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ShareThisMost quarterbacks to win games for one team
The Pittsburgh Steelers are starting their second quarterback of the season this week, and will start their third quarterback no later than week 6 when Ben Roethlisberger returns. Dennis Dixon was the starting quarterback for Pittsburgh's two wins this year, but after tearing the lateral meniscus of his left knee against the Titans, Charlie Batch is expected to start the team's next two games. Ben Roethlisberger will be back starting the team's fifth game, right after the bye week. Because Pittsburgh may have three different starting quarterbacks win games for them in the first five weeks, I started wondering which team had the most quarterbacks start and win games for them in a single season.
Not surprisingly, it's a strike team that tops the last among teams since 1960. Steve Grogan started the opener for the 1987 Patriots, a 28-21 win over Miami. Tony Eason started in week 2, a blowout loss against the Jets. Then the strike hit, and Richmond product Bob Bleier started for the Pats in weeks 3 and 4, the latter a "win" where Bleier went 4/13 for 43 yards and threw an interception. For game 5, the last of the strike games, hometown hero Doug Flutie got the start and guided New England to a 21-7 victory over Houston. After the strike, Eason resumed his role as starter for game 6, a was back for games 6 and 7, 30-16 loss to the Colts. The next week Eason would notch his lone victory of the season, a 26-23 win over the Raiders.
Grogan returned for the next two games, both Patriots losses, before missing another month due to injury. Tom Ramsey replaced him when Grogan went down against the Cowboys, and started the next three weeks against the Colts, Eagles and Broncos, winning once. Grogan returned in time to exact revenge on the Jets, throwing 4 touchdowns on only 18 attempts in a 42-20 victory. Grogan helped the Patriots win their final 3 games of the season, to finish the season at 8-7. The final tally goes like this: Grogan (4-2), Tom Ramsey (1-2), Tony Eason (1-2), Bob Bleier (1-1) and Doug Flutie (1-0).
Five teams since 1960 have seen exactly four different quarterbacks guide their teams to victory: the 2007 Panthers (Jake Delhomme (2), David Carr (1), Vinny Testaverde (2) and Matt Moore (2)), the 1998 Saints (Billy Joe Hobert (1), Danny Wuerffel (2), Billy Joe Tolliver (1) and Kerry Collins (2)), the 1989 Patriots (Tony Eason (1), Doug Flutie (1), Steve Grogan (2) and Marc Wilson (1)), the '88 Pats (Steve Grogan (1), Tom Ramsey (1), Doug Flutie (6) and Tony Eason (1)) and the 1961 Buffalo Bills of the AFL (Richie Lucas (1), M.C. Reynolds (2), Warren Rabb (1) and Johnny Green (2)).
Pittsburgh, if Batch and Roethlisberger can each get at least one victory, would join the list below of all teams in the last 50 years to have three different starting quarterbacks win games:
This entry was posted on Friday, September 24th, 2010 at 3:35 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
I'd like to see Leftwich start the Baltimore game, which would give the Steelers a different starting QB in 4 straight games (Dixon vs. TEN, Batch vs. TB, Leftwich vs. BAL, Roethlisberger vs. CLE). If that wouldn't set a post-1950 record I'd be shocked.
Nonsense observation: Only the 1999 Saints have two QB's win a game in the same season with the same name of "Billy Joe" i.e. Holbert and Tolliver. Silly, I know.
How many degrees of separation is it from Mark Vlasic to Jimmy Clausen?
Yeah, but can he do it in the playoffs?
Chase:
Could you separate these into "injury replacements" and "benchings"? Also, interestingly enough, all of these 4 QB teams were BAAAAD (except the '88 Pats--9-7); and just glancing, most of the 3 QB teams.
I'd like to see Leftwich start the Baltimore game, which would give the Steelers a different starting QB in 4 straight games (Dixon vs. TEN, Batch vs. TB, Leftwich vs. BAL, Roethlisberger vs. CLE). If that wouldn't set a post-1950 record I'd be shocked.
The 1987 Falcons started different QBs in Weeks 1-4 (David Archer, Scott Campbell, Erik Kramer, and Jeff Van Raaphorst), and the 1987 Bills did the same in Weeks 2-5 (Jim Kelly, Dan Manucci, Willie Totten, and Brian McClure). None of Buffalo's 3 replacement QBs ever played another game in the NFL.
What is the record for the most QB's to start and/or play in 1 season for a team?
I see the 1986 Rams are the only team to have three different QBs win 3+ games each.
The '87 Falcons, Chiefs and Patriots all had five starters; ditto the '84 Bears and '61 Bills. And that's it since 1960.
Surprised that the 99-04 bears won enough games to appear on that last list 4 times.
What was going on in New England in the late '80s? Eason, Flutie, and Grogan all won games for the Pats in 1987, 1988, and 1989, and Ramsay chipped in a win in 1987 and 1989. I don't remember anything about those teams- was it just a QB carousel gone horribly, horribly wrong, or were they just getting destroyed by injuries?
I think it was both.
Marc Wilson also made some starts in New England in 1989 and 1990. He was previously involved in quarterback carousels in L.A. with the Raiders.
Hmm, let's see... Mark Vlasic's final appearance in the NFL was after DeBerg was knocked out of a playoff game against the Bills after the 1991 season. The Bills' backup QB, who came in to down the ball, was Frank Reich, who played for the Panthers in their inaugural season in 1995. Also on that team, of course, was John Kasay, who is still kicking for the Panthers, even if he has yet to appear on the field after a Clausen drive.
It looks like the 1974 Steelers are the only Super Bowl winning team on the list, appropriately enough, since they inspired this post. Unless they do it again this season, I imagine it won't happen again anytime soon.
Also surprised to see Jason Garrett's name for the 94 Cowboys, I forgot he played for them.
The Pats had more QB's start and win games (6) in 3 years (1987-89) than the Colts have had start games (5 QB's) in the last 16 seasons (1995-2010).
Actually the Patriots themselves have only had 5 starting QB's in the last 16 seasons, the the champ is obviously the Packers with just 2.
Was looking for the stats in this article since the Lions win yesterday gave them 3 wins with 3 different starters (Records: Hill 1-7, Stafford 1-2 , and Stanton 1-1).