I was going through old Buffalo News stories while working on Bills-Chargers stuff, because apparently this is what my life has become, when I stumbled back onto the Jim Kelly-Jim Harbaugh fight which I tweeted about briefly.
I remembered the fight and some body part was broken. But that’s it…
What I did not remember was how completely fucking ridiculous the entire story was, or that a few months later Harbaugh and Kelly would essentially end up connected to the same quarterback job in Baltimore, Peyton Manning draft status could have been effected by this, and then Harbaugh as a future Bills coach.
So rather than simply tell you what happened, we’re going to do this the old-fashioned way.
Let’s go to the newspaper clippings [George Michaels voice]
Sources: The Buffalo News, Indianapolis Star, Los Angeles Times, Detroit Free Press, Washington Post and CBS Sports.
First, Jim Kelly discovers television
After Kelly retired after the 1996 season and before he became spokesperson for your parents favorite cars and hospitals, he immediately went into broadcasting.
It apparently took him approximately five minutes to discover one of the great joys of being in the media:
Calling players soft.
Look at this paragraph:
“Kelly’s criticism of Harbaugh on his Channel 2 show for being a baby who overdramatized his pain received a lot more attention than his subsequent softening of it.”
I’m sorry.
A BABY WHO OVERDRAMATIZED HIS PAIN!!!
Jim Kelly had barely gotten the shoulder pads off before becoming the boomer guy on television questioning whether current players were tough enough. And the clipping actually makes the story more interesting because Kelly apparently realized he’d gone a little far. He later went on NFL Live, stood by the general criticism but conceded that he’d been harsher than he intended.
Which is essentially:
I shouldn’t have called him a gigantic baby.
Medium-sized baby.
Unfortunately, Jim Harbaugh had heard the first version.
Harbaugh would like a word
Harbaugh was upset because Kelly had reportedly described him as a “baby,” questioned his courage and accused him of overdramatizing injuries.
And Harbaugh took that personally.
Very personally.
Kelly was in San Diego with NBC to broadcast Colts-Chargers. Harbaugh confronted him during the weekend, Kelly was reportedly shoved against a wall, the two ended up wrestling on the floor and Harbaugh threw a punch.
And broke his hand.
His throwing hand.
Again:
NFL QUARTERBACK BREAKS THROWING HAND PUNCHING RETIRED NFL QUARTERBACK BECAUSE RETIRED NFL QUARTERBACK QUESTIONED WHETHER NFL QUARTERBACK WAS TOUGH.
We’re eight paragraphs into this thing and 1997 is already winning.
But Harbaugh was just trying to be professional
Now we get to my favorite quote.
Colts director of football operations Bill Tobin -the angry guy who yelled at Mel Kiper- explained that Harbaugh wanted Kelly to apologize or explain himself.
And apparently Harbaugh intended to handle this:
“in a professional manner.”
Excellent.
I also conduct most of my professional disagreements by breaking bones in my hand…just ask Pat Moran.
Tobin then provided the understatement of the century:
“It didn’t work that way.”
No, Bill.
It did not.
And Harbaugh basically admitted the whole thing
Here’s Harbaugh afterward:
“I regret throwing the punch, but I felt I had to do something since my toughness was being questioned.”
THIS IS INCREDIBLE.
My toughness has been questioned and therefore I must punch Jim Kelly. Unfortunately, I have now broken my hand punching Jim Kelly and cannot perform my job as an NFL quarterback.
But nobody can question my toughness.
Mission accomplished.
Indianapolis considered it a non-football injury, which meant Harbaugh wasn’t entitled to his salary while he couldn’t play.
So Harbaugh managed to get injured, lose money and miss football games while attempting to prove that Jim Kelly was wrong about him exaggerating injuries.
The craziest butterfly effect
Here’s the part that broke my brain.
Harbaugh broke his hand punching Kelly and missed three games. The Colts went 1–2, including a 31–28 loss to Tampa Bay, and eventually finished an NFL-worst 3–13.
