’t begin to process it all. Now he was running, down the hall, up the stairs, into dad’s office. Why? Because he could feel his father in that room. Ross was the dad who’d always been there — the successful trial lawyer who coached his boys in youth football and had been dragging them to Texas home games since they’d been toddlers. He’d written a birthday card for Sam just six months earlier.

“I’m proud to be your dad,” it began.

Now he was gone, and Sam was the man of the house, and Jake and Morgen needed him. So did mom. So he bottled up the pain and he buried it. He stayed as strong as he could.

“We were kind of in a fog for a year,” he says now, “and then you wake up and you’re like, that really happened?”

The four of them moved on, best they could, best anyone can, but even in the happiest moments they could feel that twinge in the bottom of their hearts. “Even on the best days, you’re just a tiny bit sad,” Jena says.

May 1 was one of those days. Sam had grown into a star quarterback in high school, a four-year starter at Texas, a late-round prospect hoping to hear his name called in the NFL Draft. After the call finally came — sixth round, pick 218 by the Indianapolis Colts — the four of them huddled together, their eyes watering, the emotion evident. Jena. Sam. Jake. Morgen. No doubt Ross was on their minds.

He would’ve loved that moment. He would’ve been so damn proud.

Five days later, another call. Sam was walking through the Colts’ practice facility for the first time — meeting his new coaches, getting fitted for shoulder pads, finding out where his locker would be — when he glanced down at his phone and saw a text that read “CALL ME ASAP.”

It was one of Jake’s friends back in Austin. He was outside Jake’s apartment. Something was wrong.

“There’s caution tape everywhere,” the friend told him. “There’s eight cop cars here. They won’t tell us what happened.”

A minute later, Sam got Austin police on the phone. His brother’s body had been found unresponsive.

Jake was gone.

This time, instead of running, Sam fell to the floor.

---

If Sam was their rock, Jake was their joy. Sam was serious. Jake was silly. Sam would be sitting in the Texas locker room at halftime of a game, steaming over his mistakes, and Jake, a walk-on linebacker who rarely played, would stroll up, whisper something in his ear and make him laugh.

There was no one better at loosening him up.

Jake was part grizzly bear, part Labrador, his mom says, the kid who’d blare Justin Bieber in the car and belt out lyrics at the top of his lungs, the friend who always put you in a better mood, the brother who always had your back, the high school football player who’d outsprint coaches in the dark so he could be the first one on the practice field at 5:30 a.m.

After Ross died, the boys learned to grieve together. Sam was 14, Jake 12. They shared a bathroom and a bunk bed. Dad wouldn’t be there for their high school football games, for their weddings, for any of it. There were times when the pain felt like too much.

Eventually, they learned to let it in.

They had their grief. They had each other.

“I made a lot of mistakes along the way,” Sam says. “As men, there’s an idea that you have to be tough, and instead of correctly addressing and identifying those emotions, we bottle them up and push them down. It’s almost like a bomb building up inside of you.”

Jena won’t allow it. Not anymore.

“You gotta get it out,” she tells her kids all the time. “Or it’s gonna get ugly.”

So they cried together. They prayed together. They slogged through it, eventually coming to peace with their loss, sudden as it was. Ross Ehlinger was just 46, competing in the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon in San Francisco on March 5, 2013, when he died during the swim portion of the race. The cause of death was believed to stem from heart arrhythmia.

In football, Sam found a way to honor his father, to connect with him. Ross used to take the boys out back when they were younger, dress them up in burnt orange jerseys and toss them passes. For a dad and his two sons, the dream was always the University of Texas.

Sam earned the starting quarterback job as a freshman and kept it all four years. He was undersized but scrappy and strong-willed. He was everything Ross had taught him to be. Once, back in high school, Sam tore cartilage in both of his knees during a game but never missed a snap. They beat the defending state champs on the road that night.

The coaches didn’t find out about the injury until two days later.

“He’s as tough as you’ll ever come across,” says Todd Dodge, Ehlinger’s high school coach back in Austin. “The physical toughness is how he’s made up. The mental toughness is from everything he’s been through.”

On draft day this past spring, while the Ehlinger house was packed with family and friends, Sam kept checking his phone. Hours passed. Quarterbacks were picked. He heard nothing.

When his agent, Erik Burkhardt, would walk through the den, Jake would glare at him. Burkhardt would later joke that the look he was getting was something along the lines of, “Do your job!”

He was a fiercely loyal little brother. He was protective. He was proud.

Finally, the call came. The Colts wanted him. Sam smiled. Jena cried. Morgen, too. Jake wrapped up everyone in a bear hug.

The two brothers spoke the night before Sam flew to Indianapolis for the first day of his NFL career. Jake told Sam good luck. He told him how proud he was.

The next afternoon, Sam Ehlinger learned he’d lost his younger brother.

Jake (left), Sam and Morgen (Courtesy of Jena Ehlinger)

---

Sam collapsed in a hallway at the Colts’ practice facility, muttering NO, this can’t be true over and over and over. Kylen Granson, a high school teammate of Ehlinger’s and now with the Colts, found Sam lying on the ground.

“I gotta go home,” Ehlinger finally mumbled. “My brother died.”

He’d been at the Colts’ facility for a matter of hours.

Frank Reich was in his office when he got word. The Colts’ coach walked out and found Ehlinger on the floor.

“It was the type of grief you only see a handful of times in your life,” Reich remembers. “Where the loss is so great and the pain is so great that there are just no words.”

Jena Ehlinger was in Mexico for a family friend’s wedding. When she finally checked her phone, she had dozens of missed calls. Some from Jake’s friends. Some from Sam’s friends. Some from numbers she didn’t recognize. One voicemail was from the Austin Police Department, urging her to call them as soon as possible.

Her first thought: Jake or Morgen had gotten into a car accident.

“I need to talk to you about Jake,” the detective began, and that’s when she knew.

She didn’t hear another word. She dropped her phone. She broke down.

Eventually, she called Sam.

By that point, he’d climbed off the ground and stumbled down the hall. He found his way to the office of David Thornton, the Colts’ director of player engagement, and in moments like this, the team’s crisis manager. Ehlinger needed an anchor. In that moment, Thornton was it.

