Tim Dwight was fast. Lightning fast. In fact, the dude’s nickname in the NFL was “White Lightning.” Tim Dwight has always been an enigma, and for a small guy in the NFL (only 5’8″ and 180 lbs.), Tim Dwight was one of the Biggest Dogs ever. As a professional football player, Tim Dwight couldn’t size up to other players, but he had two things that can make anyone succeed in this world: speed and heart. And when I say “heart” I am not suggesting an image of Tim as this “Rudy Ruettiger” type figure. I mean “heart” in the sense that this guy was absolutely and uncompromisingly fearless. I have a distinct memory of him running back across the field after handing the ball off to Tony Martin on a double end-around and trying to block Warren Sapp. The play resulted with Dwight on the sidelines for the remainder of the season, but even a bone-crushing hit from a titan like Sapp couldn’t stop Tim Dwight for good.
Tim Dwight was the top recruit out of his High School in Iowa City, Iowa. He got several scholarships from multiple Big 10 schools but elected to attend the U of I. As a Hawkeye, he set school records for career receiving yards and touchdowns. He even finished 7th in the Heisman voting his senior year.
Many people were skeptical of Dwight succeeding in the NFL because of his size, but his supernatural speed attracted the curiosity of the Atlanta Falcons who drafted Tim Dwight in the fourth round of the 1998 NFL draft. In the first game of his NFL career and on his first career reception, he scored on a 44-yard touchdown pass from the transcendent Chris Chandler. In his first season, Dwight accompanied the Falcons to a Superbowl berth against the Denver Broncos. It was in Superbowl XXXIII that Tim Dwight really made a big-time name for himself. After trailing the Broncos 31-6 in the fourth quarter, the “kamikaze kid” delivered one of the most inspiring plays in Superbowl history, taking a kickoff 94-yards to the house. His 210 kick return yards for that game rank second all-time in Superbowl history.
Dwight followed his respectable rookie campaign with an historically underrated and overlooked sophomore season. Despite catching only 32 balls for 669 yards (seven of which were touchdowns), he led the league in yards per reception (20.9) These statistics are actually somewhat staggering if you put them into perspective. With 32 grabs going for 7 scores, Dwight scored a touchdown nearly 22% of time he caught a pass. Tack on another punt returned for a touchdown out of 20 attempts and one rushing touchdown on 5 carries, Tim Dwight was arguably the most valuable player in the league based on the number of times he actually got the ball. BIG. To recap, Tim Dwight had the football in his hands a grand total of 57 times and scored a touchdown on 9 of those plays, that’s roughly a touchdown every 6 touches. HUGE.
In 2001, Tim Dwight was traded to the San Diego Chargers in a deal that enabled Atlanta to select Michael Vick with the Chargers’ number one overall pick in the 2001 NFL draft. With the Chargers, Tim had a limited role in the return game but upped his impact as a wide-out. In 2002, Dwight caught a career high 50 passes for 620 yards but only 2 scores. As a receiver, he was never afraid to go over the middle, but unfortunately, this “fearlessness” that proved to be so crucial to his early success in the NFL became his Achilles heel. Injuries from on-the-field heroics kept Tim sidelined for most of his career in San Diego and his numbers decreased considerably. No longer able to maintain a 4/40 speed, the Chargers released Dwight in 2004.
Luckily, though, the Patriots signed Dwight to a one-year contract in 2005. In his only season with New England, he caught only 19 passes for 332 yards and 3 touchdowns (ouch). From 2006-2007 he bounced around the New York Jets and Oakland Raiders organizations before becoming an unsigned free-agent in 2008. To this day Tim Dwight remains a free-agent and it baffles me as to why any team would hesitate to sign him.
Everyone remembers Tim Dwight as being this preternaturally fast white dude who had a few decent years in the NFL. I personally love the guy because he was fun to watch and played the game with reckless abandon. He was a natural play-maker, a guy who could really make things happen when he got the ball in his hands. At the age of 35 I’m not sure Tim Dwight still has “White Lightning” speed, but I am confident that, if given the chance, he’d prove to everyone that he’s still a big dog with a lot of bite left in him.
