What must Josh Allen do to pass Jim Kelly? Did Doug Flutie or Ryan Fitzpatrick crack the Top Five? Why do Bills quarterbacks make bad presidential running mates? Part 1 of a league-wide series.
"Ferguson went 0-of-2 in a 16-12 Week 3 win over the Jets in 1974. Simpson rushed for 117 yards. Joe Namath went 2-of-18 on this rainy, windy afternoon."
Vintage 1970s football! Love to see it etc etc let's hope it never comes back.
This is classic Tanier offseason content and I'm already excited about the rest of these.
My fondest memory of Joe Ferguson is him getting absolutely pulverized by Wilber Marshall in the last game of the 1985 regular season when he was with the Lions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj28tuacg3w
Football Outsider reader for years and am ecstatic that you decided to write for yourself. Loved going down memory lane with Joe Ferguson. Are there any plans this offseason to inform us on what we might expect from all the new DC's around the league?
Not sure how much I will do on the Defensive Coordinators. I WILL be doing daily updates during the first week or so of Free Agency and following all of the roster and cap news you need (and some you don't).
That 1990 Eagles-Bills game also features Randall Cunningham alluding Bruce Smith to throw one of the most beautiful touchdown passes, a 95-yard bomb to Fred Barnett, perhaps in NFL history. https://youtu.be/b2tMLpHj4hc?si=mGcVoAj1NN6Qmkp8
If anyone ever wants to dip their toes into early 90s football that Eagles-Bills is a highly recommended experience I enjoyed during the quarantine days of 2020. Also a lot of early 90s football is dominated by historically great defenses being met with less than inspiring offenses so in that sense there's a real change of pace to a lot of what you'd see in that era.
Unrelated but while Mike says he wants to bury the AFC South I, on the other hand, am quite looking forward to the time where he gets to spend multiple paragraphs waxing poetic on the storied career of T.J. Yates.
Remember watching that game with my college roommates. Just bonkers. Eagles went from 0-24 to 23-24 (damn missed extra point). The Cunningham Smith play literally had my roommates and I screaming and crying and hitting each other. If I remember correctly there was a late Bills turnover that the eagles D tried to make into a big return that resulted in a turnover right back to Buffalo.
I came back from the writing lab or something. My roommate, a Bills fan, was like, "We're winning, but there was this play, OMG this play, you gotta watch the highlights."
1. Bengals fan here, so to me it was Wyche who invented the modern up-tempo offense. Levy whined like an entitled teenager to his daddy in the commissioner's office that the '88 Bengals no-huddle was Not Fair... and then adopted the tactic himself shortly thereafter. No doubt the legendary Cincinnati parochialism is coloring my judgment.
2. Horse latitudes reference! Thought you might compare Flutie to Magellan's goat. :-)
It will be fascinating to see the whole league laid out and comparing the depth of each franchise. How many 5th ranked passer would be #1 most most teams
Looking forward to this; I have always thought you do a great job in putting teams and players in historical context. I get annoyed when I hear analysts drop phrases like "all time" when what they really mean is "the last fifteen years or so". Anyway I was able to correctly guess the first three but then it was a real steep drop after that, huh?
To be fair, this was much less ugly than I thought, since it's easy for me to forget that Ferguson was a reliably-mediocre starter FOREVER, since most of it happened before I started paying attention to football.
I, along with many other Bills fans, maintain that Edwards was never the same after his concussion. Not that he was a Hall of Fame-type anyway, but it was still sad to see him obviously not be able to process like he had before.
"Ferguson went 0-of-2 in a 16-12 Week 3 win over the Jets in 1974. Simpson rushed for 117 yards. Joe Namath went 2-of-18 on this rainy, windy afternoon."
Vintage 1970s football! Love to see it etc etc let's hope it never comes back.
This is classic Tanier offseason content and I'm already excited about the rest of these.
Got to say, I'm just thrilled that Mike is here and the content is pushed to us. This subscription is one I am more than happy to pay for!