Pretty soon, Reich was in there. General manager Chris Ballard too. So was the team’s counselor, Elizabeth White.

Jena called. Sam answered. Time to be strong again.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Jena remembers. “He quoted me a Bible verse.”

“Be strong and courageous,” Sam told her, reciting Joshua 1:9 by heart. “Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

“He’s with dad now,” Sam continued. “That was his buddy. Remember how they were buddies? He missed him.”

Amidst a moment of unimaginable anguish, those words gave a mother comfort. Jena could finally breathe.

“We have to tell Morgen,” she said, “And I don’t think I can do it.”

So Sam did. He sat in Ballard’s office and called his younger sister.

“Mo Mo,” he began. “Jake’s gone up to heaven.”

It was Ballard who drove Sam to the airport that afternoon; Colts owner Jim Irsay who provided the plane. A week later, Sam carried his brother’s coffin into the funeral, sobbing.

“There’s no way he’s going to be able to speak today,” Morgen, 18, whispered to her mom.

Sam’s eulogy lasted eight minutes. He spoke about Jake’s loyalty and his love for life. About the idea of eternity, and how temporary life on earth is, and how that had made the last few days a little less horrific. Jake was back with dad.

Then he told the 2,000 people who’d shuffled into Riverbend Church Home for Hope that afternoon, including Ballard and Thornton, what Jake would want them all to know.

“What would he want for us right now?” Sam said. “What would he want for us as a family? For everyone in this room? . . . Jake would say, ‘No, no, no, I didn’t pass away too soon.’ He’d say, ‘You got 20 years with me. You got 20 years of laughter. You got 20 years of happiness. Of love.’ That’s what he’d say.”

Jake (left) and Sam. (Courtesy of Jena Ehlinger)

---

The cause of Jake Ehlinger’s death has yet to be released and remains under criminal investigation. Sam declined to elaborate.

For the second time in eight years, a family has been forced to forge on, to carry forward with a hole in their hearts.

“It’s like I’m in a tsunami,” Jena says of the grief. “The littlest thing will just take you down to your knees.”

A song. A comment. A story. It comes in waves, often when they least expect it.

Sam has those days, too. Days where a memory will crash right into him and remind him that his little brother’s not here anymore.

He’ll think about how impossible that is. How unfair.

“No one 22 years old deserves this kind of tragedy,” his old high school coach says.

It’s only been three months. Sam is two weeks into his first NFL training camp, playing the most mentally demanding position on the field, trying to win a quarterback battle that could — believe it not — elevate him to the Colts’ starting job for a week or two to begin the season, depending on the status of Carson Wentz.

Under a white wristband that Sam wears at practice is an orange bracelet, JAKE EHLINGER scripted on one side, his jersey number at Texas, 48, on the other. The Roman numerals MDLXVI — Ross’ race number that day in San Francisco — are already tattooed on one rib cage. There are plans for another tattoo, this one to honor Jake.

“Everything’s felt like a massive blur,” Sam says, looking back on the last six months. The draft. Graduation. His brother’s death. The start of his NFL career.

“Throw learning a playbook on top of that,” he says.

Ballard skipped a day of rookie minicamp to attend Jake Ehlinger’s funeral. He still texts Jena and Morgen, checking in every few weeks, to comfort them as they slog through the stages of grief. In the weeks after the funeral, Sam heard from a number of new teammates, men he hadn’t even met in person.

Darius Leonard reached out. He’s been through the loss of a brother. He knows the pain. DeForest Buckner texted. Kenny Moore, too.

“Means the world to me,” Sam says.

“That’s what we do,” Reich said. “That’s who we are as an organization. The person matters.”

After the funeral, Sam wasn’t sure he should leave. They’d buried Jake. They’d said their goodbyes. Now he was supposed to fly back to Indianapolis and begin his NFL career? What about mom? What about Morgen?

Leaving them didn’t feel right. Their rock needed to be there.

But Jena wouldn’t let him stay.

“It’s one flight,” she kept telling him. “It’s two hours. We’ll be fine.”

She caught up with her son a short time later, after one of his first days at training camp, and she could tell he was off. The grief doesn’t die just because football season started. So she told him to do what she does when she misses Jake. She told him to watch the funeral.

“It really helps me to watch what you said that day,” Jena told him. “Because what you said is what we believe.”

She sent him a link. A day later, she texted.

“Did you watch it?”

He had. It had made him smile. It had pulled him through the pain, if only for a bit.

There are days that seem so dark, Sam told his mom, when it feels like the light has no way of creeping in. But there are days when pinholes of love and hope and joy find a way to poke through. Eventually, they’re gonna add up, he promised her, grow bigger and bigger, and then the sky will clear.

Here you go.

[Bevo14 8380]

2 minutes ago, Ebeye said:

  Hide contents

It’s the sound that’s stayed with her all these years, the screams she can still hear in her head, the ones that come after a mother sits her three children down and tells them father’s gone and he’s not coming back.

“This wasn’t crying,” Jena Ehlinger says. “This was wailing.”

Her oldest was 14. In the eighth grade. Sam had spent that Sunday morning at home, with his younger brother and sister, finishing his homework and waiting on results from dad’s race. Now mom was in tears, stammering through her words, trying to tell them that something had gone terribly wrong, that dad might’ve had a heart attack, that they tried to save him but couldn’t.

Ross Ehlinger had gone to San Francisco for a triathlon. He never made it to the finish line.

Now Sam couldn’t sit, couldn’t think, couldn’t begin to process it all. Now he was running, down the hall, up the stairs, into dad’s office. Why? Because he could feel his father in that room. Ross was the dad who’d always been there — the successful trial lawyer who coached his boys in youth football and had been dragging them to Texas home games since they’d been toddlers. He’d written a birthday card for Sam just six months earlier.

“I’m proud to be your dad,” it began.

Now he was gone, and Sam was the man of the house, and Jake and Morgen needed him. So did mom. So he bottled up the pain and he buried it. He stayed as strong as he could.

“We were kind of in a fog for a year,” he says now, “and then you wake up and you’re like, that really happened?”

