Gardner Minshew now 'the best guy in the room' for Cardinals as he moves into starting QB role

TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — Gardner Minshew is just 30 years old, but his long hair, bushy mustache and laid-back persona give him the image of an old-school hippie, like an eccentric uncle who drops surprising gems of wisdom.

In retrospect, he had one of the moments back in May when the quarterback discussed his role with the Arizona Cardinals.

“At some point, someone’s going to be better than you and they’re gonna play,” Minshew said. “At some point, you’ll be the best guy in the room and you’ll get a chance to play. All you really have is your opportunity to work and get better and enjoy it with the guys around you.”

After more than 7 1/2 games of waiting, he was definitely the best guy in the room on Sunday.

Minshew threw for 188 yards and three touchdowns after taking over for struggling starter Jacoby Brissett, leading a 14-point comeback to beat the Dallas Cowboys 33-30 in overtime. The aftermath to the brilliant performance was swift: Minshew was elevated to the starting role for the upcoming game against the Seattle Seahawks while Brissett was demoted to third string and is expected to be traded to the Baltimore Ravens in the coming days.

First-year coach Mike LaFleur said Minshew is ready for what's coming.

“He's been in these situations, guys," LaFleur said. "He's played really good football throughout this league and seen a lot of different things. There's no moment that's going to be too big for him. He's just ready to rock with the guys.”

Minshew's latest opportunity is nearly a year in the making after he was mostly off the radar last season as a backup in Kansas City. He subbed for the injured Patrick Mahomes in Week 16 but suffered a season-ending knee injury on the third play of the game.

Before that, he had a winding journey from the Jaguars to the Eagles, Colts and Raiders, where he had varying levels of playing time and success. The highs included a Pro Bowl selection with the Colts in 2023 and lows like a rough stretch with the Raiders in 2024 when he threw nine touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

Minshew moves into a starting role for a banged-up but resilient team that managed to rally past the Cowboys despite losing two running backs and two receivers because of injuries during the game.

The quarterback has a 17-30 record as a starter in his career.

“We've got a bunch of dudes who have been around, here and there,” Minshew said. “Everyone's excited for the shot they have right now. We've had a ton of guys getting thrown in the mix and everyone is stepping in and fired up to do it.”

Wide receiver Michael Wilson — who had the game-tying touchdown catch in regulation that sent the game to overtime against the Cowboys — said the transition from Brissett to Minshew hasn't been too difficult.

Minshew was the team's fill-in No. 1 quarterback through much of the offseason and the beginning of training camp while Brissett negotiatied a new contract with the Cardinals.

LaFleur said Minshew has been great in any role he's been given. He doesn't expect that to change.

“All you want all these guys to be is true to who they are as people,” LaFleur said. “Don’t make stuff up. Gardner comes into work every single day, he has his own personality, and he gets to work and tries to improve. He’s been a great teammate.”

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Arizona Cardinals quarterback Gardner Minshew II signals to teammates during an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys, in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Arizona Cardinals quarterback Gardner Minshew II throws against the Dallas Cowboys during an NFL football game in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter)

Arizona Cardinals quarterback Gardner Minshew II answers a question during a news conference after an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys, in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Arizona Cardinals quarterback Gardner Minshew II celebrates an ovetime win against the Dallas Cowboys after an NFL football game in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

LONDON (AP) — An “immersive” biography of Alexander the Great won the prestigious Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction Wednesday, in the latest sign of booming interest in the world of ancient Greece.

Edmund Richardson’s “Alexander: God, King, Man” was named winner of the 50,000 pound ($67,000) prize at a ceremony in London.

British journalist Kirsty Lang, who chaired the judging panel, said the book is the first work of ancient history to win the prize and “reads like a novel.”

“It’s very immersive. You really feel that you’re there on the battlefield, marching across Central Asia and Egypt with Alexander,” she said. “And it contains a lot of new research,” including Richardson’s translations of sources from 12 ancient languages.

Richardson, a professor of classics at Durham University in England, spent a decade — “far too long, down far too many rabbit holes” — researching the life of Alexander, who inherited a debt-ridden Macedonian kingdom at 20, conquered territory stretching from Greece to India and died at 32.

“No one called him Alexander the Great in his lifetime,” Richardson told The Associated Press. “No one thought he was going to conquer the world. He was his father’s slightly disappointing son, even when he took the throne. He was a tributary, not the main event. And then he starts to do all of these astonishing things.”

Richardson said Alexander’s military expedition “transforms reality more profoundly than almost any other event in human history.”

“It connects the world up in ways that it has never been connected before,” he said. “It results in this flood of knowledge and understanding and ideas and religious belief and science and astronomy and art, crossing from Babylon to Greece, from Greece to modern-day Afghanistan, from Egypt across to Italy."

The prize judges called the book “a love letter to the humanities and the work of historians and archaeologists,” at a time when those disciplines are under pressure from university funding cuts in the U.K. and elsewhere.

Lang said the book should appeal to fans of Christopher Nolan’s epic movie version of “The Odyssey,” which has helped drive a surge of popular interest in the ancient Greek classics.

“They knew to tell great stories,” Lang said. “Life, death, love, relationships, tragedy. They speak to the most basic of human emotions and motivations.”

Founded in 1999, the Baillie Gifford prize recognizes English-language books in current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. It has been credited with bringing an eclectic slate of fact-based books to a wider audience.

The winner was chosen from more than 350 entries and beat five other finalists, including American journalist Patrick Radden Keefe’s bestseller “London Falling,” the true story of a teenager who died after being caught up in the shadowy world of London’s superrich.

The other finalists were Nicholas Boggs’ James Baldwin biography “Baldwin: A Love Story”; Matthew Sweet’s life of romance novelist Barbara Cartland, “The Great Dictator”; Anand Gopal’s Syrian saga “Days of Love and Rage”; and Andrea Wulf’s “The Traveler,” about the 18th-century naturalist and explorer George Forster.

Last year’s winner was Australian writer Helen Garner for her collected diaries, “How to End a Story.”

FILE - A statue of Alexander the Great holding Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, stands near Litochoro in northern Greece, Tuesday, July 14, 2026, backdropped by Mount Olympus' highest peaks, Mytikas and Stefani. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris,File)