SPORTS FANATIC

It’s Been Over 40 Years, I Should Probably Let It Go

Some mistakes are hard for a sports fan to forgive, let alone forget

“Kansas City. First choice in the first round. Quarterback. Todd Blackledge. Penn State. “ — Pete Rozelle, NFL Commissioner, 1983 Collegiate Draft

Blackledge. It’s a name that rolls off the tongue of every Kansas City Chiefs fan old enough to remember, spoken with the same mocking and disdainful tone as Jerry Seinfeld’s greeting to his arch-rival, the evil Newman.

It’s easy to be a Chiefs fan these days. But then again, it’s equally easy to be a Chiefs-hater. Trips to the Super Bowl seem to be a foregone conclusion even before the season starts these days.

For me, it never gets old. For others, particularly, Las Vegas Raiders fans, it is grating on them like nails on a chalkboard. It is a great time to root for the red, white, and gold.

But it hasn’t always been this way.

Step back to 1983 with me for a bit. One of my darkest memories of Kansas City Chief’s fandom.

ESPN was a 4-year-old fledgling 24-hour cable sports network best known for broadcasting obscure sports and events like the Slow-Pitch Softball World Series and Australian rules football.

In ESPN’s infancy, it was as if the producers of Saturday Night Live had suddenly decided to broadcast sports.

Its reporters, including Chris Berman, were just baby-faced kids who had no idea the what the hell they were doing or the ultimate impact that they would have on the sports landscape.

They were just having a damn good time riffing on sports.

To boost its respectability, bigwigs at ESPN convinced NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, to allow it to televise the NFL draft in 1980.

Given the television spectacle it is today, it is nearly unfathomable to think that until 1980, the draft took place in secret behind the closed doors of a smoky hotel banquet room in the dead of night.

Even Rozelle was skeptical that anyone would want to watch “a bunch of nobodies sitting around on telephones,” but he knew that any exposure for the league was good exposure.

Looking at it now, I’d say the marriage has proven successful. Over 54 million people tuned in to watch the 2023 draft, a figure that more than doubles the average viewers of a Sunday night prime-time game.

By 1983, ESPN had ramped up its coverage to include a battalion of talking heads in New York and in its studio in Bristol, Connecticut, to cover what was being billed as the most talented draft class in the game’s history.

In the spring of 1983 I was in my final semester of college. In less than a month, I would pray to every holy deity for divine intervention on my finals.

But on this day, I was just a poor college kid, skipping class and eating chili from a can while watching grainy coverage of the draft on a 19-inch TV with a bootlegged cable connection.

All of my prayers that day were reserved for my Chiefs to finally find a quarterback.

The Chiefs were a dominating force throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, largely thanks to the play of their legendary quarterback, Len Dawson.

Beyond winning the fourth edition of the big game in 1969, the team had won the AFL title three times and had represented the AFL in the very first Super Bowl.

They appeared in the playoffs nearly every year. But age and injuries were quickly taking their toll on the team.

A heartbreaking double-overtime loss to the Miami Dolphins in the divisional round of the playoffs in 1971, signaled the start of a slow, steady decline that saw the Chiefs miss the playoffs for 12 consecutive years.

Dawson, the only quarterback most Chiefs fans had ever known, had endured years of abuse from opposing defenses. He had already played six years in the NFL before joining the upstart Dallas Texans, the AFL team that would soon become the Chiefs.

By the early 70’s, injuries and age were quickly catching up with him.

Lenny the Cool ultimately retired in 1975 at the age of 41. He went on to enjoy a long career as a local sportscaster and NFL commentator.

His departure coupled with a series of poor draft decisions and a lack of quarterback succession planning meant that the team had to endure the late 1970s and early 1980s with the scintillatingly bad play of quarterbacks that you’ve never heard of. Forgettable names like Mike Livingston, Steve Fuller, and Bill Kenney.

The 1982 season ended with the Chiefs posting a dismal 3–6 record. A player’s strike had cut the season nearly in half and not even a dramatically expanded playoff schedule would extend their season.

The team needed a quarterback.

The 1983 draft was seen as a ray of hope to beleaguered fans. The Chiefs held the seventh pick in the first round. And the 1983 draft class held a bevy of talent.

Stanford’s John Elway led a covey of highly-touted quarterbacks, including Jim Kelly, Tony Eason, Ken O’Brien, and Dan Marino. The Chiefs were bound to select one and close the door on the Chiefs quarterback curse.

I sat in my apartment glued in front of the TV and anxiously awaited the first pick.

