Doug Flutie Retires

[The Gooch]

I guess I could put this in the NFL thread, but as a Canadian I say fuck it, he means a tonne to us Canucks and made the CFL a better league every year he was here. I can only wish that perhaps he would think of playing one more year up here in Canada. You are/were one of my favourites Doug. All the best.

http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/news_story.asp?id=165947

[Jesus Shuttlesworth]

Ends his career on the drop kick

[Gonzo]

Word up.

[D Mac]

He was a good QB for his size.

[RP]

This doesnt deserve its own thread but good luck to him.

[Zen v.W.o.]

Flutie is the man. Could have easile been solid in the NFL.

In the CFL he proved to be the best.

:heart: Flutie :heart:

[BCWWF]

I think this warrants it'd own thread. While he was still playing I didn't really realize who he was. I remembered how he lead the Bills to the playoffs only to be benched one year, but besides that I thought he was just a random backup quarterback who had a big play in college. Everything I have read, and the interviews with him on ESPN, have made him seem like the man.

Jim Souhan, the newest columnist at the Star Tribune (and Mizzou grad bitch) is becoming one of my favorite columnists now, and this is what he had to say.

We know this about Doug Flutie: He proved himself a winner, yet rarely did an NFL team embrace him as a starting quarterback.We know this about Tarvaris Jackson: Wherever and whenever he exhaled at the Vikings' minicamp this weekend, someone praised the rookie's unique abilities to speak and breathe. He earned high marks, too, for his uncanny alternating of feet while walking.
"He's enunciating the plays, he's starting to slow down, take a breath where you're supposed to take a breath in the plays," Vikings offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell said.
At the next minicamp, the Vikings braintrust hopes to build on Jackson's abilities in the speaking, breathing and walking departments by introducing gum chewing.
The contrast between the disdain with which Flutie was treated in the NFL and the way NFL teams fawn over any young quarterback with a strong arm and prototypical size is one example of what is wrong with the No Fun League.
If only Flutie, during his first minicamp, had learned to enunciate clearly and breathe correctly, maybe somebody would have believed in him.
Instead, the legendary figure from Boston College won six Most Outstanding Player awards in Canada and amassed a 21-9 record in three years at Buffalo, only to be shown the door.
Even more insulting, Flutie, in Buffalo, lost out to Rob Johnson, one of those cookie-cutter, broad-shouldered, height-enhanced guys who looks like a quarterback but plays like -- sorry to be harsh -- Sean Salisbury.
Flutie was a shade below 5-10. He liked to scramble. He was a wonderful leader.
He should have become a latter-day Fran Tarkenton. In the NFL, he was treated more like Fran Foley.
This is another reminder of why the NFL should be more like the CFL.
"I had more fun in Canada," Flutie said Monday at his farewell news conference. "I called my own plays. I knew what I could do and couldn't do, and I called plays that were easy for me."
Flutie noted that in the NFL, coaches are such control freaks that there are speakers in the quarterbacks' helmets, presumably to keep the QB from thinking for himself.
"If radios went down in the helmets," Flutie said, "there would be a mess out there right now."
There's no guarantee that if an NFL team had committed to Flutie in his prime, he would have won a Super Bowl.
That wouldn't make him unique. Dan Marino is still the best pure passer in NFL history, and he didn't win one.
Marino was fun to watch, though, wasn't he? And he had something in common with Flutie -- the ability to make the billion-dollar business that is the NFL feel like a Sunday afternoon sandlot pickup game. "I'm just a big kid," said Flutie at 43.
Traditional NFL thinking was epitomized by the latest draft. Gophers defensive tackle Anthony Montgomery disappeared during his senior season, but because he's big, Washington took him in the fifth round, planning to make him an offensive lineman.
Gophers center Greg Eslinger established himself as the finest college football player to grace Dinkytown in decades, then lasted until the sixth round.
The comparison with Flutie is not meant to demean Jackson.
If Joe Montana can go in the third round and Tom Brady in the sixth, we have no choice but to wait to see whether the Vikings were smarter than everybody else in jumping all over Jackson.
It's just that the NFL values potential over production.
So perhaps it's fitting that Flutie's last NFL play was a successful drop kick for an extra point, an anachronistic play that stoic Patriots coach Bill Belichick called "fun."
Flutie, the throwback, was always fun. We can only wish he could have run an NFL team, in his prime, with a free reign, instead of losing out to a prototypical NFL prospect and quintessential inside-the-box NFL thinking.

[CSL]

<font color=white>Doug Flutie is the first American Football player who's name I remembered. He was in some cheesy old school 80's NFL annual. Never knew anything about him or his career but he is one player every year who I go 'fuck, is he still around?' when I get the new Madden.

Good luck to the guy</font>

[D Mac]

http://www.classicbuffalo.com/images/FlutieFlakes.jpg

[CSL]

<font color=white>LoL!

At the bottom, Serving Suggestion - Milk & Spoon

Well no fuckin' shit sherlock</font>

[Jesus Shuttlesworth]

Somebody would probably sue them because when they opend the box there wasn't a spoon with milk and flutie flakes in it.

Also while I think Flutie is the man, he was never really "suited" to be a everyday starting NFL QB. Even when he made the Probowl in '98 he still threw a ton of INTS. I still think Buffalo are idiots for benching him though and bringing in Rob Johnson, just because Flutie isn't the greatest QB of all time doesn't mean you need to bring somebody else in (Who happened to be really terrible)

[The Outlaw]

HAIL MARY

[YOUR Hero]

The NFL's poor decision was a gift for the CFL. We got to watch a great display of QBing from him up here.

Good luck Doug Flutie and thanks for the memories.

[Jesus Shuttlesworth]

People are quick to forget he did play during a hold out, which is pretty fucked up if you ask me. I've always been a Flutie fan, because he is from around here and played for Boston College but he is a BIT overrated. NFL made no poor decision, he wasn't good/his style just didn't really fit the NFL game at all.

[Stickman]

His style did fit the NFL game but they didn't realize it. The NFL is an old boys league mentality that is very regimented. Flutie had talent, not just an arm that could throw bullets.

[Adder]

NFL QB = drop into the pocket and look for someone to pass to.

That's not the case in the CFL, or the way Flutie played. He was a scrambler, a rusher. He was perfect for the CFL and it's larger field dimensions.

[BCWWF]

Reggie McNeal!