The four of them moved on, best they could, best anyone can, but even in the happiest moments they could feel that twinge in the bottom of their hearts. “Even on the best days, you’re just a tiny bit sad,” Jena says.

May 1 was one of those days. Sam had grown into a star quarterback in high school, a four-year starter at Texas, a late-round prospect hoping to hear his name called in the NFL Draft. After the call finally came — sixth round, pick 218 by the Indianapolis Colts — the four of them huddled together, their eyes watering, the emotion evident. Jena. Sam. Jake. Morgen. No doubt Ross was on their minds.

He would’ve loved that moment. He would’ve been so damn proud.

Five days later, another call. Sam was walking through the Colts’ practice facility for the first time — meeting his new coaches, getting fitted for shoulder pads, finding out where his locker would be — when he glanced down at his phone and saw a text that read “CALL ME ASAP.”

It was one of Jake’s friends back in Austin. He was outside Jake’s apartment. Something was wrong.

“There’s caution tape everywhere,” the friend told him. “There’s eight cop cars here. They won’t tell us what happened.”

A minute later, Sam got Austin police on the phone. His brother’s body had been found unresponsive.

Jake was gone.

This time, instead of running, Sam fell to the floor.

---

If Sam was their rock, Jake was their joy. Sam was serious. Jake was silly. Sam would be sitting in the Texas locker room at halftime of a game, steaming over his mistakes, and Jake, a walk-on linebacker who rarely played, would stroll up, whisper something in his ear and make him laugh.

There was no one better at loosening him up.

Jake was part grizzly bear, part Labrador, his mom says, the kid who’d blare Justin Bieber in the car and belt out lyrics at the top of his lungs, the friend who always put you in a better mood, the brother who always had your back, the high school football player who’d outsprint coaches in the dark so he could be the first one on the practice field at 5:30 a.m.

After Ross died, the boys learned to grieve together. Sam was 14, Jake 12. They shared a bathroom and a bunk bed. Dad wouldn’t be there for their high school football games, for their weddings, for any of it. There were times when the pain felt like too much.

Eventually, they learned to let it in.

They had their grief. They had each other.

“I made a lot of mistakes along the way,” Sam says. “As men, there’s an idea that you have to be tough, and instead of correctly addressing and identifying those emotions, we bottle them up and push them down. It’s almost like a bomb building up inside of you.”

Jena won’t allow it. Not anymore.

“You gotta get it out,” she tells her kids all the time. “Or it’s gonna get ugly.”

So they cried together. They prayed together. They slogged through it, eventually coming to peace with their loss, sudden as it was. Ross Ehlinger was just 46, competing in the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon in San Francisco on March 5, 2013, when he died during the swim portion of the race. The cause of death was believed to stem from heart arrhythmia.

In football, Sam found a way to honor his father, to connect with him. Ross used to take the boys out back when they were younger, dress them up in burnt orange jerseys and toss them passes. For a dad and his two sons, the dream was always the University of Texas.

Sam earned the starting quarterback job as a freshman and kept it all four years. He was undersized but scrappy and strong-willed. He was everything Ross had taught him to be. Once, back in high school, Sam tore cartilage in both of his knees during a game but never missed a snap. They beat the defending state champs on the road that night.

The coaches didn’t find out about the injury until two days later.

“He’s as tough as you’ll ever come across,” says Todd Dodge, Ehlinger’s high school coach back in Austin. “The physical toughness is how he’s made up. The mental toughness is from everything he’s been through.”

On draft day this past spring, while the Ehlinger house was packed with family and friends, Sam kept checking his phone. Hours passed. Quarterbacks were picked. He heard nothing.

When his agent, Erik Burkhardt, would walk through the den, Jake would glare at him. Burkhardt would later joke that the look he was getting was something along the lines of, “Do your job!”

He was a fiercely loyal little brother. He was protective. He was proud.

Finally, the call came. The Colts wanted him. Sam smiled. Jena cried. Morgen, too. Jake wrapped up everyone in a bear hug.

The two brothers spoke the night before Sam flew to Indianapolis for the first day of his NFL career. Jake told Sam good luck. He told him how proud he was.

The next afternoon, Sam Ehlinger learned he’d lost his younger brother.

Jake (left), Sam and Morgen (Courtesy of Jena Ehlinger)

---

Sam collapsed in a hallway at the Colts’ practice facility, muttering NO, this can’t be true over and over and over. Kylen Granson, a high school teammate of Ehlinger’s and now with the Colts, found Sam lying on the ground.

“I gotta go home,” Ehlinger finally mumbled. “My brother died.”

He’d been at the Colts’ facility for a matter of hours.

Frank Reich was in his office when he got word. The Colts’ coach walked out and found Ehlinger on the floor.

“It was the type of grief you only see a handful of times in your life,” Reich remembers. “Where the loss is so great and the pain is so great that there are just no words.”

Jena Ehlinger was in Mexico for a family friend’s wedding. When she finally checked her phone, she had dozens of missed calls. Some from Jake’s friends. Some from Sam’s friends. Some from numbers she didn’t recognize. One voicemail was from the Austin Police Department, urging her to call them as soon as possible.

Her first thought: Jake or Morgen had gotten into a car accident.

“I need to talk to you about Jake,” the detective began, and that’s when she knew.

She didn’t hear another word. She dropped her phone. She broke down.

Eventually, she called Sam.

By that point, he’d climbed off the ground and stumbled down the hall. He found his way to the office of David Thornton, the Colts’ director of player engagement, and in moments like this, the team’s crisis manager. Ehlinger needed an anchor. In that moment, Thornton was it.

Pretty soon, Reich was in there. General manager Chris Ballard too. So was the team’s counselor, Elizabeth White.

Jena called. Sam answered. Time to be strong again.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Jena remembers. “He quoted me a Bible verse.”

“Be strong and courageous,” Sam told her, reciting Joshua 1:9 by heart. “Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

“He’s with dad now,” Sam continued. “That was his buddy. Remember how they were buddies? He missed him.”

Amidst a moment of unimaginable anguish, those words gave a mother comfort. Jena could finally breathe.