Sid Bream is partially responsible for my obsession with Major League Baseball. If you are a BIG baseball fan, you can probably guess the moment where I became hooked. However, out of fairness to Bream and is mediocre legacy, I think I owe it to him to recap his entire career.
Bream was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2nd round of the 1981 draft. Bream did not come to the big leagues straight from high school having played his college ball at Liberty University. If you are not aware, Liberty University is for the batshit crazy and was founded by the late Jerry Falwell. That is the same Jerry Falwell responsible for these very memorable quotes:
“AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals”
“The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews”
You know what? This isn’t a Falwell post, it’s a Sid Bream post and I won’t hold his choice of college against him. Back to Bream…
Bream ripped through the minors very quickly and debuted for the Dodgers in 1983. He played first base almost exclusively and that was his role as a pinch-hitter for the Dodgers. In September of 1985 he was shipped to the Pirates in a the deal that sent the LEGENDARY Bill Madlock to the Dodgers.
Sid went on to claim the 1st base job in Pittsburgh for the next five seasons. He had some decent years there, highlighted by the 1990 season. That year, Sid had an OPS+ of 124 while slugging 15 homers and driving in nearly 70 runs. That Pirates club lost to the Reds in the NLCS, but it was not Sid’s fault as he hit .500 with a homer in the series.
That offseason, the Pirates decided to give the first base job to a young Orlando Merced and let Bream sign with the Atlanta Braves. The Pirates had no idea Bream would come back to break their hearts. The Braves and Pirates both won their divisions and played one of the more memorable NLCS in recent memory. The series reached a seventh game which concluded with one of the greatest moments in playoff history. The radio broadcast of what happened next is below:
Bream, one of the slowest players in the league, scored the series clinching run as he beat the throw home from a young, Barry Bonds. Bream had no business going 2nd to home on that play, but he made it anyway. What a big dog.
Anyway, Bream’s career really peaked at that moment and he is forever a piece of baseball history because of that play. Sid played two more years and a year in Houston before falling out of the big leagues for good at the age of 33 in 1994.
Bream now works as a motivational speaker (duh!) and a minor league hitting instructor. He left baseball with a .264 batting average and 90 home runs. Sid Bream, I salute you.
Alex Kowalsky, in many ways, is the epitome of what it means to be mediocre. Over his the span of his life, Alex has displayed an unbelievable and unparalleled pattern of excellence in mediocrity. He has seen his fair share of peaks and valleys, but he never has strayed too far from that line right in the middle.
Born to poor, Polish immigrants in Bisbee, Arizona in 1984, Alex was a man of humble beginnings. He struggled with the language barrier in rural Arizona and spent most of his formative years watching cartoons and eating a steady diet of fish sticks. As he grew (both in size and mediocrity), Alex became a BIG fish in the small bowl that was Bisbee.
When Alex was eight, his family packed up their Aerostar van and moved cross-country to Connecticut. It was in Connecticut that Alex began to mature as a young boy and as a writer. It was in 1993 that Alex wrote his first short story. It was a story entitled, “Bruno Goes to Market” and it was a sad little story about a boy named Bruno who got lost in the supermarket. Now, you may guess that while at the market a bunch of interesting stuff would happen. But, no. It was literally a story about this boy Bruno going to the market, buying some groceries, paying, and then going home. That’s it. It remains, to this day, one of the most boring stories ever written.
Alex was late bloomer physically. By the time he was 15 years old, Kowalsky stop at only 4’5” but was a pudgy 187 pounds. This obviously made him the target of his classmates insults. It was at this time that Alex began to further withdraw from reality. He spent most of his free time alone in his family’s basement. There he spent hours talking with his imaginary friends, reading, writing, and playing Mario Kart.
Alex would often challenge his siblings and parents to Mario Kart races. Later in his life, he would challenge students that he worked with to matches. Over his 12 year career of Mario Kart, Kowalsky has a career record of 877-878. Nearly perfectly mediocre. He usually beats who he should beat and seldom pulls of an upset. He is to Mario Kart as Miguel Batista is to Major League Baseball.
