(JTA) — Jewish rookie quarterback Josh Rosen will start on Sunday for the Arizona Cardinals, who are looking to kick-start their season after losing their first three games.
Rosen, the team’s first-round draft pick, was named the starter on Monday for the game against the Seattle Seahawks a day after entering the game against the Chicago Bears with 4:31 remaining. The Cardinals lost, 16-14.
“Josh plays with a lot of confidence,” Cardinals coach Steve Wilks told reporters on Monday. “I think he gives us the opportunity to be able to be successful. When you look at the situation when he went into the game — I didn’t have a problem putting him in at the time because again I know he’s very confident in what he’s doing. … I think he handled it well. He went in, commanded the huddle, did a great job moving the ball.”
Rosen, 21, was the No. 2 quarterback behind Sam Bradford, who will become Rosen’s backup, Wilks announced.
In a post on Instagram Rosen, the 10th overall pick in the National Football League draft, thanked the veteran Bradford.
“Since day 1, Sam has had my back and helped me become the best quarterback I could be. I cannot thank him enough for showing me how to be a professional in every sense of the word. He is a leader, mentor, and great person,” Rosen wrote.
“He and (backup QB) Mike Glennon couldn’t have been more supportive at a time that I thought might be a bit tense or awkward today. I couldn’t be more thrilled to be in a QB room with two of the most selfless people I’ve ever been around as I start my career as a quarterback in the NFL. For that I say thank you.”
Rosen, a standout at UCLA, told the league’s online magazine earlier this year that a lot of the trash talk that was directed at him on the field during college was anti-Semitic.
A 2014 profile noted that Rosen became a bar mitzvah and attends seder every Passover, but he also celebrates Christmas and he called himself “kind of an atheist.”
The quarterback’s father is Charles Rosen, a noted orthopedic surgeon. His mother, Liz Lippincott, is Quaker and is the great-great-granddaughter of Joseph Wharton, who founded the prestigious Wharton business school at the University of Pennsylvania.
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