Doug Flutie
Douglas Richard Flutie is an American former professional football quarterback. In a 21-year career, Flutie played 12 seasons in the National Football League, eight seasons in the Canadian Football League, and one season in the United States Football League. He played college football for the Boston College Eagles, winning the Heisman Trophy in 1984 amid a season that saw him throw a game-winning touchdown pass in the final seconds of a ranked matchup against the Miami Hurricanes.
Flutie chose to begin his professional career with the USFL's New Jersey Generals; his unavailability to NFL teams resulted in him being selected 285th overall by the Los Angeles Rams in the 11th round of the 1985 NFL draft, the lowest drafting of a Heisman winner. After the USFL folded, Flutie spent his first four NFL seasons with the Chicago Bears and New England Patriots.
Flutie left the NFL in 1990 for the CFL, where he became regarded as one of the league's greatest players. As a member of the BC Lions, Calgary Stampeders, and Toronto Argonauts, he was named the CFL's Most Outstanding Player a record six times and won three Grey Cups. In all three of his championship victories, two with the Argonauts and one with the Stampeders, he was named Grey Cup MVP.
After his CFL success, Flutie returned to the NFL in 1998 with the Buffalo Bills, earning Pro Bowl and NFL Comeback Player of the Year honors for leading Buffalo to the playoffs. He again helped the Bills obtain a playoff berth the following season, but was controversially benched in their subsequent Wild Card defeat; the Bills would not make the playoffs for another 17 years. Flutie held his last starting role with the San Diego Chargers in 2001 and spent his final season as a backup for the Patriots. He was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2007 and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2008. Flutie was also inducted to Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2007, becoming the first non-Canadian inductee.
Early life
Flutie was born in Manchester, Maryland, to Dick and Joan Flutie. His paternal great-grandparents were Lebanese immigrants. His family moved to Melbourne Beach, Florida, when he was six, where his father worked as a quality engineer in the aerospace industry. While there, Flutie led Hoover Junior High School's football team to two Brevard County Championships.After the dramatic slow-down of the space program in the mid-1970s, the Flutie family again moved in 1976 to Natick, Massachusetts, 20 miles west of Boston. Flutie graduated from Natick High School, where he was an All-League performer in football, basketball, and baseball.
College career
Flutie played football at Boston College, the only Division I-A school to recruit him, from 1981 to 1984, and won the Heisman Trophy, Maxwell Award, and Davey O'Brien Award in his senior year. Flutie became the first quarterback to win the Heisman since Pat Sullivan in 1971. Flutie left school as the NCAA's all-time passing yardage leader with 10,579 yards and was a unanimous All-American as a senior. He earned Player of the Year awards from UPI, Kodak, The Sporting News, and the Maxwell Football Club. The quarterback coach for Boston College from 1981 to 1983 was Tom Coughlin.Flutie gained national attention in 1984 when he led the Eagles to victory in a high-scoring, back-and-forth game against the Miami Hurricanes. The game was nationally televised on CBS the day after Thanksgiving and thus had a huge audience. The Hurricanes staged a dramatic drive to take the lead, 45–41, in the closing minute of the game. The Eagles then took possession at its own 22-yard line with 28 seconds to go. After two passes moved the ball another 30 yards, only 6 seconds remained. On the last play of the game, Flutie scrambled away from the defense and threw a "Hail Mary pass" that was caught in the end zone by his college roommate, Gerard Phelan, giving the Eagles a 47–45 win. Flutie led the nation in passer rating and won the Heisman Trophy a week later, but the voting had finished before the game; Flutie said, however, that "without the Hail Mary pass I think I could have been very, very easily forgotten". The subsequent rise in applications for admission to Boston College after Flutie's "Hail Mary" gave rise to the admissions phenomenon known as the "Flutie effect". This idea essentially states that a winning sports team can increase the recognition value of a school enough to make it more attractive to potential applicants.
In addition to his collegiate athletic achievement, Flutie maintained a distinguished academic record at Boston College, where he majored in communication and computer science. Flutie was a candidate for the Rhodes Scholarship, for which he was named a finalist in 1984. Upon graduating, Flutie won the National Football Foundation post-graduate scholarship.
