Joe Ferguson was quarterback of the Buffalo Bills in 1980, the first time they won the AFC East, and last played for them in 1984. A lot has happened since then.
He’s played for the NFL’s Detroit Lions, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts. He’s beaten cancer, twice. He’s been a real estate agent for decades in Arkansas. Now, at 70, he’s recently retired and living in a lakefront home in Texas.
And yet, for all those years gone by, he’s still a Bill at heart.
“When I sign an autograph,” he says, “I always add ‘Buffalo Bills’ to the bottom of it.”
For good reason: Ferguson is a link to two distinct eras in franchise history. He was the rookie quarterback who mostly handed the ball off as O.J. Simpson gained 2,003 yards in 1973. And he was the veteran quarterback who led the Bills to the brink of glory under coach Chuck Knox in 1980.
As Buffalo rides a wave of momentum heading into the NFL playoffs' first round against the Indianapolis Colts, The News takes a look back at the Bills' last five playoff results, beginning with last year's overtime loss to the Houston Texans.
Now he roots for the Bills from afar. And he likes their chances in the Super Bowl quest that begins Saturday with the Bills playing host to the Indianapolis Colts. Ferguson has no trouble knowing which of his former teams to root for in that one. He thinks the Bills are good enough to win it all.
“I tell you what, I fully believe, if they have no big-time injuries, that they’re going to be in the middle of the whole shooting match.”
Ferguson knows about big-time injuries. This week marks 40 years since his broken ankle in a playoff game just might have cost the Bills a Super Bowl.
“That was our chance, right there, for my group to get there,” he says. “It’s a shame it happened the way it did.”
A playoff win at San Diego would have put the Bills one home game away from the Super Bowl. Ferguson entered the game against the Chargers with what doctors told him was a badly sprained ankle. Then it got rolled up on after just five plays, and he hobbled around for the rest of the day, gamely throwing off his back foot.
“When I was examined back before the game they just kept saying, ‘It’s a bad sprain. It’s a bad sprain.’ When I got back home I went to the doctor and they said, ‘You got a broke ankle. It’s not a sprain; it’s broke.’ But it might have got broke in the game. I don’t know.”
The Bills led 14-3 at the half and still led 14-13 as the game approached the two-minute warning. That’s when Chargers quarterback Dan Fouts hit seldom-used wide receiver Ron Smith on a 50-yard touchdown pass. The Bills’ last drive ended with an interception as Ferguson tried to hit wide receiver Jerry Butler deep. The Chargers won, 20-14. Bills kicker Nick Mike-Mayer missed two field goals that day; the one from 44 yards hit the right upright, and the one from 49 came up short.
“We came close, we sure did,” Ferguson says. “Close doesn’t count, though.”
Bills fans of a certain age remember that game with a sense of melancholy mixed with admiration for the quarterback who played on one leg.
“They had it taped up so much you couldn’t feel it anyway,” Ferguson says. “I mean, sometimes it hurt bad, but you just get your mind somewhere else and try to make yourself do it. I definitely think if I had more mobility, we would have won that game.”
Knox was effusive in his postgame praise: “You saw Ferguson out there. He gave a courageous performance today. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand sports.”
The Bills would come close again the next year. They won at the New York Jets, 31-27, in the wild-card playoff game and then lost a heartbreaker at Cincinnati, 28-21, in the divisional round.
“I played in Buffalo for 12 years, and we had our ups and downs,” Ferguson says. “The fans in Buffalo are just great. They love that football team, and as long as you play hard and care about the fans, they are going to be there. I think they’re the best fans in the league.”
He lavishes praise, too, on Josh Allen, his spiritual successor at quarterback: “The thing I like best about him is he can make all the throws. He can throw with touch. He can throw with speed. He can throw deep. He can throw everything.”
Ferguson ended his NFL career with those stops in Detroit, Tampa Bay and Indy – and all that moving around influenced his second career, as a real estate agent. He worked in Rogers, Ark., and specialized in finding homes for those who were relocating. They came to work at the University of Arkansas, just down the road, where he played college football, or for various companies in the region, including Walmart, which has its headquarters nearby.
“I’ve been in Northwest Arkansas for 25 years, and I’ve been successful because the area has been successful,” he says. “There’s just a lot of growth there, so we’ve got a financial base that is very stable.”
He closed his last sale last week – on the last day of last year. He and his wife, Sandy, spent Christmas at their new waterfront home in Lake Fork, about 90 miles east of Dallas, where their daughter, Kristen Brantley, is a luxury suite coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys.
“My daughter has two kids, and we’ll be closer to them. My son (Joseph Carlton Ferguson III, known as Trey) just had a daughter. They’re in Rogers, so we’ll be coming back to Arkansas a whole lot to see them.”
Ferguson is looking forward to the lake life. He doesn’t throw passes anymore, unless you count tossing fishing lines in the water. He’s deep in the heart of Texas – and still a Bill at heart.
