2019 Score football card of one of the bright young stars of today’s NFL, Buffalo Bills’ quarterback Josh Allen. Drafted in the first round out of Wyoming in 2018, he has improved vastly in his 3 years in the NFL, to the point where he was considered a serious MVP candidate in 2020. His family owns a cantelope farm in the rural northern California town of Firebaugh.
The 2020 Buffalo Bills’ season extended quite a ways past where it usually has in other years, yet came 2 weeks short of where fans hoped it would end. Nevertheless, it’s time to publish our annual four part season review of the team. Part 1 deals with the Bills’ management and coaching staff. General Manager Brandon Beane deserves an A+ for the job he’s done in constructing a playoff caliber roster, and he’s been rewarded with several Executive of The Year honors. He purged the roster of selfish players who were deemed to be not buying in to “the process”, drafted a sure-fire franchise quarterback in Josh Allen and then surrounded him with the talent to help him succeed. In the last off-season Beane did some of his best work. He sacrificed the club’s top draft choice in a trade that yielded a player who turned out to be the top wide receiver in the NFL in Stefon Diggs. His work with the remainder of his 2020 draft picks left the team with players who either contributed on some level to the winning year or have the potential to be part of the Bills’ future success. Beane’s next challenge will be his toughest – raising the team to championship level by continuing to add depth pieces and recognize where he needs to freshen the roster with young talent that can improve a club that won 15 games this season but still came up short of the ultimate goal. The Bills lost a rather one-sided AFC Championship game to Kansas City to end the season, so there’s now a clear barometer of where they need to get to in order to climb the final mountain.
Head coach Sean McDermott has established much more than just a winning culture in Buffalo. His players have banded together into a brotherhood where they all play unselfishly for each other and for the team’s die-hard fans. There’s a lot of love in the locker room, and that has been noticed around the league, as the Bills are now respected as a winning organization that other players will be willing to come and join. That helps Beane do his job. One of my criticisms of McDermott in past reviews was that at 0-6 against Bill Belichick he had yet to beat the AFC East’s dominant team. He slayed that dragon in 2020 by sweeping the Pats, including a convincing win in Foxborough near the end of the regular season. His assistant coaches have become hot properties around the league as both coordinators, Brian Daboll and Leslie Frazier, have gotten interviews for head coaching openings, and quarterback coach Ken Dorsey has been rumored to be a candidate for offensive coordinator jobs. McDermott, a serious candidate for Coach of The Year for his work, hasn’t been perfect. His challenge decisions haven’t always worked, and his team overall looked overmatched and outcoached in the title game against the defending champion Chiefs.
With 3 playoff appearances in 4 seasons, the Bills’ management and coaching is in a solid and stable position for years of future success. There still needs to be improvement as standing pat usually leads to staleness and regression, but the Beane/McDermott partnership is well equipped to accomplish that.
Logo of a college football team that plays in the American Conference, the University of Central Florida Golden Knights. The school’s football program began play in 1979, and formerly played in the Mid-America Conference and Conference USA. They have won 6 conference titles, and their home stadium is known as “The Bounce House”. Former Knights who have gone on to play pro football include Brandon Marshall, Kamar Aiken, Leger Douzable, Daunte Culpepper, Shawn Jefferson, Asante Samuel, Josh Sitton and current players Matt Prater, A.J. Bouye, Gabriel Davis, Latavius Murray, Blake Bortles, and Shaquill and Shaquem Griffin.
1995 Topps football card of former pro football defensive end Mark Pike, who enjoyed a 13 year career in the NFL, all with the Buffalo Bills. Despite his longevity, he was never a full time starter for the Bills, but like his teammate Steve Tasker was a valuable member of the special teams units. The “bomb squads” were a point of emphasis for Bills’ coach Marv Levy, and he valued players who helped the team in that third phase of the game. Pike has served as an instructor at Jim Kelly’s football camps, and helped his son Zeke open a sober living home for recovering addicts.
The NFL regular season of 2020 wraps up this weekend, and a pair of old AFC East rivals, the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins, square off with both having positive seasons. Both made the playoffs in 1998 also, and our final Throwback Thursday feature will go back to that season, and a wild card playoff game held at Miami’s Pro Player Stadium on January 2, 1999. The teams had identical 10-6 records for the year but the Dolphins won the division based on tiebreakers. The Bills were already a couple of years removed from the Jim Kelly era, and were quarterbacked by Doug Flutie, who they signed after he had an illustrious career in the Canadian League. Dan Marino was still leading the Dolphins’ passing attack, but was past his prime and nearing the end of his long career.
