ATHENS, Ga. — There have been a few double takes. Jake Fromm has noticed them as he walks down the halls. Then there was his first class of the semester when he sat at a table and introduced himself to his new classmate.
“Hey, how you doing? I’m Jake,” he said.
“I’m Zach,” came the response, along with a wry, knowing smile. “Yeah, I’ve seen you around before.”
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He’s back. After two years in the NFL, including two starts less than a year ago, and after a decision to turn pro that he doesn’t regret, but does have one what-if, Fromm is back in Athens. He’s a homeowner, husband and finance student.
“It’s one of the most humbling experiences ever,” he said. “You thought you were done, and nope, you’re back.”
Fromm officially has not retired from football. He’s staying in shape, popping in regularly to the new weight room at the Georgia football facility, just in case the phone rings. But he’s also not going to just wait around, which is why he enrolled in classes for the fall semester: Five classes, three of them in-person, and if he finishes all of them, he will graduate in December and be ready to enter the workforce.
Jake Fromm helped lead Georgia to the 2018 College Football Playoff national championship game. (Matthew Emmons / USA Today)“I’m on a couple of the worst-case scenario lists, I would say, for a couple teams right now. Just at the quarterback position, there’s not as much injury and turnover. You never know,” Fromm said. “Hey, I’m content with everything. It is what it is. I got to live a childhood dream, and I’m happy either way.”
Almost five years ago, Fromm led Georgia on its improbable run to the national championship game. Were it not for a busted coverage on the other side of the ball, Fromm would have been the quarterback who ended Georgia’s national championship drought. The improbable story of the true freshman who took over and led his home-state team back to glory.
Instead, it was the other quarterback who enrolled that same year, the walk-on who transferred out and then transferred back to be Fromm’s backup during Fromm’s final season at Georgia, who got that glory. It was Stetson Bennett who hoisted the national championship trophy, while Fromm rooted him and his former team on from an extended-stay Marriott in New York City. Fromm, who marvels like everyone else at Bennett’s journey, said, “It couldn’t have been written any better,” and is happy last year’s team was able to finish the job.
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“You felt like you had a small hand in it, help kind of lay a little bit of the foundation and culture there,” Fromm said. “And it helps having fellow teammates who I played with, too. But at the end of the day, it was their team, and they owned it, and they did a great job of putting together a great season and being able to finish strong.”
Fromm doesn’t wish he had a do-over on his decision to leave after the 2019 season. He had been the starter at Georgia for three years, and he simply was ready to move on. He was looking for a new “mental and physical challenge,” as he put it. Interestingly, Fromm said he was “fully aware” that Todd Monken was coming aboard as the new offensive coordinator, even though it was announced after Fromm left. Fromm said he knew Monken’s reputation and that he would do good things with the offense, but Fromm was far down the road with his NFL decision, and it wasn’t enough to make him change his mind.
“I thought I was physically ready to go,” Fromm said. “I thought I was built for it, and yeah, I thought I was ready.”
There is one part that Fromm freely wonders about. Let’s say he had come back for the 2020 season and gone through that season and fallen short of the team goals — as Georgia did without him — but had the chance to come back for one more year, the COVID-19 extra year that the NCAA allowed everyone who went through that season.
“I do think if we are playing the what-if scenario, I think if I had stayed for one more year, I would have stayed for one more year after that, as well,” Fromm said. “You never know, but hey, I’m perfectly content where I’m at. Man, it’s been a blessing and a fun ride all along.”
The Buffalo Bills took Fromm in the fifth round of the NFL Draft, lower than he hoped, but he also knew the risks when he made the decision to leave. What Fromm didn’t know was COVID quarantine rules would come along: He became the designated quarantine quarterback, separated from the rest of the quarterbacks in case contact tracing knocked out the entire room. That meant throwing on a separate field, then staying after practice to throw with other players, socially distanced and generally avoiding contact. It was not the ideal scenario for a rookie quarterback to develop.
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“I definitely don’t think it helped,” Fromm said. “It was a job for me at the time. Hey, I signed up for it and got to be a part of a really good organization.”
The Bills released him last August then immediately signed him to their practice squad, and three months later, the New York Giants picked him up. Fromm saw his first action in the fourth quarter on Dec. 19 against Dallas, then was thrust into the starting lineup the next two weeks.
It was a great opportunity but still not ideal, a short amount of time to learn the playbook and learn his new teammates while playing for a coaching staff on the verge of being fired. The resulting stat line: 27-for-60, 210 passing yards, one touchdown and three interceptions.
The Giants cut Fromm loose in March, and since then, he has had some nibbles. But he said he has been too busy to think about whether a team will call him. He’s been buying, moving into and renovating a house in Athens.
Jake Fromm started two games for the New York Giants in 2021. (Bill Streicher / USA Today)He’s taking classes and learning about bonds, markets and funds. He’s also dipping into the media world, becoming the co-host of the podcast that Drew Butler had been doing with Aaron Murray. Fromm and Butler share the same media agent, so he set it up.
Still, as he sees Georgia practicing, as he sees the NFL churning on, does he miss it?
“For the past 18 years or so, whatever it is, all I did was camp,” he said. “It’s been a little bittersweet in both aspects. It’s been bitter because you miss ball; you know it’s a time of work. But also it’s sweet because you do know August was a ton of work; it’s always hot. A little bit of a breather there, so that was nice.”
Fromm told himself that whenever he knew he was done with football, he would take a two-week vacation in August and send photos to his friends, like Charlie Woerner (with the San Francisco 49ers) and Ben Cleveland (with the Baltimore Ravens). Fromm didn’t do that this time. Maybe next year.
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In the meantime, it’s on to learning about bonds, markets and funds. He likes numbers, loves real estate and also likes being outside. If he can figure out a way to wrap that all into one, it would be perfect, especially if he can stay in Athens, not the town where he grew up — that would be Warner Robins in middle Georgia. But Athens is where so many good things happened for him.
Ask him his best memories of Georgia, and Fromm goes right to 2017 and the whole ride: the Notre Dame game, the SEC championship, the Rose Bowl, the national championship game.
“You kind of took it for granted a little bit because you’re fresh out of high school, and you’re like, ‘Man this is what college football is; this is awesome,’” Fromm said. “And you spend the next two years trying to get back, and it’s tough. Very competitive. You’ve always gotta enjoy all the little moments.
“Man, I got to play in a lot of big games. Very fortunate and blessed to be a part of a great university and a great organization. I had a lot of fun times. We sure did.”
(Top photo: Courtesy of Jake Fromm)
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