The Pittsburgh Steelers get a lot of flak for not drafting Pittsburgh native Dan Marino in 1983. Marino went on to become one of the best quarterbacks ever, while the Steelers continued to struggle to find their next franchise signal caller.
However, Marino wasn’t the only Western Pennsylvania quarterback in that draft who would go on to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame. While Jim Kelly was off the board by the time the Steelers picked, he revealed that he tried to force the Buffalo Bills to trade him to his hometown team in Pittsburgh.
“After I left college, I was drafted by Buffalo,” Kelly said recently on SportsGrind on Demand’s YouTube channel. “Then, once I signed with the USFL because I did not want to play here, I went to Houston and played for the Houston Gamblers of the USFL.
“After that league folded, we tried to work out a trade with either Pittsburgh or the Raiders. Our owner at the time, Ralph Wilson, said, ‘You either sign with us or you’re not playing.’ So, I had no other choice. But to be honest with you, one of the best decisions I ever made in my life was becoming a Buffalo Bill in 1986.”
The Bills selected Kelly with the 14th pick in the 1983 draft. However, as he explained, he opted to join the United States Football League instead. Kelly was with the Houston Gamblers from 1984-1985 before the USFL fell apart.
The rest is history.
The Bills retained Kelly’s rights, and while he initially didn’t want to play for them, he ended up having a great career there. Kelly played in Buffalo from 1986-1996, racking up 35,467 passing yards, 237 touchdown passes, one first team All-Pro selection, one second-team All-Pro selection, and five Pro Bowls. He helped the Bills reach four straight Super Bowls, although they lost all of them.
Kelly was one of the best quarterbacks of his generation, and he was just what the Steelers were looking for post-Terry Bradshaw. They desperately needed a player of his caliber under center. Their quarterback room in 1986 consisted of Mark Malone and Bubby Brister. Neither of those players was even close to Kelly’s level.
The Bills went on to be one of the NFL’s most successful teams during Kelly’s tenure, making the playoffs in eight of his 11 seasons there. Meanwhile, the Steelers saw Chuck Noll retire after the 1991 season, with the end of his tenure seeing the team take a step back.
While Bill Cowher got the Steelers back to being a consistent playoff threat, including getting them to a Super Bowl in 1995, the team was still held back by poor quarterback play during that period.
Had the Steelers traded for Kelly, perhaps Noll would’ve stuck around longer and overseen the rise of a second Steelers dynasty. However, it’s hard to blame Pittsburgh for not landing Kelly. The Bills owner knew what his team had in the quarterback, and he wasn’t going to give him up. It’s a fun what-if to think about, though, and it would’ve been a fun story to see Kelly play for his hometown team.
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