5 Best Quarterbacks in Buffalo Bills History

Flutie’s statistics might not immediately jump off the page, but consider the context of his Bills career. He won 21 of his 30 starts and won the 1998 Comeback Player of the Year following an eight-year stay in the Canadian Football League. 

Buffalo reached the playoffs in Flutie’s first two seasons, though that 1999 campaign ended with the Music City Miracle. Flutie didn’t play in that game following a controversial benching reportedly ordered by Bills owner Ralph Wilson.

Give us Flutie for the No. 5 spot. Sorry, Ryan Fitzpatrick. 

4. Tyrod Taylor (2015-2017)

As with Flutie, the context of Taylor’s three seasons in Buffalo matters far more than counting stats. The Bills hadn’t reached the playoffs in well over a decade when they gambled on signing Taylor, who had sparsely played during his four years in Baltimore, ahead of the 2015 season. 

Taylor went 22-20 with an impressive 51-16 TD-INT ratio over three seasons. More importantly, he brought the Bills back to the playoffs in 2017, paving the way for Josh Allen to inherit a talented core when he arrived the following spring.  

3. Joe Ferguson (1973-1984)

Ferguson was the Bills’ first true franchise quarterback, serving as the full-time starter from 1973 to 1984. He finished his Bills career with a 52.5% completion percentage, nearly 26,000 passing yards, and a 181-190 TD-INT ratio.

Buffalo reached the playoffs three times during Ferguson’s 12 seasons, though the Bills never made it beyond the divisional round.

2. Jim Kelly (1986-1996)

Many will still argue that Kelly is the greatest quarterback in Bills history, seeing as he still owns most of the franchise’s passing records. He’s also the only Bills quarterback to reach the Super Bowl, albeit he infamously lost all four times. Consecutively.

The only knock on Kelly, and it’s why he’s No. 2, is that he was never in that tier of quarterbacks whom you’d want to build a team around. Even now, if you were asked to choose a 1990s quarterback, you’re probably going with someone like John Elway, Dan Marino, Steve Young, or Brett Favre. Maybe Troy Aikman, too.

Should that hurt Kelly in the context of all-time great Bills quarterbacks? Considering who our No. 1 choice is, you’ll understand our reasoning. 

1. Josh Allen (2018-Present)

Yep. We’re willing to go this far and say Josh Allen, not Jim Kelly, is the best quarterback in Bills history.

That isn’t recency bias either. Allen has spent the bulk of his prime as a consensus top-three quarterback alongside Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson. He’s turned the Bills into a perennial AFC East winner, though Allen is still seeking his first Super Bowl appearance. 

For as important as “rings culture” is in the NFL, Allen is nonetheless among the greatest quarterbacks of his generation. He’s not Dak Prescott, an above-average regular-season quarterback incapable of elevating his team when it matters. 

It also took Peyton Manning nearly a decade to win his first Super Bowl.

Allen over Kelly will be divisive. But did we get it right?

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