Joseph Edward Dufek (born August 23, 1961) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL). He was signed by the

Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. ...

as an

undrafted free agent In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is a ...

in 1983. He played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

Career

Dufek was signed as, more or less, an afterthought when

Jim Kelly James Edward Kelly (born February 14, 1960) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons with the Buffalo Bills. He also spent two seasons with the Houston Gamblers of the United State ...

, the quarterback the Bills had drafted in the first round of the 1983 draft, opted to not sign with the Bills and jumped to the

United States Football League The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be ...

. By the 1984 season, Dufek had risen to the second-string quarterback position, behind an aging and fading

Joe Ferguson Joseph Carlton Ferguson Jr. (born April 23, 1950) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 17 seasons, primarily with the Buffalo Bills. He played college football at Arkansas. Early year ...

. Ferguson's performance continued to deteriorate, and on September 30, after 107 consecutive games started, Ferguson was benched, and Dufek received his first game as starter. Dufek and Ferguson combined for a 2–14 record in 1984; Ferguson was traded to Detroit the following off-season, while Dufek made it through part of 1985 (not starting any games that season) before being cut. Dufek finished the 1985 season and his professional career with the

San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...

. He attempted to continue playing in the NFL, but was cut by the Raiders before the start of the 1986 Season. With the USFL folding as a result of a failed antitrust lawsuit, Dufek was one of the casualties of the tighter job market for professional football players, never playing professional football again and declining to cross picket lines in the 1987 strike.

Family

He is a younger brother of

Don Dufek Donald Patrick Dufek Jr. (born April 28, 1954) is a former American football player who played safety and special teams for eight seasons with the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL). He had previously played for the Michigan W ...

, Jr., who was a captain of the

Seattle Seahawks The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) West, which they rejoined in 2002 as ...

, Bill Dufek who was an All-American at Michigan and a son of

Don Dufek, Sr. Donald Edward Dufek Sr. (May 28, 1929 – December 10, 2014) was an American football player and athletic director at Grand Valley State University and Kent State University. He is the father of All-American football players Don, and Bill as we ...

, who was the most valuable player in the 1951 Rose Bowl. He is the father of Mike, an All-

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

athlete, who played his senior season for Michigan Wolverines baseball in 2010.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dufek, Joe 1961 births Living people Players of American football from Ann Arbor, Michigan American football quarterbacks Yale Bulldogs football players Seattle Seahawks players Buffalo Bills players San Diego Chargers players