In 2004, Alex finally hit a growth spurt and shot up to six-feet in height. That 190-some pounds was able to spread out and Alex hit the gym. Hard. He replaced his video games and television with a Chuck Norris Total Gym and turned his disgusting body into that of a middle linebacker.
Late in 2009, Kowalsky became the co-founder of this website. He has been all over the map with his productions. He once carried the site for a month straight and turned out some absolutely dazzling posts. He covered the career of Vinny Testaverde, Dan Cortese, and Anthony Mason. He revolutionized the site by bring some sex-appeal to the site with provocative posts about Anna Kournikova and Danica Patrick. However, he also hit some lulls with lazy posts consisting of polls and nothing else.
The sad ending to the mediocre tale is that Al appears to be finished. He completed that Testaverde post back on June 16th and has since produced nothing. Nothing. His career arc resembles that of Pete Incaviglia or Terrell Davis. Say it ain’t so, Alex. Say it ain’t so.
Nate Robertson is many things. He is left-handed. He, along with millions of other Americans, wears glasses. He is white. He often sports irregular facial hair. He has been described as a “nice guy” by some. He was once (still is?) a home-owner in the fine city of Detroit. He is a pitcher for the Florida Marlins. Above all else, Nate Robertson is a failure as a baseball player. Nate is most fondly remembered in Detroit for chewing TONS of big league chew to inspire Tiger rallies. That’s his legacy in Detroit.
Robertson came up in the Marlins organization. The Marlins were proud to make the bespectacled lefty a 5th round back in 1999. The Marlins thought he was worth the pick after Robertson needed Tommy John surgery as a sophomore. You have admire the Marlins for using a relatively high pick on a guy with a serious injury history.
Nate blew through the low minors with some really strong seasons. In January of 2003, Robertson was shipped to the Detroit Tigers after making handful of relief appearances in the bigs with the Marlins. Robertson made 8 starts on the historically bad 2003 Tigers, going 1-2 with an ERA of 5.44, two trends that would continue throughout his sorry career.
In 2004, Robertson was arguable the staff ace in Detroit (which isn’t saying a lot). He managed to go 12-10 on a team that finished 18 games under .500. Nate posted an ERA just a tick below 5.00 and finished 8th in the Rookie of the Year voting, tied with legends John Buck and Dave Bush. Big.
In 2005, Robertson took a step back along with the rest of the Tigers. Big Nate lost 16 games and won only 7, further establishing his reputation as a loser. He coughed up 28 home runs in 196 innings of work while striking out 122 hitters. I recall reading something in a newspaper around this time where Nate described himself as a “power-pitcher”. I recall, then, rolling on the floor in laughter. What a joke.
2006 was a banner year for the Tigers organization. The won over 90 games for the first time in nearly 20 years and the team was led by clutch hitting and terrific pitching. Several player had career years and all but one of their starting pitchers posted a winning record. That one pitcher? You guessed it, Nate Robertson. On a Tigers team that finished 28 games over .500 and outscored their opponents by 150 runs, Nate Robertson lost 13 games. Ouch! While Robertson had an ERA below 4.00 for the first time that season, his legend as a loser continued to grow. He followed up his regular season by getting the shit kicked out of him by the New York Yankees in the ALDS.
After that 2006 season, the wheels really fell off the bus for Robertson. Check out his collapse in the sewer of Major League Baseball:
ERA
2007: 4.76
2008: 6.35
2009: 5.44
ERA+
2007: 96
2008: 71
2009: 85
WHIP:
2007: 1.475
2008: 1.660
2008: 1.752
Salary:
2007: $3.2 M
2008: $4.2 M
2009: $7 M
2010: $10 M
One could make the argument that by the time the 2009 season came to a close, that Nate Robertson was the most overpaid player in all of baseball. He was so bad at that point that the Tigers paid almost of his salary to have to go and play for someone else! Robertson was shipped back to the Marlins before the 2010 season for a bag of balls and a bucket of human shit. Since then, he’s continued his sorry act with the Marlins.