“We have to tell Morgen,” she said, “And I don’t think I can do it.”

So Sam did. He sat in Ballard’s office and called his younger sister.

“Mo Mo,” he began. “Jake’s gone up to heaven.”

It was Ballard who drove Sam to the airport that afternoon; Colts owner Jim Irsay who provided the plane. A week later, Sam carried his brother’s coffin into the funeral, sobbing.

“There’s no way he’s going to be able to speak today,” Morgen, 18, whispered to her mom.

Sam’s eulogy lasted eight minutes. He spoke about Jake’s loyalty and his love for life. About the idea of eternity, and how temporary life on earth is, and how that had made the last few days a little less horrific. Jake was back with dad.

Then he told the 2,000 people who’d shuffled into Riverbend Church Home for Hope that afternoon, including Ballard and Thornton, what Jake would want them all to know.

“What would he want for us right now?” Sam said. “What would he want for us as a family? For everyone in this room? . . . Jake would say, ‘No, no, no, I didn’t pass away too soon.’ He’d say, ‘You got 20 years with me. You got 20 years of laughter. You got 20 years of happiness. Of love.’ That’s what he’d say.”

Jake (left) and Sam. (Courtesy of Jena Ehlinger)

---

The cause of Jake Ehlinger’s death has yet to be released and remains under criminal investigation. Sam declined to elaborate.

For the second time in eight years, a family has been forced to forge on, to carry forward with a hole in their hearts.

“It’s like I’m in a tsunami,” Jena says of the grief. “The littlest thing will just take you down to your knees.”

A song. A comment. A story. It comes in waves, often when they least expect it.

Sam has those days, too. Days where a memory will crash right into him and remind him that his little brother’s not here anymore.

He’ll think about how impossible that is. How unfair.

“No one 22 years old deserves this kind of tragedy,” his old high school coach says.

It’s only been three months. Sam is two weeks into his first NFL training camp, playing the most mentally demanding position on the field, trying to win a quarterback battle that could — believe it not — elevate him to the Colts’ starting job for a week or two to begin the season, depending on the status of Carson Wentz.

Under a white wristband that Sam wears at practice is an orange bracelet, JAKE EHLINGER scripted on one side, his jersey number at Texas, 48, on the other. The Roman numerals MDLXVI — Ross’ race number that day in San Francisco — are already tattooed on one rib cage. There are plans for another tattoo, this one to honor Jake.

“Everything’s felt like a massive blur,” Sam says, looking back on the last six months. The draft. Graduation. His brother’s death. The start of his NFL career.

“Throw learning a playbook on top of that,” he says.

Ballard skipped a day of rookie minicamp to attend Jake Ehlinger’s funeral. He still texts Jena and Morgen, checking in every few weeks, to comfort them as they slog through the stages of grief. In the weeks after the funeral, Sam heard from a number of new teammates, men he hadn’t even met in person.

Darius Leonard reached out. He’s been through the loss of a brother. He knows the pain. DeForest Buckner texted. Kenny Moore, too.

“Means the world to me,” Sam says.

“That’s what we do,” Reich said. “That’s who we are as an organization. The person matters.”

After the funeral, Sam wasn’t sure he should leave. They’d buried Jake. They’d said their goodbyes. Now he was supposed to fly back to Indianapolis and begin his NFL career? What about mom? What about Morgen?

Leaving them didn’t feel right. Their rock needed to be there.

But Jena wouldn’t let him stay.

“It’s one flight,” she kept telling him. “It’s two hours. We’ll be fine.”

She caught up with her son a short time later, after one of his first days at training camp, and she could tell he was off. The grief doesn’t die just because football season started. So she told him to do what she does when she misses Jake. She told him to watch the funeral.

“It really helps me to watch what you said that day,” Jena told him. “Because what you said is what we believe.”

She sent him a link. A day later, she texted.

“Did you watch it?”

He had. It had made him smile. It had pulled him through the pain, if only for a bit.

There are days that seem so dark, Sam told his mom, when it feels like the light has no way of creeping in. But there are days when pinholes of love and hope and joy find a way to poke through. Eventually, they’re gonna add up, he promised her, grow bigger and bigger, and then the sky will clear.

Here you go.

Quote

“We were kind of in a fog for a year,” he says now, “and then you wake up and you’re like, that really happened?”

Can definitely relate to that

[Dahobbs 17686]

The feels. 

[Mango4 189]

Read that Athletic story earlier, wasn't expecting my office to be so dusty on a Friday morning but here we are. 

Edited August 13, 2021 by Mango4

[formermav43 4606]

1 hour ago, GringoSalado said:

 

*brakes. At least you went with "tap" instead of "pump," which I hate because it makes no sense.

It did before ABS.

[formermav43 4606]

1 hour ago, GringoSalado said:

 

*brakes. At least you went with "tap" instead of "pump," which I hate because it makes no sense.

Dp

Edited August 13, 2021 by formermav43

[formermav43 4606]

1 hour ago, GringoSalado said:

 

*brakes. At least you went with "tap" instead of "pump," which I hate because it makes no sense.

And triple. That wasn’t even worth one post really, let alone three.

Edited August 13, 2021 by formermav43

[Nicole44 22078]

31 minutes ago, Mango4 said:

Read that Athletic story earlier, wasn't expecting my office to be so dusty on a Friday morning but here we are. 

Sam got drafted to the right team at the right time. You would hope that a team’s coach, GM and owner would always respond the way they did with Sam when Jake passed but we know that’s not the case. I’m so glad he’s where he is. I joined Twitter just so I can follow up on tweets about the Colts and what’s happening at practice etc…the articles aren’t complete and a lot tend to rehash old comments or tweets (and this is a fluid story.) Sam just earned the right to play with the ones on Tuesday. Now he’s getting more looks and reps. Fluid story. Same with Carson’s return timetable. Doug Pederson was at Colts/Panthers joint practice yesterday—wonder how Wentz feels about that as Reich and Doug are still tight. Guessing Colts bring him on as an analyst. 
 