In November 2008, Flutie was honored by Boston College with a statue outside Alumni Stadium; it depicts his "Hail Mary" pass. His number, 22, has been retired by the Boston College football program. In 2013, Flutie received the College Football Legacy Award from The Sports Museum at TD Garden for his accomplishments at Boston College.
College statistics
Professional career
New Jersey Generals
Despite Flutie's college achievements, some considered him too small to play professional football. When asked on television "Can a guy who's five-foot-nine, 175 pounds make it in the pros?", he answered, "Yes, he can. But it's a matter of ability and not size. I feel I can play; I don't know for sure, and those questions will be answered in the future."Flutie was attractive to the USFL, which was desperate for a star to reinvigorate the league as it was in financial difficulty. Meanwhile, the Buffalo Bills, who had the first pick in the 1985 NFL draft, still had the rights to Jim Kelly and also had concerns about Flutie's height. He was selected by the USFL's New Jersey Generals in the 1985 territorial draft, which took place in January, months before the 1985 NFL Draft. Flutie went through negotiations with the Generals and agreed on a deal that would make him the highest paid pro football player and highest paid rookie in any sport with $7 million over five years; Flutie was signed on February 4, 1985. Having already signed with the USFL, Flutie was not selected in the NFL draft until the 11th round as the 285th overall pick by the Los Angeles Rams.
Flutie entered the USFL with much hype and fanfare. In February 1985, Flutie made his USFL debut against the Orlando Renegades. His debut was not impressive, as his first two professional passes were intercepted by Renegades linebacker Jeff Gabrielsen. The only two touchdowns that New Jersey scored came from turnovers by Orlando quarterback Jerry Golsteyn. By the time Flutie's debut was over, he completed 7 of 18 passes for a total of 174 yards, while also running for 51 yards. Flutie completed 134 of 281 passes for 2,109 yards and 13 touchdowns with the Generals in 1985 in 15 games. He suffered an injury late in the season that saw him turn over the reins to reserve quarterback Ron Reeves. The Generals went on to finish with an 11–7 record and a second-place finish in the USFL's Eastern Conference. The USFL folded in 1986, and Flutie and punter Sean Landeta were the league's last active players in the NFL.
Chicago Bears
On October 14, 1986, the Los Angeles Rams traded their rights to Flutie to the Chicago Bears in exchange for multiple draft picks. Flutie appeared in four games for the 1986 Chicago Bears, who were in need for quarterback play when Jim McMahon suffered a season-ending injury late in the season. He served as the starter in the Divisional Round game against Washington, which was only his second NFL start. He went 11-of-31 with 134 yards as Washington scored 20 unanswered points in the second half to overcome a halftime deficit while Flutie's interception in the third quarter set up Washington for a subsequent touchdown.New England Patriots (first stint)
Chicago then traded Flutie to the New England Patriots at the start of the 1987 NFL season, a season which saw the NFL Players Association go on strike, and NFL games subsequently being played by replacement players. Flutie crossed the picket lines in order to play for the Patriots, one of many NFL players to rejoin their respective teams, and the strike quickly collapsed.On October 2, 1988, after the Patriots began the season with a 1–3 record, Flutie came off the bench to lead a comeback victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Foxborough, scoring the winning touchdown on a 13-yard bootleg at the end of the fourth quarter. He then led the team to a 6–3 record, including wins at home over the eventual division winning Cincinnati Bengals and Chicago Bears. However, on December 11, after taking the Patriots to the brink of the playoffs, Flutie was benched by head coach Raymond Berry and replaced with Tony Eason, who had not played football in over a year; Berry cited a need for more "explosive" play from the offense, which Flutie pointed out had thrown little to begin with. New England lost the last game of the year in Denver and were eliminated from the postseason in a tiebreaker.
Flutie was released by the Patriots after playing the 1989 season in a mainly backup role. No other NFL teams showed interest in Flutie and he subsequently signed to play for the Canadian Football League. After his release from the Patriots, they won only nine games over the following three seasons.
BC Lions
In 1990, Flutie began his eight-year CFL career. That year, he signed with the BC Lions for a two-year contract reportedly worth $350,000 a season. At the time, he was the highest paid player in the CFL. Flutie struggled in his first season, which would be his only losing season in the CFL.The 1991 season saw Flutie set several CFL single season records:
- passing attempts
- passing completions
- passing yards
- 300-yard passing games
- 400-yard passing games
- rushing touchdowns by a quarterback