The first half was relatively quiet offensively as far as scoring went. Olindo Mare kicked a pair of field goals for an early Miami lead, then Flutie led a drive that culminated in a 1 yard rushing touchdown by veteran Thurman Thomas to put the Bills up 7-6. In the third quarter the Dolphins regained the lead at 14-7 when Karim Abdul-Jabbar scored on a short run and Stanley Pritchett ran in for a successful 2 point conversion. Throughout the game, Flutie enjoyed tremendous success hooking up with his favorite target, wide receiver Eric Moulds, to highlight Buffalo’s offensive attack. Moulds, who had a record-setting day with 9 receptions for 240 yards, hauled in a Flutie aerial and turned it into a 32 yard touchdown to tie the game after 3 quarters. Miami took control in the final stanza by scoring twice, on another Mare field goal and a 12 yard touchdown toss from Marino to Lamar Thomas. The Bills could only muster a late Steve Christie field goal and fell to their AFC East rivals, 24-17. Buffalo was done in by their own mistakes in the contest. Despite the success with Moulds and throwing for 360 yards overall, Flutie had 3 turnovers, an interception and a pair of fumbles. Moulds also had a black mark on his day as he fumbled once, as did long-time Bills’ legend and future Hall of Famer Andre Reed. Those 5 turnovers were the death knell for Buffalo in the game.
In some ways this game was the beginning of the end of the Bills’ dominant run in the AFC in the 1990s. After one more season of playing together, on February 10, 2000, Buffalo released 3 of their star performers from that era, all on the same day – Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed and Bruce Smith. The franchise was about to enter a 17 year drought of missing the playoffs after the 1999 season.
Bills’ WR Eric Moulds has a record-setting day in a losing cause
Logo of a college football team that plays in the West Division of the Mountain West Conference, the University of Nevada-Las Vegas Rebels. The school played their first season in 1968. Former Rebels who have enjoyed pro football careers include Randall Cunningham, Ickey Woods, Eric Wright, Keenan McCardell and Charles Dimry. Besides pro football players, former UNLV alumni include ESPN SportsCenter anchor Kenny Mayne and CEO and co-founder of Death Row Records Suge Knight.
1997 Fleer football card of former pro football running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar, who played 5 seasons in the NFL, mostly for the Miami Dolphins. He led the Dolphins in rushing yardage his first 2 seasons with the team, and also led the NFL in touchdowns in 1997 when he scored 16 times. Born Sharmon Shah, the devout Muslim had his name changed by his Imam, but confusion with the famous basketball player led to controversy, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar eventually sued the Miami back. He changed his name again, and now goes by Abdul-Kareem al-Jabbar.
It’s week 16 for the NFL season and the battle for playoff positioning is on. One of the important matchups with playoff implications is between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Indianapolis Colts. We’ll feature these 2 franchises in this week’s Throwback Thursday post. The game chosen was played on Halloween, October 31, 1971. It was played at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium, where the Colts were located at the time. Baltimore was enjoying another fine season after having won the Super Bowl the previous year, while the Steelers, perennial losers in the 1960s, were in their third season under coach Chuck Noll. The team would gradually be built into the dominant force in the NFL in the 1970s, but at this point were still suffering some growing pains, and were a couple years, plus a couple more excellent drafts, from reaching that status.
The Colts opened the scoring on a 1 yard plunge by Norm Bulaich, then added a pair of field goals by their Super Bowl hero of the previous season, kicker Jim O’Brien, to go up 13-0. A young Terry Bradshaw engineered a drive that he climaxed himself with a short touchdown run to get Pittsburgh on the board. The Colts proceeded to own the rest of the first half as their veteran quarterback, Earl Morrall, connected with Willie Richardson on a pair of touchdown throws of 19 and 49 yards. Morrall continued Baltimore’s dominance in the third quarter as he hit Ray Perkins for a 60 yard touchdown. The Steelers now found themselves in a 34-7 hole that they weren’t capable of digging their way out of. In a sign of things to come in the future, Bradshaw showed some growth in his game as he continued to fight the battle against heavy odds. He found Ron Shanklin for a 31 yard touchdown, then scored on a short run by himself for the only score of the final quarter to make the final score a somewhat more respectable 34-21 margin for the Colts.
A look back at that season finds that the outcome of this game was fairly predictable. Baltimore was a seasoned veteran team, with players like Morrall, John Unitas, Tom Matte, John Mackey, Mike Curtis, Rick Volk and Bubba Smith to lean on. Pittsburgh’s future dynasty was still in its infancy. Bradshaw’s offensive options were backs Frenchy Fuqua and Preston Pearson, and his receivers the likes of Shanklin, Jon Staggers and Frank Lewis. Super Bowl stalwarts like Franco Harris, Lynn Swann and John Stallworth were still a few years away.
A young Terry Bradshaw leads his Steelers against the Colts
Logo of a Historically Black College (HBCU) football team that plays in the West Division of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, the Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions. The school began play in 1916 and has won a couple of recent division titles. Former Golden Lions who have played pro football include L.C. Greenwood, Manny Sistrunk, Robert Brown, Willie Frazier, Mike Lewis, Terry Nelson, Wallace Francis and Dante Wesley.
1968 Topps football card of former NFL wide receiver Willie Richardson, who enjoyed a 9 year career in the league, most notably with the Baltimore Colts. He was twice named to the Pro Bowl and also a two-time All Pro, in 1967 and ’68, and helped the Colts win the NFL title in ’68. His younger brother Gloster Richardson also played in the league. Richardson passed away in 2016 at the age of 76.