Will be following practice this afternoon 3 pm CT) to see how it goes. I think a lot of people are going to be shocked seeing Sam on Sunday for the first preseason game. Go Sam Go! 🤘🏼😁

[GringoSalado 1652]

25 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

It did before ABS.

Yes to avoid locking up your brakes on slick surfaces you pump the brakes. To check yourself because you're going too fast you tap them. To come to a complete stop, you pump them.

[bar 396]

1 hour ago, shadow_operative said:

imo Sam has little to no shot ay being one of those guys. he just doesn't have it. it's one thing for a DB or a RB or a WR to get misused and poorly coached in college only to see them blossom in the NFL, but it's another thing entirely to be a Major Applewhite/James Brown-level QB for four years in college and suddenly blossom into an NFL starting caliber QB. Colt McCoy was/is twice the QB that Sam is and he's a career journeyman backup. i wouldn't count on Sam having some long, successful career in the league, or ever even earning a starting job for that matter. 

I'm not saying Sam is going to be the starter, but this is silly. Take a look at Tom Brady's college numbers. Ryan Fitzpatrick. Josh Allen. Mark Sanchez. Matt Cassell. Kirk Cousins. There are plenty of dudes who have started NFL games who weren't great college QBs. And I disagree with the assessment of Sam being on Major or James Brown's level. He was better than them -- he was actually drafted by an NFL team.

[Napoleon 8700]

1 hour ago, GringoSalado said:

*brakes. At least you went with "tap" instead of "pump," which I hate because it makes no sense.

 

 

45 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

It did before ABS.

Este! It was HUMAN powered ABS.

 

18 minutes ago, GringoSalado said:

Yes to avoid locking up your brakes on slick surfaces you pump the brakes. To check yourself because you're going too fast you tap them. To come to a complete stop, you pump them.

 

 

What didn't make sense was why my dad would be driving across the parking lot after leaving the Tom Thumb on the corner and he would start pumping the brakes when no one way around, we weren't near the exit of the parking lot, and it was a time before seatbelts were commonly used.

THAT didn't make any sense. And my siblings and I found it annoying and comical at the same time.

Pumping the brakes like a boss!

PS- Bicycle riders will also frequently pump the brakes, which makes sense as well.

[shadow_operative 15932]

11 minutes ago, bar said:

I'm not saying Sam is going to be the starter, but this is silly. Take a look at Tom Brady's college numbers. Ryan Fitzpatrick. Josh Allen. Mark Sanchez. Matt Cassell. Kirk Cousins. There are plenty of dudes who have started NFL games who weren't great college QBs. And I disagree with the assessment of Sam being on Major or James Brown's level. He was better than them -- he was actually drafted by an NFL team.

Sam ranged from mediocre to above average over his four years here, and he never looked like a guy who would go on to have an NFL career. even if Sam had two more years of eligibility he would have so much to work on and correct before even becoming a great college QB. he's erratic, he's inconsistent, he's not a great decision maker, he isn't a great athlete, and even in his final game as a Longhorn he was still making poor throws to wide open guys. instead of steadily improving, he pretty much remained the same guy only a year older and bigger. and his limitations became even further exposed when he no longer had Collin Johnson and Devin Duvernay to throw to.

bottom line- if Sam had played for any other school then nobody here would think anything of him as a pro prospect, and furthermore, had he gone to OU, Baylor, or A&M i suspect that most here would say that he sucks and laugh out loud at the idea that he's a legit NFL prospect. instead he's a lifelong Longhorn fan from Westlake, so everyone here has convinced themselves that Sam could have been great but that Tom Herman was holding back, as opposed to the more logical and obvious fact that Sam is and always has been a good-but-not-great QB.

Edited August 13, 2021 by shadow_operative

[bar 396]

1 minute ago, shadow_operative said:

Sam ranged from mediocre to above average over his four years here, and he never looked like a guy who would go on to have an NFL career. even if Sam had two more years of eligibility he would have so much to work on and correct before even becoming a great college QB. he's erratic, he's inconsistent, he's not a great decision maker, he isn't a great athlete, and even in his final game as a Longhorn he was still making poor throws to wide open guys. instead of steadily improving, he pretty much remained the same guy only a year older and bigger. and his limitations became even further exposed when he no longer had Collin Johnson and Devin Duvernay to throw to. bottom line- if Sam had played for any other school then nobody here would think anything of him as a pro prospect, and furthermore, had he gone to OU, Baylor, or A&M i suspect that most here would say that he sucks and laugh out loud at the idea that he's a legit NFL prospect.

He was drafted. An NFL team thought he was a legit prospect. You can have your evaluation, but you can't say he's not a legit NFL prospect when he's in the NFL. The Colts clearly saw something on his tape that deemed him worthy of spending a draft pick on.

[shadow_operative 15932]

9 minutes ago, bar said:

He was drafted. An NFL team thought he was a legit prospect. You can have your evaluation, but you can't say he's not a legit NFL prospect when he's in the NFL. The Colts clearly saw something on his tape that deemed him worthy of spending a draft pick on.

do you know what "legit" means? thousands of guys have been drafted only to never have an NFL career. being drafted doesn't automatically make you legit. similarly:  i, and many others here, always saw Poona Ford as having legit NFL prospects, even if the NFL brain trust didn't see him that way. he didn't get drafted, but his talent and skills shone through and he's now a legit NFL player. now we have a situation where, yes, Sam was drafted, but that does nothing to change who he is as an NFL prospect. after four full years at Texas he was never even able to become a *consistent* QB, much less one who looks like he has a future in the NFL.

again- if Sam were not from Westlake, and if he played somewhere besides Texas, nobody here would be bullish on his pro prospects. you're letting your heart get in the way of logic. i understand it, but i can't agree with it.

Edited August 13, 2021 by shadow_operative

[TechTech 99]

youre all weak and you wouldnt last a day 500 years ago. Congrats. Losing a family member as a Swede is a right of passage. I guess this is why China is the future.