I know I cam across kind of tough on Nate, but I watched the guy toil in Detroit for far too long. He was really never that great and was mediocre in 2006. That’s it. While Nate is probably a perfectly nice dude and might even be cool to hang out with, he sure does suck as a baseball player.
My favorite thing about Nate Robertson? His name inspired one of the great blog names of all time.
Royce Clayton is my favorite kind of mediocre athlete. He was never great (he may have been good a couple of times) but he managed to hang around in the Major Leagues for 17 seasons. That’s saying something.
Over his 17 year career, Clayton played for 11 different teams. While both of those pieces of information are pretty impressive, even more impressive is where Clayton played on the diamond. Usually when a guy sticks around for so long, he moves around the diamond a bit to prolong his career. Not Royce Clayton. In those 17 seasons, Clayton was on the field for over 17,000 innings. Damn! In all of that time, Clayton spent all but 7.1 innings at shortstop. He was able to play solid enough defense at a premier position for 17 seasons. Nice.
Clayton made his big league debut with the San Francisco Giants way back in 1991. He was the Giants full-time shortstop from 1992-1995. During that time he hit a paltry .249 with an OPS+ of only 75. In the winter of 1995, he was the main piece in a trade that sent him to the St. Louis Cardinals.
In 1997, Clayton made his only All-Star Game. He hit .266 that season with 9 homers and 30 steals. The following season he was part of a trade deadline deal that sent him packing and he joined the Texas Rangers. Clayton enjoyed some decent power numbers in Texas (who doesn’t?) as he slugged 14 homers in back-to-back seasons.
Like most guys that stick around for a long time (Vinny Testaverde), Clayton put up some decent career totals in a few categories. Check this:
1,904 hits, 39th in baseball from 1991-2007
231 steals, 38th in baseball
In fact, over that time period, only 19 players in all of baseball had at least 1,900 hits and 200 steals. The list is filled with names like Barry Bonds, Kenny Lofton and Craig Biggio. Obviously, I’m not saying that Royce Clayton was as good as Barry Bonds, I’m just showing that when you stick around long enough, you’re bound to put up some good-looking numbers.
Royce got exactly 6 at-bats for the Red Sox in 2007, but that was enough for him to earn his only World Series ring. Atta boy, Royce. Also, I thought this was funny. It’s from the first sentence of his website:
“Royce Clayton is one of the premier baseball players of our time and a role model for athletes around the world.”
A week or so ago, I wrote about the RBs of the Dan Marino era and was just a total blast. It was a 17 year journey through a sea of mediocre running backs. While talking to Alex the other night, we came up with the idea for this post. The stiff’s that patrolled the paint during Michael Jordan’s reign in the Windy City. The results are just as depressing and even funnier than the jerks Marino had to play with. Enjoy.
Dave Corzine (1984-1989): The mustachioed Corzine was the Bulls starting center for Jordan’s rookie season in 1984-1985. He averaged 8 points and 5 boards a game in about 25 minutes a game. He hung on as a reserve for the next few seasons while getting pretty significant minutes. His finest seasons came earlier in his career when he average double-digit points with the Nets.
Jawann Oldham (1984-1986): Oldham got most of his playing time for the Bulls in the 1985-86 season, when Jordan played in only 18 games due to an injury. The seven-footer averaged 7 points, 6 boards and nearly 3 blocks a game in fairly limited action. Those numbers (especially the blocks) are impressive given his lack of playing time. Oldham now has his own basketball camp and website. On the site, he refers to himself as an “NBA Superstar.”
Brad Sellers (1986-1989): Sellers was a lottery pick in 1986. He is considered a bust. However, he was one of the few players from that draft not to completely ruin their lives with cocaine, so at least he has that going for him. Sellers was seven-feet tall and could shoot the rock, but he was a total wimp and not a real center. He never averaged double digits for the Bulls and was shipped out-of-town for a draft pick. That draft pick would become BJ Armstrong, one of the most mediocre All-Star’s of all-time.
Bill Cartwright always looked pissed. Probably because he was a dick.
