Sixteen Years Later, Flutie Magic Still Lives

Lawyer Milloy is probably sick of Doug Flutie, and who can blame him.

I mean, how is this guy from Washington supposed to understand Flutie’s place in New England sports lore? Why shouldn’t the All-Pro strong safety get a little torqued off when asked if the home crowd this Sunday will be pro-Patriots or pro-Flutie? This is a Patriot home game, not a Boston College home game. What gives?

Patriots/Bills Close-up
Where:	Foxborough Stadium Foxborough, Mass.
When:	Sunday 11/5 1:00 PM EDT
TV:	CBS WBZ TV-4 in Boston
DSS:	DirecTV Channel 709, 940
Latest Line:	Patriots by 2
Team Records:	Patriots 2-6 Bills 4-4

Well, Lawyer, it’s like this. The Patriots haven’t played in Seattle since 1988. If they did, especially within the career time frames of yourself and your quarterback, you then might begin to understand.

Because the Patriots haven’t seen the clouds of Puget Sound in quite a while, football fans of the Pacific northwest never get a chance to see two great football players come home to play football in the region where they starred as college kids. Milloy played at U-Dub (that’s what the locals refer to the University of Washington as; you know, “dub” as in “dubble-u”?). Meanwhile, Drew Bledsoe played up in the Palouse, amidst strawberry country at some collegiate outpost named Wazzu (ah, those locals; that’s Washington State, of course).

So tell me, wouldn’t it just figure that Bledsoe (sorry, Lawyer, but they remember the QB’s longer than they remember the SS’s) might get a whole ton of cheers if he were to return to his native birthland to play against the Seahawks? You’d have the whole town of Ellensburg out there, for cryin’ out loud.

Now, that would be something. Let’s get the fans of Ellensburg, Washington and Natick, Massachusetts together. Put them on separate concourses. Have one side start yelling “We got spirit, yes we do, we got spirit…”, and you know the rest.

If you were forced to compare the two, which is difficult since Bledsoe has never faced the Seahawks on the road, the smart money says that Natick would win. Bledsoe is a definite hero in the state of Washington, make no mistake. But it pales to Flutie’s status in the Bay State.

Bledsoe’s signature moment as a collegian was his final game against U-Dub. That heralded 42-21 win over the Huskies on a snowy day in Pullman in 1992 stamped Bledsoe as a “big game quarterback”, and literally secured him as the top pick of the draft. Any Patriot fan who watched that game had dreams of that big guy in the red number 11 jersey playing quarterback for his team in 1993, and Bill Parcells eventually made that dream come true.

But that game pales, and by a long shot, to the Day After Thanksgiving in 1984. Not even close, buster.

The epic 47-45 win by BC over Miami can be called arguably the best college football game in history. That classic seesaw battle between Flutie and Bernie Kosar ended with arguably the most famous play in collegiate history.

The Catch. Gerard Phelan caught it. Flutie threw it. Stop right there.

Flutie threw it. You might not be able to come up with any play in the entire history of the New England Patriots that is as indelible as this play was. In the entire New England football pantheon, maybe the two-point conversion Harvard got to tie Yale in 1968 comes close. This play is the signature moment of football in New England. Flutie threw it.

This same Flutie guy won the Heisman Trophy eight days later. That elevated Flutie to demigod status, and makes the fact that Flutie threw it comparable to things like the ball Pudge hit or the ball that Havlicek stole or the goal that Orr scored.

John Hannah may be the best Patriot ever, or someday Bledsoe will be. But Flutie is the most revered New England football player ever. If you disagree, you either aren’t paying attention or you absolutely hate Boston College. To this day, sixteen years after The Catch, Flutie is still a fan fave as his Bills head to town Sunday, and one still has to wonder if the Foxborough fans will root for the Patriots or Flutie.

And why not? Ask football fans across the region their feelings on that BC-Miami game. Going further, ask non-BC fans what they thought. Yours truly swears allegiance to UMass, but was a screaming lunatic when Phelan caught the ball on the game’s final play. It remains the best college football game I’ve ever seen, a lot more exciting than UMass’s I-AA championship two years ago.

What may be both interesting and unbelievable is that Patriot Nation may not immediately remember that Flutie is an ex-Patriot. Flutie wore a Patriot uniform from 1987 to 1989. He is the 11th leading passer in club history going into this season. His numbers aren’t much to squawk about (11 TD passes, 14 picks, 48.5 completion percentage), and his last team (1989) suffered through a 5-11 campaign where three other quarterbacks threw more passes than Flutie (Steve Grogan, Marc Wilson, Tony Eason).

Much to the dismay of Patriot Nation, Flutie was dismissed in favor of Wilson, and eventually Hugh Millen. The 1990 Patriots finished 1-15. Would Flutie have made a difference on that putrid team? It’s a good bet he wouldn’t have been one of the lowlifes who flashed Lisa Olson.

Flutie bolted for Canada, and eventually resurfaced in Buffalo. Currently he is embroiled in a quarterback controversy, as Bills head coach Wade Phillips insists that Rob Johnson should be the starter. Phillips ignores Flutie’s incredible winning record as a starting quarterback, and plays the taller and younger Johnson. Johnson was injured recently, so Flutie will start his second straight game.

Now, what will Patriot Nation hope for Sunday?

With the 2000 season down the tubes, don’t rule out a huge contingent of Flutie fans making their affection for their fave known to all. If these fans are really tuned into the quarterback problems in Buffalo, they might want to really turn on the screams for Flutie, and ram it into Phillips’ head that Flutie should quarterback the Bills until he drops.

Then, the question becomes this: How many such Flutie fans are out there? How many of them will be at the game Sunday? What are the Patriots supposed to think of all this?

Somewhere, fans need to draw the line. No one who cares about the history of football in this region should ever forget what Flutie has meant to the area. But the Patriots are the team of this area, not the Bills. You can cheer Flutie, but the roars should be for the men in dark blue with the Flying Elvises.

Carlton Fisk was cheered a bit everytime he came back to Fenway after the 1980 season, but that didn’t turn the Fenway crowd into White Sox fans. Larry Bird always got a warm reception as Pacers head coach, but the Vault crowd didn’t become Pacer fans.

With Flutie, it’s different. Everyone remembers The Catch. Everyone remembers this guy from Natick the night he cradled the Heisman. Sixteen years later, Flutie is still every bit the beloved college hero he’s always been.

But he is the visitor. He wears the Bills uniform. Somewhere along the line, the Flutie Magic has to stop, and Patriot loyalty has to kick in.

Please, fans. For Milloy’s sake, root for his team. One of these days, he’ll get out to Seattle and figure this Flutiemania thing out.

For now, it’s roar for Lawyer and yay for Doug. Simple.

About Bob George

Covering Boston Sports since 1997. Native of Worcester, Mass. Attended UMass and Univ of Michigan. Lives in California. Just recently retired after 40 years of public school teaching. Podcasts on YouTube at @thepic4139

View all posts by Bob George