Let the Hill era begin

If nothing else, Hill is prepared for this moment
• By Jim Thomas

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/football/professional/if-nothing-else-hill-is-prepared-for-this-moment/article_0c8213e1-f708-5c19-9c4e-1ab81cdb64e4.html

Neither praise nor opportunity has come knocking very often in Shaun Hill’s football life. He’s from a gridiron neighborhood far removed from that of Heisman Trophies and high-draft status — far different from the man he’s replacing at quarterback for the Rams, Sam Bradford.

But let’s have Shaun Hill begin the story. …

“Out of high school I was not recruited by a single four-year school in America as a quarterback,” Hill said. “I was recruited by a couple Division II schools in Kansas as a punter. One of ’em punter-tight end; the other one punter-safety.

“I told them I wanted to play quarterback. They told me I was nuts. If I was good enough to play quarterback, I’d be recruited as one.”

Ouch. Which school said that?

“That would’ve been Washburn University,” Hill said. “The Ichabods.”

A son of the Sunflower State, Hill was a three-year starter at Parsons (Kan.) Senior High and made honorable mention all-state as a senior. Instead of punting in Division II, Hill went the junior-college route to Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College and played well enough there to attract Division I interest.

“And then Mike Gundy brought me out to Maryland,” Hill said.

Gundy, now a highly successful head coach at Oklahoma State, was an assistant coach at Maryland at the time. After serving as a backup in 2000, Hill led the Terrapins to the Orange Bowl as a senior.

So now, roughly 16 years since being told to stick to punting, Hill finds himself doing something he couldn’t do at Washburn. Not just play quarterback but start at quarterback … for an NFL team.

Since entering the league in 2002 as an undrafted rookie with Minnesota, Hill has been with four teams — five if you count the Amsterdam Admirals of NFL Europe.

After all that time in professional football, Hill starts on opening day for only the second time in the NFL in Sunday’s noon kickoff at the Edward Jones Dome against Minnesota.

Did he ever think he’d get a chance to start this late in his career?

“Well, you’ve gotta prepare like you are,” Hill, 34, said. “And whether it comes or not, who knows?”

The time has come, and few quarterbacks in NFL history have had as much time to prepare as Hill.

Hill didn’t throw his first NFL regular-season pass until 2007, his sixth season in the league. His first NFL snaps took place in 2005 with Minnesota — two kneel-downs to end the game.

But from ’07 with San Francisco through 2010 with Detroit, he started 26 times and threw 938 passes. Then came another long dry spell from 2011-13 backing up Matthew Stafford in Detroit: Hill threw only 16 passes over those three seasons before signing with the Rams this past offseason in free agency.

Hill stayed ready. As a backup, he always wore his helmet during the game on the sideline to hear the plays being called as they sound for the quarterback in the huddle.

“A lot of guys wear an earpiece (on the sideline), but it sounds different in the helmet than it does in the earpiece, so I’ve always trained myself to hear through the helmet,” Hill said.

That way, there’s no adjustment process if Hill suddenly has to enter the game. He also warms up periodically throughout the game — just in case.

“Say a guy’s shoelace breaks,” Hill said. “No need to burn a timeout. I’m warmed up. I try to stay warmed up throughout. My helmet’s on, I’ve got my mouthpiece right there — let’s go.”

During practice, Hill listens to the plays through his helmet, then calls them out loud.

“I’d call it as if I was in the huddle,” Hill said. “Just ’cause hearing it’s one thing; telling it to the rest of the team’s another.”

It helps train his voice as well.

“Yeah, exactly,” he said. “You train yourself for the game, because every game you might run some of the same plays, but you’re running them differently, which brings about different verbiage for that week. So you actually have to train yourself to say that play like that.”

To Hill, it’s all about sounding confident and comfortable in the huddle.

That’s a lot of preparation for a guy whose only playing time last season came on two kneel-downs to end the Lions’ 40-10 Thanksgiving victory over Green Bay.

Hill’s last extensive playing experience was in 2010, when he started 10 games for the Lions in place of an injured Stafford.

“You really didn’t feel like you were dropping off,” Lions guard Rob Sims told Detroit reporters last week when it became known that Hill was replacing the injured Bradford. “You felt like you had a guy who was confident, who could make the throws and was ready to lead. That’s what he did.

“I always felt like if, God forbid, something happened to Matthew, we’d be OK with Shaun. Every situation doesn’t usually feel like that. He could throw with the best of them.”

And from Stafford: “He’s a gamer. He’s a guy, if you go through routes ‘on air’ in shorts and a T-shirt, he might not look much different than anybody else. When the lights come on, he plays hard. Guys play for him. He has a personality that guys follow. He’ll get those guys going.”

Former Rams head coach Mike Martz, who coached Hill in San Francisco, has said similar things about Hill. He doesn’t wow you on the practice field, but game day is something different.

The Rams have had their eyes on Hill for a while. They made a run at him a couple of years ago in free agency, leading to a visit to Rams Park. But Hill decided to re-up with the Lions.

“The guy’s a really, really good person, No. 1,” Rams offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer said. “He’s got no ego. He’s competitive.

“And then just in terms of a football player, he’s a fast rhythmic passer. What I mean by that, he’s not gonna hold the ball. He’s gonna get it out of his hand fast. He throws things with anticipation, which is hard to cover because the ball’s out of his hand before the receiver and the DB look.”

With big receiving threats Kenny Britt and Brian Quick being featured at wide receiver, the Rams will try to push the ball downfield more this season. Hill has enough arm strength to get that done. He has displayed good huddle presence since stepping in for Bradford, and the players seem comfortable around him.

“He’s a pro,” Schottenheimer said. “There’s nothing he has not seen in his 13 years in the NFL. We knew he’d be a good fit in the room from a personality standpoint. And we knew that the guy, if called upon to go play in some games, would be able to go play winning football for us.”

Hill now has that chance. For one of the few times in his football life, opportunity is knocking for the former punter.