ESPN 30 for 30: Elway to Marino

[26CornerBlitz]

@JimKellyInc 3m

Check out the newest episode of ESPN's 30 on 30 at 8pm tomorrow for an interview with Jim! http://espn.go.com/30for30/

 

Set your DVR for this episode tomorrow 4/20/13 @ 8 PM EDT

 

‏@30for30

John Elway's excuse for not wanting to play in Baltimore backfires. The clip--> http://bit.ly/Elway83

 

#ElwaytoMarino premieres TOMORROW.

Edited April 22, 2013 by 26CornerBlitz

[KollegeStudnet]

Nice!

[Mr. WEO]

No Jim Kelly? (other than an interview with him)

Edited April 22, 2013 by Mr. WEO

[26CornerBlitz]

No Jim Kelly? (other than an interview with him)

 

I imagine there will be a segment on Kelly being drafted by the Bills and opting for the USFL.

[26CornerBlitz]

A reminder for those who may not know.

[Punch]

Bill Barnwell ‏@billbarnwell 1m

If you haven't turned on Elway to Marino yet, get there before they start the Jim Kelly segment. Best part of the documentary.

[Chandler#81]

Jimbo was a *#%@!

 

Bad-mouth Buffalo from Draft day through his first full year with the Gamblers. Went out of his way to bash Buffalo.

 

Funny, what going from unemployed to signing an $8M contract can do to a man's perspective..

[Helpmenow]

Good one. Great behind the scenes

 

Would you come to buffalo ?

Edited April 24, 2013 by roush

[dollars 2 donuts]

When they gave that little snippet of information on Kelly at the end of the program I really wish they would've put in his lifetime record against Marino and Elway.

 

17-7 vs Marino (please note that if I remember correctly one of those wins was by Frank R. In the regular season...so 16-7) and 4-2 vs Elway.

 

I guess putting up a 20-9 record as a stat would have uglied up the two heroes of the documentary too much.

 

Edited April 24, 2013 by dollars 2 donuts

[Kellyto83TD]

Jimbo was a *#%@!

 

Bad-mouth Buffalo from Draft day through his first full year with the Gamblers. Went out of his way to bash Buffalo.

 

Funny, what going from unemployed to signing an $8M contract can do to a man's perspective..

 

He was right at the time. And 8 mill was a bargain to get the best player in Bills history.

[Uncle Joe]

Good one. Great behind the scenes

 

Would you come to buffalo ?

 

Yes, to play defense.

[Kelly the Dog]

I remember one draft about ten years ago when Mike Tirico said something to the affect of "A lot of NFL players hate the idea of being drafted by or traded to Buffalo and once they get there never want to leave."

[Max997]

Watched it and thought it was great. Kelly was honest and admitted not wanting to play in Buffalo after playing his college ball in Miami. Love the USFL stuff which is what made me a Kelly fan and eventually a Bills fan so if he didn't go there who knows what team I'd be following

 

It's amazing how you forget the other hall of fame players that were also in that first round like Dickerson, Bruce Matthews and Darrell Green

 

They sure made it seem like the league blocked that trade with the Raiders and Bears preventing the Raiders from then trading for Elway

 

Was funny seeing the draft broadcast back then without Berman as the lead although he did make an appearance. Dr Z as the lead analyst was just awful

Edited April 24, 2013 by Max997

[DrDawkinstein]

Once again a 30 for 30 Doc knocks it out of the park. Great story with the agent, and the info about all of the owners and background dealings. Crazy to see the draft from 30 years ago and how far it has come. Jimbo needs to make a public apology/statement about his quotes in there!!

[benderbender]

I like how the QB with the most SB appearances got the least airtime, yet if you do the math, Elway's gums got 80% of the airtime.

[Buftex]

Just in case you missed it, like me (flipping between Sabres and Celtics games...), it will re-run on Wednesday night (4/24) at 10pm eastern, on ESPN2.

 

For me, I loved all those QB's. I miss those days. Elway is my all-time favorite non-Bills player....and while I always hated Marino and the Dolphins, that rivalry was one of the best parts of my sports life. Last Sunday, on NFLN they re-broadcast an "NFL Classic" between the Dolphins and Jets, from 1994. The Dolphins had a big comeback (down by 23 at one point IIRC), and Marino pulled off the "fake spike" for the winning TD. I still remember that game...man I was pissed. IIRC, though the Bills were having an off season (after 4 Super Bowl appearances) they still got their mojo up the next Sunday night to destroy the Dolphins in Miami...I always thought of that game as the "last hurrah" for the Super Bowl era Bills. Miss that one brief shining moment when the Bills were relevant...

[Cru Jones]

I like how the QB with the most SB appearances got the least airtime, yet if you do the math, Elway's gums got 80% of the airtime.

 

Unless you meant that his gums got more airtime than Elway himself he had the most SB appearances.

Elway 5 SB (2 wins)

 

86, 87, 89, 97, 98.

 

 

[section122]

I loved this one but I'm a sucker for these 30 for 30s. The reason it was focused on elway and Marino is because they shared an agent and he kept a diary through the process.