Thanks for coming aboard!
My fondest memory of Joe Ferguson is him getting absolutely pulverized by Wilber Marshall in the last game of the 1985 regular season when he was with the Lions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj28tuacg3w
This can only mean one thing: we’ll finally get completion of the 5 Greatest WR for Each Team column.
Content for 2026.
I figured. But at least it will be here.
Football Outsider reader for years and am ecstatic that you decided to write for yourself. Loved going down memory lane with Joe Ferguson. Are there any plans this offseason to inform us on what we might expect from all the new DC's around the league?
Not sure how much I will do on the Defensive Coordinators. I WILL be doing daily updates during the first week or so of Free Agency and following all of the roster and cap news you need (and some you don't).
That 1990 Eagles-Bills game also features Randall Cunningham alluding Bruce Smith to throw one of the most beautiful touchdown passes, a 95-yard bomb to Fred Barnett, perhaps in NFL history. https://youtu.be/b2tMLpHj4hc?si=mGcVoAj1NN6Qmkp8
If anyone ever wants to dip their toes into early 90s football that Eagles-Bills is a highly recommended experience I enjoyed during the quarantine days of 2020. Also a lot of early 90s football is dominated by historically great defenses being met with less than inspiring offenses so in that sense there's a real change of pace to a lot of what you'd see in that era.
Unrelated but while Mike says he wants to bury the AFC South I, on the other hand, am quite looking forward to the time where he gets to spend multiple paragraphs waxing poetic on the storied career of T.J. Yates.
Remember watching that game with my college roommates. Just bonkers. Eagles went from 0-24 to 23-24 (damn missed extra point). The Cunningham Smith play literally had my roommates and I screaming and crying and hitting each other. If I remember correctly there was a late Bills turnover that the eagles D tried to make into a big return that resulted in a turnover right back to Buffalo.
I came back from the writing lab or something. My roommate, a Bills fan, was like, "We're winning, but there was this play, OMG this play, you gotta watch the highlights."
Looking forward to it, Mike! Might well dust off my copy of your book just to compare you're recaps.
I am trying very hard to not repeat myself.
I'm sure you'll have better luck with that regarding the quarterbacks who were either just starting out, or had yet to break into the league.
1. Bengals fan here, so to me it was Wyche who invented the modern up-tempo offense. Levy whined like an entitled teenager to his daddy in the commissioner's office that the '88 Bengals no-huddle was Not Fair... and then adopted the tactic himself shortly thereafter. No doubt the legendary Cincinnati parochialism is coloring my judgment.
2. Horse latitudes reference! Thought you might compare Flutie to Magellan's goat. :-)
I had subscribed to substack for one writer, and haven’t read any others until now. Do I need to subscribe specifically to Mike Tanier? If so, how?
Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but I don’t care what Tanier charges. I’ll pay it.
Figured it out. Fully subscribed and happy.
Glad you are on board! And glad Substack makes it so intuitive!
Might have to gift my dad a subscription for the Jets ranking that comes out on his birthday. It’ll be slim pickings but I’m guessing it’ll be:
1. Namath
2. Ken O’Brien
3. Pennington
4. Testaverde
5. Jeez, Richard Todd?
It will be fascinating to see the whole league laid out and comparing the depth of each franchise. How many 5th ranked passer would be #1 most most teams
Looking forward to this; I have always thought you do a great job in putting teams and players in historical context. I get annoyed when I hear analysts drop phrases like "all time" when what they really mean is "the last fifteen years or so". Anyway I was able to correctly guess the first three but then it was a real steep drop after that, huh?
To be fair, this was much less ugly than I thought, since it's easy for me to forget that Ferguson was a reliably-mediocre starter FOREVER, since most of it happened before I started paying attention to football.
I, along with many other Bills fans, maintain that Edwards was never the same after his concussion. Not that he was a Hall of Fame-type anyway, but it was still sad to see him obviously not be able to process like he had before.
Johnson and Losman were disasters.