The Colts were just 2 years removed from almost going to the Super Bowl when they lost to the Steelers and the season before they were a wildcard team. Those two seasons gave Jim Harbaugh the moniker “Captain Comeback” They also beat the Packers -who went to the Super Bowl against Denver- during this 3-13 campaign. So maybe I’m overhyping them to make this story work, but they don’t feel like your traditional doormat.
Their reward for finishing last? The No. 1 pick and Peyton Manning.
If Harbaugh doesn’t punch Kelly, plays those games and the Colts win just one more, they finish 4–12 and potentially lose the No. 1 pick. And suddenly they’re thrown into a five-team tie with Arizona, San Diego, Oakland and Chicago instead of owning the first pick outright.
And sitting right behind Manning in that draft was Ryan Leaf.
I’m not saying Jim Kelly is responsible for Peyton Manning becoming an Indianapolis Colt….But I’m also not not saying it
Jim Kelly’s version: What fight?
Now here’s where this becomes an all-time quarterback pissing contest.
Years later Kelly was asked about the incident again on WFAN.
Kelly:
“I went on TV the next day, there was not a mark on me.”
Ohhhhhhhhhh.
Then:
“To be honest with you, I don’t even know how he broke his hand.”
HAHAHAHA.
That is so wonderfully disrespectful.
Jim Harbaugh says he punched me? Weird. Couldn’t tell you. I looked fantastic the next morning.
Kelly described it as “pretty much just a little scrap” and acknowledged that Harbaugh was angry about something he’d said. This is essentially two quarterbacks arguing about the box score of a bar fight or me and Pat arguing about one of the Italian Bills beat guys.
This is where the rabbit hole got me because several months later, Jim Kelly started thinking about playing football again.
And he had a very logical destination.
Baltimore.
Ted Marchibroda was coaching the Ravens. Marchibroda had been Kelly’s offensive coordinator in Buffalo and helped develop the K-Gun offense. Baltimore wasn’t thrilled with its quarterback situation and expressed interest in Kelly.
Kelly was 38.
He’d been retired for more than a year.
But this wasn’t completely imaginary. Baltimore wanted to know whether Jim Kelly wanted to be an NFL quarterback again.
Eventually Kelly made his decision.
Months after Harbaugh confronted Kelly over questioning his toughness, Baltimore was interested in bringing Kelly out of retirement.
Kelly said no.
And Baltimore’s answer was…
JIM HARBAUGH.
That guy became Baltimore’s quarterback instead.
You could not write a more ridiculous epilogue….until..
Post Harbaugh playing and Kelly TV careers
The weird postscript to all of this came more than a decade later. After the 2009 season, when Buddy Nix was searching for a new Bills head coach, Jim Harbaugh’s name was out there. Harbaugh later said he didn’t believe he had done enough at Stanford yet to deserve an NFL head-coaching job, while carefully refusing to confirm or deny whether Buffalo had actually been interested in him.
And I swear to God, I want to say somebody in the Buffalo media at the time wondered or hinted whether the whole Kelly-Harbaugh fiasco from 1997 might have made Harbaugh and the Bills an awkward match. By then, Kelly wasn’t just the retired franchise quarterback. He was still closely tied to the Bills as an employee/ambassador and was basically the organization’s biggest preacher/charlatan for Buffalo and keeping the franchise in Western New York. He definitely had Ralph Wilson’s ear.
Years later, Harbaugh became much more open about what actually happened that day. And because this story somehow gets better every time another detail is added, his version basically confirmed that it was every bit as ridiculous as the original newspaper accounts made it sound.
.
The part I love is how matter-of-fact Harbaugh eventually became about the whole thing. Yeah, I went looking for Jim Kelly. Yeah, I threw a couple punches. Yeah, I broke my hand doing it.
And even his regret came with a qualifier: he regretted throwing the punch, but still felt at the time that he had to do something because Kelly had questioned his toughness.
Almost 30 years later, Harbaugh is coming back to Buffalo as the Chargers head coach. It may actually be the first time he’s been back since 1997 as when he only coached one game with the 49ers and that was on the road. Kelly will almost certainly be somewhere around the building.
Please, for the love of God, keep these two away from the NBC production meeting..
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Incredible stuff- great read. Go Bills
Kelly would still kick his ass -go Bills