Quote:
Originally Posted by Rain Man
In all seriousness, I've always wondered about him, too.
In those days, it wasn't always possible to see Chiefs games since there were no sports bars or Internet or Sunday Ticket. I lived in Rolla, and between working on Sundays and simply not having coverage over the competing football Cardinals I typically got to see maybe half the Chiefs games each year during much of the Blackledge era.
In the few games where I saw him, I certainly didn't think that he was terrible or anything, just an inexperienced quarterback playing the game. I kept assuming that he was going to take over the starting role and start dominating, and it never happened. Obviously there was something that wasn't happening that I wasn't seeing at the time. I recall that Bill Kenney was actually very productive the year or two around the time Blackledge was drafted, so there was a bit of a question about how long they would ride Kenney and let Blackledge learn. Kenney had his supporters even as a long-term starter, though his star faded relatively quickly.
When the guy got drafted, it was quite an exciting prospect. Smellway was known to be the #1 guy going to the Colts, but there was no controversy at all about Blackledge going second, at least in the mainstream press that I had access to at the time. He was seen as a very strong QB prospect. But for some reason he could never unseat Kenney.
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There just wasnt the sports coverage that there is now back then. Plus, half the games were blacked out.
Imagine the scrutiny he would have been under had he played in this era.