[bar 396]

1 minute ago, shadow_operative said:

do you know what "legit" means? thousands of guys have been drafted only to never have an NFL career. being drafted doesn't automatically make you legit.

similarly:  i, and many others here, always saw Poona Ford as having legit NFL prospects, even if the NFL brain trust didn't see him that way. he didn't get drafted, but his talent and skills shone through and he's now a legit NFL player. now we have a situation where, yes, Sam was drafted, but that does nothing to change who he is as an NFL prospect. again, after four full years at Texas Dam was never even able to become a *consistent* QB, much less one who looks like he has a future in the NFL. again- if Sam were not from Westlake, and if he played somewhere besides Texas, nobody here would be bullish on his pro prospects. you're letting your heart get in the way of logic. i understand it, but i can't agree with it.

I think you're the one getting emotional here. An NFL prospect is someone who wants to make the league. Sam was drafted into the league. He is no longer an NFL prospect. He is an NFL player. Now, if you want to say you don't think he'll be a "legit" NFL player, that is a reasonable take. To say he is not a "legit" NFL prospect, when he is already in the league is contrary to logic.

[Hank Chinaski 6321]

3 minutes ago, TechTech said:

youre all weak and you wouldnt last a day 500 years ago. Congrats. Losing a family member as a Swede is a right of passage. I guess this is why China is the future.

[TechTech 99]

3 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

yes daddy, confusion is real in america,,,,

[Napoleon 8700]

11 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

[UncleSonny 6573]

22 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

do you know what "legit" means? thousands of guys have been drafted only to never have an NFL career. being drafted doesn't automatically make you legit. similarly:  i, and many others here, always saw Poona Ford as having legit NFL prospects, even if the NFL brain trust didn't see him that way. he didn't get drafted, but his talent and skills shone through and he's now a legit NFL player. now we have a situation where, yes, Sam was drafted, but that does nothing to change who he is as an NFL prospect. after four full years at Texas he was never even able to become a *consistent* QB, much less one who looks like he has a future in the NFL.

again- if Sam were not from Westlake, and if he played somewhere besides Texas, nobody here would be bullish on his pro prospects. you're letting your heart get in the way of logic. i understand it, but i can't agree with it.

You don’t really like Sam as a player, you are all over this site saying as much. That’s fine, he certainly has flaws but you are the one letting the emotion of his time here cloud your logic. 

It’s a pretty dumb hill to die to say nobody except Texas and Westlake homers see any possibly that he could be an NFL quarterback when: 

1. he was drafted by an NFL team 

2. Beat reporters that have nothing to do with Texas have reported how well he’s playing not even half-way through his first NFL camp

3. The Colts lost their starter due to injury, have said they are comfortable rolling with the qbs on their roster until he returns, and now are giving him first team reps because he’s looked like the best qb left in camp. He has a real shot to start week 1 for an NFL team

None of that means he’ll ever be a regular starter in the league but it absolutely means people outside of UT message boards see him as intriguing enough to give a chance. 
 

[YeeYeeCTE 230]

 
*brakes. At least you went with "tap" instead of "pump," which I hate because it makes no sense.
As for the jersey he seems to have a roster spot all but locked up at this point, no? Anyway I can't imagine things having gone better for Ehlinger's young NFL career to this point, and that is why imo we're all almost as excited as Nicole.

If you knew how car brake systems worked you would know why “pump” the brakes makes a ton of sense.

[YeeYeeCTE 230]

youre all weak and you wouldnt last a day 500 years ago. Congrats. Losing a family member as a Swede is a right of passage. I guess this is why China is the future.

This is true and I wish I wasn’t like this bro

[nineliveslost 2799]

Who are all these new fucks trying to be all surly and shit ?

[bar 396]

2 minutes ago, YeeYeeCTE said:

This is true and I wish I wasn’t like this bro

It's 2021. Being vulnerable is a sign of strength. 🤘

[GringoSalado 1652]

14 minutes ago, YeeYeeCTE said:

If you knew how car brake systems worked you would know why “pump” the brakes makes a ton of sense.

Uh-huh.

[SHOOTER12 8833]

1 hour ago, shadow_operative said:

Sam ranged from mediocre to above average over his four years here, and he never looked like a guy who would go on to have an NFL career. even if Sam had two more years of eligibility he would have so much to work on and correct before even becoming a great college QB. he's erratic, he's inconsistent, he's not a great decision maker, he isn't a great athlete, and even in his final game as a Longhorn he was still making poor throws to wide open guys. instead of steadily improving, he pretty much remained the same guy only a year older and bigger. and his limitations became even further exposed when he no longer had Collin Johnson and Devin Duvernay to throw to.

bottom line- if Sam had played for any other school then nobody here would think anything of him as a pro prospect, and furthermore, had he gone to OU, Baylor, or A&M i suspect that most here would say that he sucks and laugh out loud at the idea that he's a legit NFL prospect. instead he's a lifelong Longhorn fan from Westlake, so everyone here has convinced themselves that Sam could have been great but that Tom Herman was holding back, as opposed to the more logical and obvious fact that Sam is and always has been a good-but-not-great QB.

 

55 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

do you know what "legit" means? thousands of guys have been drafted only to never have an NFL career. being drafted doesn't automatically make you legit. similarly:  i, and many others here, always saw Poona Ford as having legit NFL prospects, even if the NFL brain trust didn't see him that way. he didn't get drafted, but his talent and skills shone through and he's now a legit NFL player. now we have a situation where, yes, Sam was drafted, but that does nothing to change who he is as an NFL prospect. after four full years at Texas he was never even able to become a *consistent* QB, much less one who looks like he has a future in the NFL.

again- if Sam were not from Westlake, and if he played somewhere besides Texas, nobody here would be bullish on his pro prospects. you're letting your heart get in the way of logic. i understand it, but i can't agree with it.

Quit being such a little bitch.

[shadow_operative 15932]

33 minutes ago, UncleSonny said:

You don’t really like Sam as a player, you are all over this site saying as much. That’s fine, he certainly has flaws but you are the one letting the emotion of his time here cloud your logic. 

