CITY SAVIOR? : Perhaps Not, but Kelly Is Filling the Bills at Buffalo

To commit suicide in Buffalo is redundant. --BOBBY, in “A Chorus Line.”

Ah, Buffalo, America’s dart board. Home of bad weather, some bad teams and bad jokes.

Everybody wants to get into the act. Isiah Robertson, a former linebacker with the Buffalo Bills, once reportedly said, “Buffalo is not the end of the world. But you can see it from there.”

During the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, it was suggested that country should change its name to Buffalo. Nobody , went the reasoning, would invade Buffalo.

And even this week, Coach Marv Levy of the Bills, talking about his team’s home game Sunday against the Raiders, had a little fun when asked by reporters about the expected weather conditions.

“Cold, windy, snowy, icy,” Levy said. “Might be a little sleet, too. In the 20s, I understand, with a sharp north wind.

“And that’s indoors!”

So you can understand Jim Kelly’s feelings.

Here he was, a star quarterback at the University of Miami, a first-round draft choice in the National Football League and all he had to look forward to was going to Buffalo?

After the Bills had selected him, all he could envision were those nasty winds and slippery field conditions turning his beautiful, on-target spirals into wobbly, off-target misses.

It was enough to make a grown man cry. Which is exactly what Kelly said he did.

Now it’s not as if he had grown up on the shores of Malibu or Maui. Born in Pittsburgh, he attended high school at East Brady, a blue-collar, Pennsylvania community a lot like Buffalo.

But he had hoped for better.

After drying his tears, Kelly discovered that although the grass may not be as green in Buffalo, the money sure is. In fact, he nearly took that money right then and there, in the summer of 1983.

Kelly and his agent, Greg Lustig, were sitting in the office of the late Pat McGroder, then the Bills’ acting general manager. The contract was on the table, the pen was within reach, and everybody was smiling and nodding over the final details.

But the next sound was not that of pen on paper, but a phone ringing in the office.

It was Bruce Allen, a spokesman for the rival United States Football League. Lustig took the call.

Have you signed anything yet, Allen asked.

Not yet, he was told.

Then don’t, replied Allen. If you come with us, we’ll pay you more than they ever will and we’ll let you play anywhere you want.

In the NFL, in a year when John Elway and Dan Marino and several other big-name quarterbacks were drafted, Kelly just figured to be another star among stars. Also, he was coming off a shoulder separation that had cost him much of his senior season at Miami.

But for the USFL, he could be a Joe Namath, giving the new league instant credibility, the way Namath had in the old American Football League in the ‘60s.

Lustig said goodby to Allen, hung up and then said goodby to Buffalo.

Kelly joined the Houston Gamblers of the USFL and found a league and a system made for him. Using the run-and-shoot offense in a wide-open game, he shot plenty during his 2 seasons there.

He threw 83 touchdown passes, including 44 in ‘84, and had only 45 interceptions. He threw for more than 300 yards 16 times and for more than 400 in 3 games. On one unforgettable afternoon at the Coliseum against the Los Angeles Express, he completed 35 of 54 passes for 574 yards and 5 touchdowns.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. The USFL was going out of business, the Bills still held his rights, and Kelly was still looking elsewhere.

This time it was the Raiders who interested him. Kelly had always wanted to be a Raider. As a kid, he had worn a Raider cap. As an adult he did the same. When he wore a Raider cap on the streets of New Orleans while in town to watch Super Bowl XX, rumors of tampering were fueled.

“When you grow up, you always have your teams you want to play for,” Kelly said. “The Raiders sort of fit my image, as far as what I like to do. Before I came to Buffalo, I wore a Raiders hat all the time.”

Did he ever seriously talk to the Raiders?.

“I haven’t. My agent did,” said Kelly, referring to the period before he had joined the Bills.

The Raiders denied tampering charges at the time, and the Bills eventually took the case to Pete Rozelle, the NFL commissioner. Nothing was ever proven.

“We tried to work out a trade, but it just didn’t work out,” Kelly said. “I had no other choice. Either play or sit out. At that point in time, I didn’t feel like sitting out. I wanted to play football.

“Ralph Wilson (Bill owner) said he was going to dedicate himself to building a better team up here in Buffalo. He said he was going to get the players that we need. I respected him and I believed him, and so far, so good.”

It didn’t hurt that Kelly was given a 5-year contract that pays him $8 million.

When he was finally signed, he was flown to Buffalo and driven in a motorcade to a downtown news conference. People lined the streets along the way. Signs saying, “Bring Pro Football Back to Buffalo,” had been replaced with ones reading, “God Bless You, Jim Kelly,” and, “We Love You, Jim Kelly.”

And the media event that followed?

“It wasn’t a press conference as much as a coronation,” said Vic Carucci of the Buffalo News.

All three local TV affiliates interrupted the network news for the press gathering. Kelly upstaged Dan Rather.

There were greetings from civic officials and a call from New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.

And the result?

The Bills have gone from consecutive 2-14 seasons the 2 years before Kelly arrived to 4-12 his first season, 7-8 last year and 11-3 so far this season. With 2 games left, they have already won their first division title since 1980.

So Kelly has been the savior, after all?

Not exactly, strangely enough, although he still remains extremely popular. After breaking numerous club records his first 2 seasons--he completed 59.8% of his throws with 41 touchdown passes, along with 28 interceptions--Kelly’s numbers are down this season. Ranked sixth among AFC quarterbacks, Kelly’s most glaring disparity shows in the touchdowns-to-interceptions ratio, 12:17.

The fans used to put out K cards for his touchdown passes, celebrating them much as New York Mets fans herald Dwight Gooden’s strikeouts. The K in this case stood for Kelly, but the fans don’t do that much anymore because of the drop-off in production.

“I can’t tell you how many long passes he’s had to the 1-yard line,” Levy said. “He’s had 3 called back this season. And a lot of his interceptions have been in games where we’ve been trying to come back. But it’s one stat he was better on last year, and you can always make a rationalization for that.”

When it comes to statistics in general, Kelly must always battle an opponent some of his peers don’t have to worry about as much, the weather.

“No doubt about that,” he said. “It doesn’t bug me, but a lot of people don’t take that into consideration when they think of a quarterback in Buffalo. They think your stats should be the same as Dan Marino’s and Joe Montana’s, somebody who throws in warm weather or throws in a dome all the time. I got to be faced with 40- or 50-m.p.h. winds sometime.”

It goes with the territory. But then, that’s a sore subject, isn’t it?

A recent passenger on a flight landing in Buffalo summed it up. “You know,” he said, gazing out a window, “every time I come here, I realize God does have a sense of humor.”