 

As for Marino, if you haven't watched it yet or plan on rewatching it - substitute the name Barkley for Marino and they are very similar stories. Prolific jr years where they were thought to be high picks, return have a sub par year, take all the blame, get crushed by every pundit around, watch stock fall.

 

I'm not saying Barkley = Marino but the parallels were enough to stick out to me. ( yes I am in the I want Barkley camp)

[Chandler#81]

 

 

He was right at the time. And 8 mill was a bargain to get the best player in Bills history.

 

Wrong on both counts. There was NO time that was right and we signed him to a then unheard of, all-time record breaking NFL contract.

 

I guess you had to be alive then, to realize this.

[Gordio]

Wrong on both counts. There was NO time that was right and we signed him to a then unheard of, all-time record breaking NFL contract.

 

I guess you had to be alive then, to realize this.

 

You are correct sir. It was a then record & pundits were astonished by the "crazy money thrown around." It was a good deal with the Bills too & the city. They needed a star, a guy this town could be proud of & boy did Kelly deliver. Dr Z wrote about his first game, here is some of the article, kind of captures the mood of the city

 

 

 

 

 

It's easy to lose perspective here. It's easy to get carried away. Let's just say, coolly and unemotionally, that the National Football League debut of Buffalo rookie quarterback Jim Kelly was nothing short of sensational.

Jim Kelly is Joe Namath with knees.

The Bills lost to the New York Jets 28-24 on Sunday, but it wasn't Kelly's fault. He threw three touchdown passes, exactly one third of the Bills' total production last year. He brought the Bills back twice in the fourth quarter, once giving them a three-point lead and then moving them to within four points, and he might have pulled off some kind of miracle at the end if the defense had held and given him one more shot. But these are, after all, still the Buffalo Bills, and the Jets socked them for 210 yards and 14 points in that final period. All Kelly could do was watch New York eat up yards and minutes.

But Lordy, wasn't the new guy something? Joe Willie with knees.

The resemblance between Namath and Kelly is striking, not technically but emotionally. The same dirt toughness, western Pennsylvania toughness. O.K., knock me down, but I'm gonna get up and come right after you. The Jets gave Kelly the whole package Sunday: They packed eight men up near the line; they showed the rookie quarterback every variation of the old Bear 46 Defense; they sent in rushers in waves—at one point they rushed six defensive linemen—then in long-yardage situations they backed off and rushed only three and played coverages. The Jets got to Kelly plenty, but the damage was done after he had released the ball. Officially New York recorded only one sack.

Kelly was knocked goofy near the end of the first half, when he put his head down and tried to run over a defensive back, and he blanked out; Greg Bell, a halfback, had to call the next play. Mark Gastineau blindsided Kelly and bruised his back. Kelly got his ankle twisted when he fell over Gastineau three series later, and on his last touchdown pass the Bills' quarterback fell as he pulled away from the center, but scrambled to his feet, rolled to his right and, fighting off a rush, threw a four-yard pass off his back foot to tight end Pete Metzelaars deep in the corner of the end zone for the touchdown that brought the Bills to within four points, 28-24, with 3:55 remaining.

"I knew he'd be tough," Gastineau said, "but this was ridiculous."

Bills center Kent Hull wasn't surprised. He remembers Kelly from the USFL days, the 75 sacks he suffered in 1984 with the Houston Gamblers' exciting run-and-shoot offense, his ability to come off the deck and inflict heavy damage quickly and efficiently.

"We sacked him three times when we played Houston in the Meadowlands," said Hull, a former New Jersey General. "The last time, he didn't get up. Everybody thought he had a broken finger. We thought we had seen the last of Jim Kelly, but he went in and got it taped up and came back and threw a touchdown pass that nearly beat us.

"Before I met him I figured he'd sit the year out and hold an auction. But after I met him at the Generals' minicamp this spring, I knew there was no way he could be out of football for a year."

 

 

That, of course, was just fine with Buffalo's coach, Hank Bullough. " Jim Kelly," Bullough said, "is our future."

Future of both the team and the franchise. During the giddy three weeks between Kelly's signing of an $8 million contract on Aug. 18 and his first appearance on the field, some people went so far as to suggest he was the future of the city of Buffalo itself. Kelly's impact even reached as far south as West 43rd Street in Manhattan where the The New York Times led its Metropolitan section last Saturday with a story about the euphoria in Buffalo.

Almost two decades before, Namath salvaged a franchise, and he brought credibility to an entire league, and, at the time, his $427,000 contract was more of a bombshell than Kelly's was. But Joe Willie was operating in New York City, and no one went so far as to suggest that the Apple was on the way out until he showed up. In Buffalo it's different. In three weeks Kelly has given a beleaguered city an identity.

Kelly can't reopen the steel mills. He can't bring back the industries that have abandoned Buffalo for the Sun Belt. But he can cut the gloom, he can brighten up the physical and emotional eyesore called the Buffalo Bills, with their back-to-back 2-14 seasons, and provide a lift for so many people in that city.