It’s a pretty dumb hill to die to say nobody except Texas and Westlake homers see any possibly that he could be an NFL quarterback when: 

1. he was drafted by an NFL team 

2. Beat reporters that have nothing to do with Texas have reported how well he’s playing not even half-way through his first NFL camp

3. The Colts lost their starter due to injury, have said they are comfortable rolling with the qbs on their roster until he returns, and now are giving him first team reps because he’s looked like the best qb left in camp. He has a real shot to start week 1 for an NFL team

None of that means he’ll ever be a regular starter in the league but it absolutely means people outside of UT message boards see him as intriguing enough to give a chance. 
 

very little of this has anything to do with what i've posted. you claim to understand how i feel because i've posted it here so many times, and yet your version of what i've said is:

nobody except Texas and Westlake homers see any possibly that he could be an NFL quarterback

that's not what i've said. what i have said repeatedly is that only UT and Westlake homers are as bullish on Sam's ability as a QB and his prospects of becoming a starting QB in the NFL as you guys are. and it's the truth. nobody is as high on what Sam has done/what he's capable of as you guys are. i didn't say that nobody but you guys thinks he'll ever play in the NFL. i mean i myself posted earlier today that i could see Sam being a career backup. that equals "being an nfl qb". what i've been saying is that i cannot see him sticking as a starting QB in the NFL. that's a far cry from "nobody but UT/Westlake fans thinks he'll ever play."

you start your last paragraph with, "none of this means that he'll ever be a regular starter in the league...". so then what's the point of the rest of your post?  yes, he was drafted, yes, Wentz got hurt, yes he's been practicing well. does that mean that you think he's going to become a legit NFL starter? and if not, then what are we even talking about here?

Edited August 13, 2021 by shadow_operative

[Deej 76944]

3 hours ago, GringoSalado said:

and that is why imo we're all almost as excited as Nicole.

I just hope Nicole is hydrating. 

[shadow_operative 15932]

let's keep this shit based on facts here:

 

^^^ that is what i responded to. "...when Sam blossoms into a solid NFL starter." all of these people keep responding to me, and yet none of you are even saying that you a)believe that Sam will become a solid NFL starter or b)that you disagree with my take that he won't become one. you see someone being critical of Sam and you jump to disagree, even when deep down you don't actually disagree at all. 

so yeah. it ain't me who's being blinded by emotions re: Sam Ehlinger. never has been. some of y'all are so invested in him than when anything remotely critical of him is said you blow it out of proportion and turn it into something that it isn't. 

Edited August 13, 2021 by shadow_operative

[CurlyDumps 4485]

1 hour ago, shadow_operative said:

Sam ranged from mediocre to above average over his four years here, and he never looked like a guy who would go on to have an NFL career. even if Sam had two more years of eligibility he would have so much to work on and correct before even becoming a great college QB. he's erratic, he's inconsistent, he's not a great decision maker, he isn't a great athlete, and even in his final game as a Longhorn he was still making poor throws to wide open guys. instead of steadily improving, he pretty much remained the same guy only a year older and bigger. and his limitations became even further exposed when he no longer had Collin Johnson and Devin Duvernay to throw to.

bottom line- if Sam had played for any other school then nobody here would think anything of him as a pro prospect, and furthermore, had he gone to OU, Baylor, or A&M i suspect that most here would say that he sucks and laugh out loud at the idea that he's a legit NFL prospect. instead he's a lifelong Longhorn fan from Westlake, so everyone here has convinced themselves that Sam could have been great but that Tom Herman was holding back, as opposed to the more logical and obvious fact that Sam is and always has been a good-but-not-great QB.

"Mediocre to above average?"  Got any facts to back this up?  If he was "mediocre to above average" then how do you explain:

#2 all-time in total passing yards and total TD's 

#2 all-time in total passing TD's

#2 all-time in career passing efficiency 

#3 all-time in completion percentage (David Ash was 0.4% better on less than half the attempts)

Using logic and statistical data, Ehlinger is the third best quarterback in Texas history behind Colt and Vince. Your characterization of his "mediocre to above average" Texas career is indefensible. Maybe you're so in love with your own take about how everyone's a Westlake homer that you've biased yourself the other way.

links:

https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/texas/passing.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Longhorns_football_statistical_leaders

[UncleSonny 6573]

18 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

let's keep this shit based on facts here:

 

^^^ that is what i responded to. "...when Sam blossoms into a solid NFL starter." all of these people keep responding to me, and yet none of you are even saying that you a)believe that Sam will become a solid NFL starter or b)that you disagree with my take that he won't become one. you see someone being critical of Sam and you jump to disagree, even when deep down you don't actually disagree at all. 

so yeah. it ain't me who's being blinded by emotions re: Sam Ehlinger. never has been. some of y'all are so invested in him than when anything remotely critical of him is said you blow it out of proportion and turn it into something that it isn't. 

Yeah, bullshit. You started by responding to that and then proceeded to take shots at how mediocre he is at football and how anyone who thinks otherwise is a homer idiot. 

What happened was you got the bat signal that people were being positive about him and needed to swoop in and “well, actually” the shit like you always do when someone mentions him.

That’s fine, it’s a message board. But don’t get confused, you are the one that interrupted a conversation of fans that were excited that Sam had earned first team reps to push your Sam is over-rated narrative yet again. 

[The Dog 44157]

Sam is going to start because Wentz and Eason suck shit through a straw. 

[GhostOfTomJoad 9357]

Derka'd. Again.

[Vito Andolini 9132]

Shadow/Goo/Derka... I suspect you’re busy cranking out a long response to some of the above... just let it go, man.

You've got a nice crossover dribble, just go outside, enjoy the weather, hit a few jumpers, relax. It’s fucking Friday afternoon, breathe, and enjoy your weekend. 

