Vinny Testaverde

Sing, O goddess, the mediocrity of Testaverde, son of Al, that brought boundless heartbreak and turnovers to the Buccaneers, Browns, Ravens, Jets, Cowboys, Patriots and Panthers. Many a brave soul did the NFL send hurrying down to Canton, yet great Vinny, thrower of picks, would never be called upon to kneel at the feet of Thorpe, king of football.

I feel the epic invocation is an appropriate introduction for our 100th post. Blake and I have been at this for 6 solid months now, blogging and having a few good laughs about our favorite mediocre athletes. We’ve done our best to cover a broad range of sports; from Danika Patrick to Barry Melrose, Ron Gant to Dan Cortese, and Manute Bol to Steve Deberg, Fans of Mediocrity has become a home to some of sports’ forgotten heroes, biggest zeroes, and most mediocre athletes of the past half-century.

We both agreed that our centennial post had to be big. Really big. We know what is at stake and recognize that we can’t roll out the red-carpet for some hum-drum mediocre athlete. No. We knew that we needed a big-time mediocre athlete for this milestone, and Vinny Testaverde was the perfect choice. Everything this website has intended to be is encapsulated in Vinny Testaverde. There is no athlete in the history of sports who embodies and epitomizes mediocrity in the same staggering way that Vinny Testaverde did for 21 years. Every single facet of his being is mediocre. The statistics, the obscure records, the rare yet completely merited awards are what distinguish the big “Green Head” as the world’s most mediocre athlete.

It all began in 1985 at the University of Miami (FL) where Vinny Testaverde became the most recent installment of Miami’s quarterback dynasty that featured fellow mediocre qb Bernie Kosar and Hall of Fame qb Jim Kelly. In 1986, the young Testaverde won the Heisman trophy and led the Hurricanes to the national title game against Penn State, a game that heavily favored Miami. It seemed as if everything was going right for Testaverde: he was a Heisman winner, set a school record of 26 touchdowns in a single season, and was poised to win a national championship. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out for Vinny as they were supposed to. In the biggest game of his college career, Vinny Testaverde took the field with his Heisman swagger and threw a mind bending 5 interceptions (he threw only 9 the entire season!). Miami was supposed to win that game, but they didn’t, and it’s all because Vinny threw 5 picks. It was all his fault.

But all was not lost. Despite his epic collapse in the championship game, the hapless Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected Vinny with the first overall pick in the 1987 NFL draft. Big. The Bucs were coming off a 2 win season in ’86 and hoping to rest the future of the franchise on Testaverde’s 8 million dollar arm. At the outset of the 1987 season, veteran quarterback Steve Deberg was the starter for the Bucs. But after going 2-6, head coach Ray Perkins replaced Deberg with Testaverde. In four starts, Testaverde went 0-4, throwing for 1,081 yards with a 43% completion percentage, 5 touchdowns, 6 picks and a lousy 60.2 passer rating.

The following season was big for Testaverde, huge in fact, so big that most analysts are baffled as to how the Tampa Bay coaching staff was willing to keep Vinny as the starting quarterback despite an utterly abysmal season. If you thought the ’86 Fiesta Bowl was a poor showing, imagine an entire season of Vinny’s throwing interceptions, missing open receivers, and spending more time horizontal on the field than standing upright. Vinny Testaverde’s ’88 campaign has to be arguably the worst season for a quarterback in NFL history. In 15 games Testaverde threw 35 interceptions. 35. That’s the second most in NFL history. Tack on another 8 fumbles and Vinny turned the ball over a total of 43 times that season. It comes out to roughly three turnovers per game by Testaverde alone. BIG. If there were an award given out to the player who contributes the most to an opposing team’s success Vinny Testaverde would have unanimously won this award. Think about it. If you were an opposing team playing against the Bucs in 1988, you could pretty much count of Vinny making more plays to help your team win than his own. The dude had a 7.5% interception ratio (that’s just sickening). In any case, Vinny and the Bucs somehow managed to win 5 games that season. Here is Vinny’s entire stat line for the 1988 season: 3,240 yards on 43% completion percentage, 13 touchdowns, 35 INTERCEPTIONS and a league worst 48.8 passer rating (ouch ouch). The urban dictionary defines the term “testaverde” as the act of throwing an interception in a football game. An example would be, “The Patriots would have won the 1996 Superbowl if Bledsoe didn’t testaverde four times in the game.” To help illustrate just how bad a year it was for Testaverde, check out this video clip from 1988.

Thankfully, things didn’t get worse the following season. Vinny improved his play dramatically, lowering his number of interceptions down to a manageable yet league worst 22 and improving his number of touchdown throws to 20. In 14 starts Vinny went 5-9 but got his completion percentage up to 53.8 and his passer rating to an impressive 68.9 (big).

Despite Vinny’s improvement at quarterback the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were an awful football team. Many sports writers and analysts have pointed out that the Tampa Bay offense of the late 80′s and early 90′s was one of the worst offenses of all time (probably the worst). Not a single Tampa Bay player made the pro-bowl while Testaverde was the starting quarterback. Not one. After his 35 interception season, one of the Tampa coaches said something like, “some of those were his fault, and some were his receiver’s fault.” I think that’s a fair statement apropos the talent surrounding the young Testaverde. But I always remember Vinny Testaverde as a horrible decision maker, even later in his career. In six seasons in Tampa, Vinny Testaverde went 24-48 and threw more picks that touchdowns in all six seasons for a grand total of 112 interceptions (BIIIIIIG).

After the 1992 season, Vinny Testaverde packed it up and headed to Cleveland to join a really mediocre Browns team and to ultimately replace veteran mediocre quarterback Bernie Kosar. Vinny started only 6 games in 1993, but managed to lead the league in yards per completion (13.8) and threw fewer picks that touchdowns for the first time in his career (14 tds against 9 picks).

