It is hard to figure out if Vinny Testaverde was good or not. He played forever but only had a winning record as a starting quarterback four times in his career. His fans include both Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick. If that pair likes you, you must be doing something right.
The numbers tell a different story, however. Testaverde led the NFL in interceptions four times during his career. More telling is the fact he threw 275 touchdowns against 267 picks. That’s not great. Nor are his 116 career fumbles.
Despite all the negatives, Testaverde was fun to watch. There was no middle ground to his game. If he was starting, it was either going to go really well or really poorly. As we saw in the 2000 Monday Night Miracle, sometimes these wild swings would happen during the same game.
For all the memories you have of the first overall pick in the 1987 NFL Draft, there are also a few things you may not remember about Vinny Testaverde.
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Things you may not remember about Vinny Testaverde
More touchdowns than Joe Montana
So, part of this is due to longevity and part of this is due to era, but it still feels weird to see Vinny Testaverde above Joe Montana on the all-time touchdown list. Although Carson Palmer is ahead of both of them, so who knows what to think.
In fairness, the only reason Testaverde passed Montana was because he ended up starting for the Dallas Cowboys in 2004 after they released Quincy Carter before the start of the season. He threw for 17 passes that year when he wasn’t even expected to see the field as a 41-year-old backup.
The bringer of replay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_tnTCtmJ8k
Do you want to know why the NFL brought back instant replay? The above play from Vinny Testaverde in 1998 is a big reason. After a season full of botched calls, this “touchdown” put an emphatic exclamation point on the argument for replay. Owners duly made the change ahead of the 1999 season.
Same draft as Sean Payton
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers took Testaverde first overall in the 1987 NFL Draft. Not selected that year was a little-known quarterback from Eastern Illinois named Sean Payton. The two would actually cross paths in 2004 when Payton served as the Cowboys assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach. He was named head coach of the New Orleans Saints in 2006 while Testaverde was somehow still in the league as a player.
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40/40
Old quarterbacks seem to be everywhere these days. However, it was much more a novelty in 2005. The New York Jets squared off against the New England Patriots in a week 15 showdown on Monday Night Football. The game was a stinker with the Pats taking a 28-7 lead into the fourth quarter.
Belichick gave Doug Flutie some run with New England comfortably ahead while Herm Edwards pulled an ineffective Brooks Bollinger. This would end up being the first game in NFL history where two 40-year-old quarterbacks completed a pass.
Dumb and colorblind
Testaverde is colorblind which many fans thought caused him to play poorly early on in his career. That, of course, ignores the fact Tampa Bay was horrible before he arrived and after he left. Meanwhile, those Browns and Ravens teams he was on weren’t exactly world beaters either.
People really went after his intelligence as well. It wasn’t just fans and media personalities. Gene Upshaw, the President of the Players Association at the time, said the following about him:
“Testaverde is so dumb that he would drag the electric cord through his swimming pool while trimming the hedges.”
Ouch. Upshaw, a man who played offensive line in the NFL, also claimed to be a better quarterback than Testaverde. He may not be a Hall of Famer, but he wasn’t that bad.
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