Todd Blackledge

[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.