Thoughts on these 70s-80s backup QBs

[nicefellow31]

In regards to Jeff Komlo, I was going to make a post about the fact that he had a little brother who was also a QB. Had some classes with him at Univ of MD and thought he was somewhat of a jerk but that's 35 years ago. Drew wound up transferring to Catholic University in D.C. Found that fact on a site I stumbled upon while looking for info. Not sure if anybody is aware of it but here it is, NFL Combine Results https://nflcombineresults.com/ for the last 33 years.

As for Jeff Komlo he lived quite an existence post NFL
https://vault.si.com/vault/2009/06/15/the-wrong-turn

[Halas Hall]

I agree; the fact that Matt Cavanaugh and Jeff Rutledge played in three different decades indicates they were valued players.

[Todd Pence]

Steve Dils' first NFL start was the first NFL game I attended, at age 12. Redskins vs. Vikings at RFK, 1980.

[74_75_78_79_]

Chuck Fairbanks said Cavanuagh was his most disappointing draft pick. He was picked in the 2nd round and couldn't throw. Fairbanks had much higher expectations, as Cavanuagh proved to be not any better than Tom Owen. I remember Cavanuagh beating the Eagles in 84 and 85 as a Niners backup, but that is about all I recall of his backup days.

The Dolphins ended up taking QB Guy Benjamin of Stanford one pick after the Pats took Cavanaugh (1978 2nd rd). A blog named Past Interference (a Dolphin fan blog) did a four-part series back in 2008 about Benjamin and David Woodley (Guy commented on one of the posts):

http://miamimigraine.blogspot.com/2008/ ... t-one.html

I don't know for sure, but there's a chance that NE passed on their future. Ex-Cowboy WR Tony Hill (who played at Stanford with Guy) said that Benjamin was the second-best QB he ever played with (Staubach was the best, obviously).

Thanks for posting that link...it was interesting to read, especially Benjamin's own comments. Benjamin was much better his Senior year with Bill Walsh than his 3 years prior at Stanford, so perhaps that 'inflated' his college resume, so to speak. I'm not really sure that Benjamin would have been any better than Woodley.

Could Matt McGloin be possibly seen as a "Modern Day-Guy Benjamin"? Up to his senior year at Penn St he had next to no potential of even getting drafted by an NFL team! And then along comes Bill O'Brien and he ends up...getting drafted and being an NFL QB for at least five years (and counting). I may've jumped the gun instantly pegging O'Brien as a "QB-guru". NFL-wise, at least, the jury's still out on that. Perhaps McGloin's drastic senior year improvement may have simply been more a product of Joe Pa never being quite QB-friendly; never too much inclined to get "with the times" of modern college football offense philosophy. Sort of the college equivalent to Ditka's so-called "vanilla" offenses that QBs hated playing in.