[shadow_operative 15932]

20 minutes ago, CurlyDumps said:

"Mediocre to above average?"  Got any facts to back this up?  If he was "mediocre to above average" then how do you explain:

#2 all-time in total passing yards and total TD's 

#2 all-time in total passing TD's

#2 all-time in career passing efficiency 

#3 all-time in completion percentage (David Ash was 0.4% better on less than half the attempts)

Using logic and statistical data, Ehlinger is the third best quarterback in Texas history behind Colt and Vince. Your characterization of his "mediocre to above average" Texas career is indefensible. Maybe you're so in love with your own take about how everyone's a Westlake homer that you've biased yourself the other way.

links:

https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/texas/passing.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Longhorns_football_statistical_leaders

LMAO. "third best QB in Texas history behind only Colt and Vince." jesus christ that's an indefensible take, and yet you claim it be based in "logic". jesus.

how do i explain Sam's all time passing rankings at Texas? oh i dunno, probably the same way that i explain how Joe Ingles is a better three point shooter than Michael Jordan ever was. DUH. 

not that i should even be responding to this insane garbage, but Sam is laughably far away from being the third best QB to play at Texas. VY, Colt, Bobby Layne, James Street, and Duke Carlisle are the top 5. Sam didn't do a single thing in his career that puts him anywhere near any of these guys. he is 100% in the mold of guys like Applewhite and James Brown- an inconsistent, mercurial fan favorite who had the ability to be clutch and pull big plays out of his ass, even when he was having a shitty day. that's who Sam Ehlinger is. only instead of being from Baton Rouge or PAT, he's from Westlake, and therefore he's a future NFL starter who's right behind VY and Colt in Texas history. 🙄 

Edited August 13, 2021 by shadow_operative

[shadow_operative 15932]

12 minutes ago, UncleSonny said:

Yeah, bullshit. You started by responding to that and then proceeded to take shots at how mediocre he is at football and how anyone who thinks otherwise is a homer idiot. 

What happened was you got the bat signal that people were being positive about him and needed to swoop in and “well, actually” the shit like you always do when someone mentions him.

That’s fine, it’s a message board. But don’t get confused, you are the one that interrupted a conversation of fans that were excited that Sam had earned first team reps to push your Sam is over-rated narrative yet again. 

i responded to what someone said, and it's not what you want to hear, so you're crying about it l, taking it personally, getting defensive, and making a mountain out of a molehill. grow up. 

[jimmyjazz 46207]

Good lord.  Just shut the fuck up.

[CurlyDumps 4485]

9 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

LMAO. "third best QB in Texas history behind only Colt and Vince." jesus christ that's an indefensible take, and yet you claim it be based in "logic". jesus.

how do i explain Sam's all time passing rankings at Texas? oh i dunno, probably the same way that i explain how Joe Ingles is a better three point shooter than Michael Jordan ever was. DUH. 

not that i should even be responding to this insane garbage, but Sam is laughably far away from being the third best QB to play at Texas. VY, Colt, Bobby Layne, James Street, and Duke Carlisle are the top 5. Sam didn't do a single thing in his career that puts him anywhere near any of these guys. he is 100% in the mold of guys like Applewhite and James Brown- an inconsistent, mercurial fan favorite who had the ability to be clutch and pull big plays out of his ass, even when he was having a shitty day. that's who Sam Ehlinger is. only instead of being from Baton Rouge or PAT, he's from Westlake, and therefore he's a future NFL starter whose right behind VY and Colt in Texas history. 🙄 

For a guy admonishing everyone else for not being able to see logic and reason, your strong, self-assured opinion is extremely light on facts. I don't see a single one here.

[Nicole44 22078]

46 minutes ago, Deej said:

I just hope Nicole is hydrating. 

I’m ready! 

[USNALonghorn 5078]

Normal People: Happy to see a lifetime Longhorn punching above his weight class during NFL pre-season.

shadow: HoW dArE yOu FoRgEt He WaS MeDiOcRe!!1!!!!!

[shadow_operative 15932]

16 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Good lord.  Just shut the fuck up.

fuck you and everyone else in here who cries every time i say the most innocuous shit about Sam Ehlinger. you aren't adding a goddamn thing to this thread with your whiny bullshit. this is not a safe space for you. i'm allowed to have my own opinion. either add to the thread or stay the fuck out it.

Edited August 13, 2021 by shadow_operative

[shadow_operative 15932]

3 minutes ago, CurlyDumps said:

For a guy admonishing everyone else for not being able to see logic and reason, your strong, self-assured opinion is extremely light on facts. I don't see a single one here.

ok, here's one: 2020 was the worst year for Big XII QBs in a decade or more, and Sam still managed to finish 8th in the league at completing passes.

 

 

he was mediocre at his worst (actually he was terrible at erratic/turnover prone worst if we're being honest) and he was never anything more than an above average QB at Texas. this shouldn't even be controversial and yet you're making it out to be as if i've said that he's the worst player in program history. which i guess shouldn't be surprising considering that absolutely insane shit you just said about logic telling us that Sam is the third best QB in Texas history. that's embarrassing and you should feel bad. 

Edited August 13, 2021 by shadow_operative

[The Dog 44157]

2 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

ok, here's one: 2020 was the worst year for Big XII QBs in a decade or more, and Sam still managed to finish 8th in the league at completing passes.

 

what does this have to do with his current performance with the Colts?

[jimmyjazz 46207]

1 minute ago, shadow_operative said:

fuck to and everyone else in here who cries every time i say the most innocuous shit about Sam Ehlinger. you aren't adding a goddamn thing to this thread with your whiny bullshit. this is not a safe space for you. i'm allowed to have my own opinion. either add to the thread or stay the fuck out it.

Hey, Mr. "I'm Allowed To Have My Opinion".  Me too, and my opinion is that you're the biggest bloviating crybaby in the history of the internet.

I came here to see if I could find a copy/paste of the Athletic article, and I did, and then look!  Derka is shitting all over a thread.  That was hard to predict.

It's not that you don't think Sam hung the moon.  That's not the problem.  It's that you think YOU hung the moon.

Again, shut the fuck up.

[shadow_operative 15932]

6 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

 look!  Derka is shitting all over a thread. 

you're only further proving my point. buncha grown men who cry when someone doesn't slurp their football idol. absolutely pathetic.

you know i once got banned on HF for saying that Chance Mock would never play in the NFL. now, me saying that i don't think that Sam Ehlinger will ever be a solid starting QB in the NFL = ZOMG he's shitting all over the thread! fuck off you whiny little bitch. this is not your safe space. if my absolutely benign posts about Ehlinger's pro prospects really affect you this deeply then put me on ignore and move on with your life, you whiny fucking baby. 

Edited August 13, 2021 by shadow_operative