Bill Cartwright (1988-1994): Bill Cartwright was a dick. He frequently picked up technical fouls for being a dick. He was a beast in college at San Francisco, where he followed in the footsteps of Bill Russell. He was an NBA lottery pick who put together a pretty decent career and was probably the best Jordan-era center. He started most of the time Chicago but rarely got over 30 minutes a game. He averaged double digits during his first two seasons before deferring even more to Jordan.
Jack Haley (1988-1990, 1995-1996): Jack Haley sucked. Perfectly nice dude from what I can tell, but a lousy basketball player. Haley averaged just a tick over two points a game while with the Bulls and played in only one game during the 1995-96 season. Haley is best known for being in Aerosmith’s “Love in an Elevator” music video and for being Dennis Rodman’s best friend.
Will Perdue (1988-1995, 1999-2000): Believe it or not, Will Perdue was a Lottery pick way back when. The Bulls took the seven-footer 11th overall back in 1988. He never averaged more than 8 points a game. Even though he is a career 57% free throw shooter and was never a regular starter, Perdue is the proud owner of four NBA Championship rings (3 with the Bulls, one with the Spurs). He is arguably the whitest player to ever appear in the NBA (post 1965).
Stacey King (1989-1994): King is the highest lottery-pick bust of the Jordan era centers. King was drafted 6th overall in the 1989 draft out of Oklahoma where she absolutely dominated. In her four seasons with the Bulls she averaged about 7 points and 3 rebounds a game before the Bulls traded her for the immortal Luc Longley (more on him in a second). King never get it together in the NBA but has a pretty sweet TV gig for Bull television. Stacey is noted as being the only female player in NBA history.
I would have killed to be at this party.
Bill Wennington (1993-1999): Wennington’s main claim to fame is being one of the finer, bearded-Canadian basketball players of the 1990s. Wennington looked like a towering Red Wood out on the court, checking in at seven feet tall and 250 pounds. Sadly, he played much smaller, getting about 5 points and 2 rebounds a game during his time with the Bulls. Wennington was a decent free throw shooter for a center, making over 80% of his attempts. He is a proud member of the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame.
Luc Longley: Professional Big Dog.
Luc Longley (1994-1998): Luc Longley has been described as a deft passer. He has also been described as slow, offensively handicapped, and Australian. It’s all true. Longley came over in that BIG Stacey King trade and was the Bulls starting center for three seasons. Longley averaged right around 10/5 while with the Bulls. He was traded to the Suns after winning three rings with the Bulls. He currently resides in his homeland and his married to a celebrity chef. What a dude.
Corie Blount has a problem.
Corie Blount (1993-1995): Blount was a first round pick of the Bulls in 1993 after a mediocre run at Cincinnati. He averaged only 3 points and 3 rebounds a game while in Chicago with Jordan (he made 2 more appearances with the Bulls later in his career). There are some other guys that logged more minutes than Blount, but he has a story. Since retiring, Blount has been arrested multiple times for drug offenses. He was busted with over 11 pounds of marijuana. He later pled guilty and spent a year in prison for having close to 30 pounds on him at his house. You can watch him get sentenced here if you’re into that sort of thing.
No one knows what happened to Bison Dele.
Bison Dele (1996-1997): Dele (formerly Brian Williams) played in only 7 regular season games in 1996-97, but made significant contributions in the postseason. Williams struggled through some personal issues while in college and early in NBA career. After his nice run with the Bulls, in which he earned a ring, Dele got a big free agent deal from the Detroit Pistons. After a couple of nice seasons with the Pistons, Dele tired of the organization and of basketball and called it quits abruptly at the age of 30. He walked about from over $30 million. Weird dude. The story of what happened next is sad and even weirder. Reportedly, Dele went sailing on his boat (the Hakuna Matata) with his girlfriend, a skipper and his brother. Dele was last seen on July 8th 2002. Almost two weeks later, the boat docked with only Dele’s brother on board. The conclusion made was that Dele’s brother killed everyone on board in order to get the boat, some gold, and some cash. His brother insisted he was innocent, but he feared prison. In September he overdosed on insulin and died. He was the only major witness in the incident, so it seems unlikely that we will ever find out what happened to Bison Dele.
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!