Sitting at folding tables instead of occupying posh war rooms, the representatives from the 30 teams looked like sardines crammed in the ballroom at New York City’s Sheraton Hotel.

The draft was to be a marathon, single-session event of 12 rounds that wouldn’t be complete until well after midnight.

Elway was the consensus №1 pick among the talking heads. Deemed the golden child both for his flowing locks and cannon arm, Elway was the darling of the draft.

The Baltimore Colts had the first pick and desperately wanted to draft Elway. But, prior to the draft, Elway had made numerous public statements saying that he would never play for the Colts and that if they drafted him, he would opt for a baseball contract with the New York Yankees instead.

Could it be possible that the Colts would pass on Elway?

There were other highly coveted superstars like running backs Eric Dickerson and Curt Warner on the board. And some of the teams picking ahead of the Chiefs were in more serious need of beef on their offensive lines or shoring up holes in their defense.

Could Elway fall to №7 and become the Chief’s savior?

That was certainly more of a dream than a possibility, but it made the likelihood of the number two-rated quarterback, Kelly, or even third-ranked, Eason realistic possibilities.

Then there was this stud kid out of the University of Miami, Dan Marino. A natural talent whose draft stock had tanked due to rumors of recreational drug use, waiting in the shadows. Even Ken O’Brien from UC Davis was a potential sleeper option.

The answer to the Elway question came quickly as the Colts selected Elway as soon as the gavel sounded, despite his objections.

Dickerson and Warner were the next two players off the board going to the Los Angeles Rams and Seattle Seahawks, respectively.

The Denver Broncos, San Diego Chargers, and Chicago Bears were true to their words and made selections to beef up their offensive lines or add help on defense.

Then the commissioner spoke the words I had been waiting for, “Kansas City is on the clock.”

Earlier, the Chiefs draft team had fielded questions from one of the ESPN interviewers about its first pick. The Chiefs expressed interest in shoring up their offensive line to protect starting quarterback, Bill Kenney.

The interviewer didn’t believe them and neither did I. Kenney was a mediocre QB, at best. The Chiefs needed a franchise player to dig them out of this pit of despair.

It was only a matter of which quarterback they would pick.

When the interviewer pressed about the quarterback talent still available, the Chiefs seemed to telegraph their pick. They spoke highly of Eason and downplayed their interest in the others.

The clock was ticking. The team had 15 minutes to decide.

Finally, the team handed in their handwritten selection to the podium. The commissioner read it carefully and announced the pick. There was silence in the room.

As the cameras panned back to the three commentators in the room, even they seemed speechless by the pick of Penn State’s Todd Blackledge.

In disgust, I turned off the TV and headed for the nearest bar.

Blackledge went on to play in only 46 games in his five years in a Chiefs uniform. His completion percentage (48.1%) and his stat line of just 29 touchdowns with 38 interceptions confirmed how big a reach he was.

The Chiefs traded Blackledge to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1988. By then, the world had watched Elway reach the Super Bowl after being traded to the Broncos, a feat he would repeat in 1988.

Eason made his Super Bowl debut in 1985 as the starting quarterback for the New England Patriots.

Kelly was well on his way to stardom and making four consecutive Super Bowl appearances in the early 1990s with the Buffalo Bills.

Ken O’Brien would go on to start for the New York Jets for eight years. He is still the longest-tenured starter in Jets history.

In 1985, O’Brien was the highest-rated passer in the league, named an All-Pro, and led his team to the divisional round of the playoffs.

And that dope smoking kid, Marino? In 1984, he passed for a record 5,000-plus yards, threw an NFL-record 48 touchdowns, and was named the league MVP. He ultimately went on to break more than 40 NFL records on his way to the Hall of Fame.

It would take 34 years for the wounds of the 1983 draft to heal enough for the Chiefs to select another quarterback in the first round.

In 2017, the team drafted a relatively unknown quarterback out of Texas Tech named Patrick Mahomes.

I won’t lie to you. When they announced his name, I had flashbacks to that can of chili and a 19-inch TV.

Patrick who?

In retrospect, things have certainly worked out better this time. My wife says that I should have had more faith.

She never understood the pain of the Blackledge trauma. She reminded me again last night of my initial reaction to the Mahomes pick.

I guess she’s right.

It’s probably time for me to let 1983 go.

Thanks for reading my story.

I am TheNewOldGuy. I write memoirs, tidbits, and random thoughts for my grandson. It’s meant to be a record of where he’s from and where he has been. Sometimes I might even try and clear a path to help him with where he is going.

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