Don’t worry about Ian Book.
He’s used to slow starts. His career has been filled with them.
On the first snap of his first youth league game, he was sacked on a blind-side blitz and ended up with facemask full of turf. And at Notre Dame, he started out fourth on the depth chart and was beaten out for the starting job as a redshirt freshman and sophomore.
None of it fazed him. So a so-so performance in his unofficial NFL debut isn’t going to stop the New Orleans Saints rookie quarterback. In fact, it only serves to motivate him.
“It’s all about improvement,” Book said Tuesday after the Saints’ indoor workout in Week 3 of training camp. “I felt comfortable out there and had a lot of fun. I had the opportunity to win the ballgame for the team (and that’s) what I wanted to do, but it didn’t work out that way. But you live and learn.”
Book’s final numbers were solid. He completed 9 of 16 passes for 126 yards in four series of work. His 38-yard completion to Juwan Johnson and 35-yard strike to Easop Winston Jr. were the Saints’ two longest gains from scrimmage. But the perfectionist in him only thinks about his final pass, an underthrown deep ball to Kawaan Baker down the left sideline that was snared by Ravens cornerback Shaun Wade for the game-sealing interception at the Baltimore 9-yard line.
“Gotta throw a better ball,” Book said.
The interception was a lowlight for Book, who played 24 plays while leading the offense for the entire second half. His opening drive likely would have produced points had Tony Jones Jr. not fumbled at the Ravens’ 11-yard line. Nevertheless, Saints coach Sean Payton liked what he saw from Book, just the third quarterback he’s drafted in his 16-year tenure in New Orleans.
“There’s a lot to coach (from) that tap,” Payton said. “There’s a couple of plays where he’s holding onto the ball a little too long. It’s going to be a little faster than what he’s used to, so seeing him adjust to the speed of the game and getting through some of his progressions. But he’s handling it well. He’s got a little poise to him, which I like.”
The poise is something that appears to come naturally to Book. He had it at Oak Ridge High School in El Dorado Hills, California, where he was an all-state player and once led a comeback from a 42-21 halftime deficit by passing for five touchdowns in an overtime win. And he displayed it regularly at Notre Dame, where he finished his career with a 30-5 record and made a habit of authoring comeback wins, including a dramatic 21-17 come-from-behind win over LSU in the 2018 Citrus Bowl.
No less an authority than Ron Wolf, the longtime NFL general manager and Pro Football Hall of Famer, believes Book has what it takes to become an NFL starter. When the Saints selected Book with the No. 133 overall pick in the fourth round of the 2021 NFL Draft, Wolf texted one Saints official and told him Book was “the steal of the draft.”
Wolf knows a thing or two about quarterbacks. During his 10-year tenure with the Green Bay Packers, he orchestrated the trade for Brett Favre and drafted Mark Brunell, Matt Hasselbeck and Aaron Brooks.
“I’m really impressed with him,” Wolf said of Book. “The most important statistic for a quarterback is wins. And this young man is a winner. He’s not only a winner, but at the football institution in the United States of America, he’s the all-time winningest quarterback. That’s a mouthful. And he had to walk over a lot of bodies to get to be the No. 1 quarterback at that school.”
Chip Long witnessed firsthand Book’s progression at Notre Dame. As the offensive coordinator for three of Book’s five seasons in South Bend, Indiana, he watched him rise from an unheralded three-star recruit to a three-year starter and two-time team captain. After redshirting his freshman season, Book eventually beat out Brandon Wimbush for the starting job as a sophomore and finished his career as the second leading passer in the 132-year history of the Notre Dame program.
“He’s a natural leader,” said Long, who is in his first season as the offensive coordinator at Tulane this season. “There’s a lot of pressure in being the quarterback at Notre Dame, and they haven’t had anybody in 30 years be able to handle it the way he did. Just the amount of work he puts into it each and every day is going to give him a chance to be successful. He’s always had to prove everybody wrong. He’s done a pretty job of it.”
Book has taken that same mindset to his job with the Saints. Over the years, he has studied reams of game film from Drew Brees, a player he said he has tried to emulate throughout his playing career. He said he spends almost all of his time away from the complex trying to master the Saints’ massive offensive playbook and has impressed coaches and teammates with his learning aptitude and attention to detail. He said he spent some of the hours before Saturday’s game practicing his play calls in the mirror of his hotel room in Baltimore.
“I’ve learned this offense, but I want to take it to another step,” Book said. “I don’t want to ever hit a bar and feel like I can’t get any better. I want to understand every protection and everything there is to know. There’s so much more I want to learn and I feel like I have so much more room to grow, but I know it doesn’t happen overnight.”
Book’s positive attitude and competitive drive are just two of the reasons you don’t have to worry about him.
He’s obviously not there yet. One exhibition game into his NFL career, he has a long way to go. But somehow, some way, you get the feeling he’s going to get there.
