Kim Edgar McQuilken (born February 26, 1951) 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) for the

Atlanta Falcons The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons joined th ...

and

Washington Redskins The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...

. Born in

Allentown, Pennsylvania Allentown (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Allenschteddel'', ''Allenschtadt'', or ''Ellsdaun'') is a city in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. The city has a population of 125,845 as of the 2020 United ...

, McQuilken 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 ...

at nearby

Lehigh University Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Epis ...

, where he was first-team Division II All-American during his senior year in 1973. He was drafted in the third round of the

1974 NFL Draft The 1974 NFL draft took place at the Americana Hotel in New York City, New York, on January 29–30, 1974. Each of the 26 NFL teams were granted 17 selections for a total of 442 picks. Many experts consider the 1974 Pittsburgh Steelers to have h ...

by Atlanta, and installed as the Falcons' third-string quarterback, behind Bob Lee and Pat Sullivan. He got in five games his rookie season and started the last two, including a 10–3 win over Green Bay. Statistically, McQuilken was one of the poorest passers in NFL history that actually received significant playing time; for his seven-year career, he had a 17.9

passer rating Passer rating (also known as passing efficiency in college football) is a measure of the performance of passers, primarily quarterbacks, in gridiron football. There are two formulas currently in use: one used by both the National Football Leag ...

, second-worst ever among players with at least 200 attempts.The worst score, 17.0, belongs to

Hugh McCullough Hugh Warner McCullough (May 18, 1916February 11, 1999) was an American football player who played five seasons in the National Football League (NFL). During his time in the NFL, McCullough played for the Pittsburgh Pirates (later renamed the Pitt ...

, who played in the less pass-oriented 1930s and 1940s. He won only two of his seven starts as a Falcon, reaching his arguable nadir in a 1975 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, when McQuilken made 26 attempts with only five completions – and five interceptions. For his career, McQuilken would throw 29 picks against just four touchdowns, also one of the worst ratios in NFL history. In 1978, he went to the

Joe Theismann Joseph Robert Theismann (born September 9, 1949) is an American former professional football player, sports commentator, corporate speaker and restaurateur. He rose to fame playing quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) and Canadian ...

's backup, appearing in just three games in 1979. Out of football for three years, McQuilken, still popular in the Washington area, joined the

Washington Federals Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

of 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 ...

in their 1983 inaugural season and emerged as their opening-day starter. Ultimately he would complete 188-for-334 passes for 1,912 yards, seven touchdowns, and 14 interceptions for the season. However, the Feds would finish just 4–14 in front of small crowds, and the 32-year-old McQuilken retired.

NFL career statistics

Regular season

After football

McQuilken went on to become executive vice president of

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...

, before leaving the network in 2006 to set up his own sports and entertainment marketing and licensing consulting business.

Notes

References

1951 births Living people American football quarterbacks Atlanta Falcons players Washington Redskins players Washington Federals/Orlando Renegades players Lehigh Mountain Hawks football players Sportspeople from Allentown, Pennsylvania Players of American football from Pennsylvania Cartoon Network executives {{quarterback-1950s-stub