Jim Kelly is god, read a banner at Rich Stadium on Sunday. I'M IN A JIM PACKED STADIUM, read another. When he rode in a limo through downtown Buffalo on Monday, Aug. 18, after he had signed the contract, hundreds of fans lined the way, waving, cheering. Six hundred people, including New York Governor Mario Cuomo, showed up at a chamber of commerce luncheon a week later, reviving a tradition that had lapsed for three years.

There are Jim Kelly footballs on sale and a deal for a line of Jim Kelly hats is near. Two days before the Jet game, The Buffalo News ran a story about Kelly's signing with Buffalo radio station WGR to do 10-minute Monday and Friday spots for more than $2,000 a week. O.K., so in L.A. or New York it's a yawn, but not in Buffalo, a town where you can still buy a pretty decent home for less than $50,000.

"Actually his radio fee is more," one of Kelly's agents, Greg Lustig, said in the locker room Sunday. "It's a little more than $40,000 for the season."

Though Buffalo is a blue-collar city, no one seems to begrudge Kelly any of his financial rewards, including the $8 million contract, which breaks down to a $1 million bonus now, another million in 1988, and a five-year base pay that rises from $1 million per annum to $1.4 million. If you throw in the insurance policy the club bought him, you're over the $8 million mark.

"He's a good guy, and he's a tough guy," Bullough says. "When he signed the contract people said, 'Boy, he got a lot of money.' I said, 'No he didn't. He got the market value.' If he had waited a year and then let people bid for him, he could have gotten a lot more. Ninety percent of the players in his position would have waited, but he's a football player, and he wants to play."

The Bills figure that Kelly's signing and the excitement it generated covered his bonus for this year and part of his 1986 salary. According to their marketing and sales director, Jerry Foran, they quickly sold 6,500 season tickets—at an average of $120 per. Then there were the extra single-game sales that brought Sunday's attendance to a Rich Stadium record of 79,951—plus the additional ticket sales for later games in '86.

 

We averaged 38,000 per home game last season," Foran said on Thursday, "and right now we don't have a game under 40,000. We sold 38,000 tickets in the six days after his signing. We had to hire 21 extra people to work the ticket windows, and we worked in the office until midnight."

The marketing director put the total revenue generated by Kelly at around $1.5 million. "If Sunday's game is exciting, we don't even have to win as long as we're competitive. This could mean our season," Foran said. "Every game could be close to a sellout. We've got 83 ticket outlets all over western New York now. We never used to [have that many]."

"Sunday's game," said Bill Polian, the Bills' general manager, "could be the most important in the history of the franchise. It could be our future."

Kelly came into the Jet game with 19 full practices under his belt and many more meetings—boy what meetings. "We have meetings to set up meetings, and meetings to follow meetings," Kelly said a few days before the game. Even the 20-minute lunch break is a meeting. "Lunch today was a turkey sub. People ask me what I think of Buffalo. What can I tell them? Hey, I haven't even seen it. I've been out once. At night I watch the tapes of practice.

"Sometimes your head starts hurting. You feel that you just can't absorb any more football. So I get out the Tylenol. The whole point is that I don't want to embarrass myself out there—or my teammates. At the University of Miami when I'd make a call it was, say, 70 Texas. Seventy is the protection, Texas the play. With Houston in the USFL it would be something like Rip 60, Z Go. Here? A typical call would be Trey Right Zoom Flare 2-2-2, H Option, F Sail. You're expected not only to read defenses but call the backs' assignments, the line blocking, the protection, everything.

"There are times when I can read a defense, and I know what to audible into, but I have to think about the language. Getting into it is a problem. It's like being in a foreign country and trying to speak the language."

Bob Leahy, the Bills' quarterback coach, said the operation would be modified to fit Kelly. Routes would be lengthened, blocking adjusted to avoid mismatches, such as a back trying to pick up Gastineau, a mismatch favored by the Jet defensive coordinator. Bud Carson, who likes to move Gastineau all over the field, creating all sorts of problems for the opposition's offense.

" Jim Kelly will get a pass rush tomorrow; he can count on that," Carson said Saturday night. "Our guys are anxious to indoctrinate him. This is not the U.S. Football League. I'm sure that someday he's going to be a great quarterback, but when they knock you down in this league, you don't get up right away."

Well, Kelly got up and threw for 292 yards, completing 20 of 33 passes, with no interceptions, for three touchdowns. It's as impressive a debut as any of the Hall of Fame quarterbacks managed in his first rookie start. In his first game, Dan Marino had three touchdown passes, but he also threw two interceptions. If you want to argue that the 26-year-old Kelly is not a true rookie, that his two years in the USFL should count for something...well, he compares very well with the guys in the same situation. Frankie Albert and Y.A. Tittle, after arriving from the All-America Football Conference in 1950, went 7 for 17 and 5 for 12, respectively. Otto Graham, in that landmark 35-10 victory over the Eagles in '50, threw for 346 yards and three touchdowns—but he also had two interceptions.