‘Long journey with a lot of curves': Start for Dolphins special for Skylar Thompson, dad
MIAMI GARDENS — Brad Thompson had a sinking feeling when he answered the call while driving. For son Skylar to be calling midmorning, something had to be up.
Something was up.
Skylar was calling to say he would be the starting quarterback for the Dolphins in Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Vikings. That a lifelong dream was coming true.
“Well, I missed my exit,” Brad was recalling Thursday. “I had to drive 20 miles out of the way.”
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Twenty miles are nothing compared to how far father and son had come. It’s why the call was so emotional.
“It’s been a long journey with a lot of curves in it,” says Brad, 53.
Coach Mike McDaniel says Thompson isn’t your “run-of-the-mill rookie.” He’s 25, but that doesn’t fully explain why he’s mature beyond his years. Skylar was mature beyond his years even when those years didn’t add up to 7.
It was a month before Skylar’s seventh birthday that he and Brad found themselves alone in the house in Palmyra in northeastern Mis. All the guests had left, leaving Brad and Skylar to absorb the shock of the previous six-plus months. First, Brad’s father John — a grandfather Skylar was close to — had died of cancer. Two weeks after that, Teresa, Skylar’s mother, was diagnosed with cancer, and just six months later, she, too, had passed.
“You gotta raise me,” Skylar told his father that night.
“Uh, yeah,” Brad replied. “I’m terrified.”
But wait.
“And we laughed,” Brad recalls. “And I think I just asked, ‘What do you like to eat?’ And we ate a lot of steak and meat and macaroni and cheese. Either that or we ate out.”
Whether it was spoken or unspoken, Brad and Skylar both knew one thing: “We’ll figure it out. We’ll be fine.”
How did young Skylar have the wherewithal to absorb what lay ahead for them?
“He’s just kind of always approached life a little bit different than most kids I’ve been around,” Brad says. “I was a coach and a principal. I’ve been around kids. And he just — he’s just kind of wired a little different than most.”
Thompsons approached adversity same way Mike McDaniel does
All those grilled steaks helped Brad handle his duties around 6 p.m. each day, but that alone wasn’t going to cut it. That’s where sports came in.
“We spent a lot of time on the road, either with football or basketball,” Brad says. “So you definitely have a lot of time to talk. It was special. You know it was just kind of a special opportunity in a bad situation.”
A special opportunity in a bad situation? That might sound familiar to Dolphins players and fans. “Adversity is an opportunity” is a favorite saying for McDaniel, who has it written on the walls of the training facility.
Adversity for the Dolphins comes in the form of the two QBs ahead of Thompson, Tua Tagovailoa and Teddy Bridgewater, working their way through concussion protocol. Bridgewater was knocked out of last Sunday’s game against the New York Jets after one play. Thompson then went 19 of 33 for 166 yards but was intercepted once, fumbled once and sacked twice in a 40-17 loss.
While Thompson didn’t light it up, he also didn’t shoulder more than his share of blame for the loss. He’d been tossed in despite what coaches call “crumbs” of practice snaps the week prior since the starter gets nearly all the work. And, in an odd occurrence, Thompson didn’t have any of his fellow quarterbacks on the sideline offering advice between possessions.
The Dolphins believe this Sunday should be a fairer test to see if Thompson can more closely resemble the quarterback he was in preseason when he threw for 450 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions. That’s how he went from being a seventh-round pick ticketed for the practice squad to a player the Dolphins had to keep on the 53-man roster to avoid losing him.
In fact, McDaniel said Friday, the Dolphins were “really excited” when they drafted Thompson, a target. The Dolphins sensed they had someone with potential as soon as Thompson arrived in the spring.
“I was really fired up just with his presence and how he was handling things,” quarterbacks coach Darrell Bevell says. “I know he’s a little bit older guy, but it wasn’t overwhelming to him, I think is the first thing that stood out to me. And then I think the second thing was just how well he prepared himself to be ready for the moments that he was going to be put into. And every time that we’ve had a critical moment, he’s answered the bell.”
Quarterbacks are expected to make teammates better. McDaniel cites a specific skill Thompson possesses that does it.
“One of the things I look for a ton when you’re watching quarterbacks is what is he making decisions on?” McDaniel says. “Is he seeing defenders or is he looking at receivers? There’s a big difference.”
Why?
“When you look at defenders, you can anticipate and throw with timing, which maximizes yards after catch and explosiveness.”
Injuries hampered Skylar Thompson at Kansas State
Why was Thompson available with the 247th pick?
His age may have played a role. Thompson spent six seasons at Kansas State due to a redshirt year and an extra year afforded players because of the pandemic. He put up some good numbers, becoming the only Wildcat to pass for 6,000 yards and rush for 1,000 in his career. But there were start-and-stop moments because of ankle and knee injuries in 2021 and shoulder/pectoral injuries costing him all but three games in 2020.
“The last two years of his college, he had two injuries — two freak injuries — that we didn’t know whether he’d come back from or not,” Brad says.
He returned and was named MVP of the Texas Bowl, beating LSU with three touchdown passes. Immediately, he began preparing for the draft.
“He was probably healthy for the first time in a long time — probably three or four years,” Brad says.
The Thompsons had about 150 guests to watch the draft but on Day 3 had “accepted the fact that he was going to be undrafted,” Brad says.
Then the phone rang, creating a scene not unlike what happened when father and son spoke Tuesday.
“He got a phone call from coach McDaniel,” Brad says. “He got very emotional, so I knew it wasn’t an ‘undrafted’ call, let’s just say that.”
Fighting cancer remains dear to Skylar Thompson
Throughout his success at Kansas State and the way he adapted to the NFL, Thompson never lost sight of what’s most important. He’d write the names Teresa Thompson and John Thompson on his football equipment. Touchdown passes were celebrated by pointing to the heavens.
Last year, he helped launch the Skylar Thompson Family Cancer Research Fund through the Johnson Cancer Research Center at Kansas State. It raised $30,000 in 2021.
Coincidentally, Thompson will make his first NFL start Sunday as the Dolphins participate in the NFL’s “Crucial Catch” campaign to promote cancer screening.
Brad Thompson, of course, plans to be at Hard Rock Stadium, even if, he says, he has to drive. He can laugh about his circuitous driving adventure Tuesday, when he was distracted.
“I missed the dang exit,” he says. “I didn’t realize it for probably 10 miles. I was not around our hometown, so yeah, that kind of caught my attention when he said that.”
It was the kind of call Skylar had long waited to make.
“He was emotional and excited for me,” Skylar says. “He just told me that I earned it and he was proud of me. My dad and I have been through a lot. This has been my ultimate goal and I think for him as a father, being able to hear me express I’ve accomplished a goal of starting a game in the NFL, it meant a lot to him.”
The father who only knew how to make a steak and mac ’n’ cheese had raised Skylar just fine. It’s why Skylar’s first call was to Brad.
“I would say we leaned on each other a lot throughout the whole process,” Brad says. “I’m not embarrassed to say I think we both kind of grew up together through it. I learned a lot from him through the process on how well he attacked it and I hope he learned some stuff from me on the way as well.
“So I think we kind of have a unique bond just because of that. Because of what we had to do.”
Hal Habib covers the Dolphins for The Post. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Miami Dolphins QB Skylar Thompson, dad find joy before first NFL start