1994 was a landmark year for Vinny Testaverde. After previously posting a losing record in his first 7 seasons, Testaverde guided the Browns to a 9-4 record in 13 starts and a playoff berth against Drew Bledsoe and the New England Patriots. In his first career NFL playoff game, Vinny Testaverde came up big and totally redeemed himself, playing mistake free football against a stingy Patriot secondary as the Browns went on to win a close one, 20-13. Sadly, the Brown’s season ended abruptly the following week when Vinny returned to form against the Pittsburgh Steelers, throwing a pair of interceptions in a 29-9 loss.

The 1995 season was a disappointment for the Browns but a promising one for Testaverde as he improved statistically in almost every passing category. Although his record as a starter was dismal (4-8 in 12 starts), Vinny posted career bests in completion percentage (61.5), interception percentage (2.6) and passer rating (87.8).

In 1996 the Browns left Cleveland and moved the franchise to Baltimore where they became the Baltimore Ravens. Testaverde kept his job as the starter and had the biggest and best season of his career. In the 10 previous seasons, Testaverde managed to put up consistently mediocre to poor numbers. One of the big reasons why I think he struggled so much is because he never could stay healthy enough to start in 16 regular season games. In his first year in Baltimore, Vinny started all 16 games for the first time in his career. Despite finishing 4-12, Vinny exploded for 4,177 passing yards (2nd in the NFL and personal best), 33 touchdown passes (2nd in the NFL and personal best) against only 19 picks and a passer rating of 88.7. These numbers were big enough to earn him his first career pro-bowl selection. Interestingly, on opening day against the Raiders, Vinny Testaverde became the first player in Ravens history to score a touchdown (big).

In 1998 Vinny landed with the New York Jets where he immediately became a fan favorite. It was in New York where Testaverde had his most successful seasons, especially 1998. The 1998 campaign was the first time in his career that Vinny played with an above average offensive unit. He had Curtis Martin in the backfield, Keyshawn Johnson as a number one and Wayne Chrebet at the two. With an all-star cast around him, Vestaterde guided his new team to a 12-4 finish (first in the AFC east) going 12-1 in games he started. He threw a career low 7 interceptions and posted a career high 101.6 passer rating, a performance that would earn him his second pro-bowl selection. Vinny led the Jets to the AFC championship game loss against the eventual Superbowl champion Denver Broncos.

Following the ’98 season, Testaverde tore his Achilles tendon in the first regular season game and missed the remainder of the season. But the aging gunslinger bounced back in 2000, leading the league in both pass attempts (590) and interceptions (25). The highlight of the season was a Monday night game against the Miami Dolphins. In that game the Jets fell behind 30-7 going into the fourth quarter, but came back to win the game 40-37 behind five Testaverde touchdown passes, including one each to Laveranues Coles, Jermaine Wiggins, Jumbo Elliott, and two to Wayne Chrebet. I remember watching this game and going to bed early thinking my childhood hero Dan Marino had the game in the bag, but I awoke the following morning only to find out on sportscenter that Vinny Testaverde pulled off the greatest comeback in Monday night history.

The next season the Jets returned to the playoffs but lost in the first round. That season Testaverde had a modest statistical year, throwing for only 2,752 yards and 15 touchdowns, but won 10 games because of his ability to manage football games.

In 2004, at the age of 41, Vinny Testaverde was picked up in free agency by the Dallas Cowboys and former Jets head coach, Bill Parcells. The Tuna and Testaverde had developed a special relationship in New York and Parcells felt that Testaverde could bring his veteran leadership to a young but extremely talented Dallas offense. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out as Parcells had planned. As the starting quarterback for Dallas, Vinny Testaverde led the league in interceptions again (20) and managed to win only 5 games (finishing with a record of 5-11).

After being released after only one season in Dallas, the gilded warrior bounced around from team to team, filling in for injured starters and only being called upon to close out games. From 2005-2007, Testaverde played for 3 different teams (the Jets, Patriots and Panthers), rounding out his career total of teams played for to 7.

Vinny finally decided to call it quits in 2007 after 21 inglorious seasons as an NFL quarterback. He never won a Superbowl and only made the playoffs 3 times for a career playoff record of 2-3. In a career that spanned 3 decades, Vinny Testaverde played for 7 different teams, threw more interceptions than touchdowns in a season 11 separate times, is the only all-time leader in touchdown passes for two different teams: the Baltimore Ravens (51) and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (77), holds the NFL record for having thrown a touchdown pass in 21 consecutive seasons, the record for most losses by a starting quarterback with 123, and the NFL record for throwing touchdown passes to 70 different players.

After playing for 21 painfully mediocre seasons, Vinny Testaverde managed to accumulate so many stats that he is ranked in the top 10 of virtually every significant passing category. He current ranks 7th in pass completions (3,787), 6th in passing attempts (6,701), 7th in passing yards (46,233), 8th in passing touchdowns (275), and 4th in interceptions (267). Given the fact that most of the players in the top 10 of these categories are hall of fame quarterbacks, Testaverde’s numbers look pretty impressive

Call me crazy, but with numbers like that I think Vinny should be considered for the hall of fame. He will probably never make it, but to have played for as long as he did and to put up the kind of numbers that he did is pretty incredible. Vinny Testaverde had the divine misfortune to play for some remarkably terrible offenses. Think about this: In 21 years, Testaverde had only 4 winning seasons. You would never expect that from a guy with career numbers like Testaverde.

I don’t know what else to say. Vinny Testaverde is a mediocre god.

I’ll end this epic post with a tribute video of the great Testaverde. Enjoy!

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