Kelly Wayne Stouffer (born July 6, 1964) 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 wi ...

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 spent most of his career with the Seattle Seahawks from 1988–1992.

Early years

Born in

Scottsbluff, Nebraska Scottsbluff is a city in Scotts Bluff County, in the western part of the state of Nebraska, in the Great Plains region of the United States. The population was 14,436 at the 2020 census. Scottsbluff is the largest city in the Nebraska Panhand ...

, Stouffer graduated from Rushville High School in northwestern Nebraska and played college football at Colorado State University in

Fort Collins A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

NFL career

At the conclusion of Stouffer's collegiate career, he achieved notoriety when, after being selected by the

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...

in the first round (sixth overall) of the 1987 NFL Draft, he sat out what would have been his rookie year due to an inability to agree on a contract. The following April, the Cardinals traded Stouffer's rights to the Seattle Seahawks for three draft picks, who listed Stouffer as third-string behind starter Dave Krieg and veteran backup Jeff Kemp in 1988. Krieg was sidelined in the third game with a

separated shoulder A separated shoulder, also known as acromioclavicular joint injury, is a common injury to the acromioclavicular joint. The AC joint is located at the outer end of the clavicle where it attaches to the acromion of the scapula. Symptoms include no ...

, and the following week Kemp was ineffective and was benched in favor of Stouffer by halftime. Stouffer endeared himself to Seattle fans in one play where, after stumbling and having his nose broken when it collided with a teammate's elbow, he threw for a long gain resulting in a

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Amer ...

against the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

. Stouffer filled in for nearly two months, until Krieg returned to the lineup in mid-November; Seattle won the division (

AFC West The American Football Conference – Western Division or AFC West is one of the four divisions of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The division comprises the Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs, Las ...

) with a 9–7 record, but lost in the divisional round of the AFC playoffs to top-seeded

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

. Stouffer seemed to regress in the eyes of Seahawk coaches over the next couple of years, and fell back to third string, behind Kemp. Following the

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...

season,

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...

Chuck Knox was replaced by

Tom Flores Thomas Raymond Flores (born March 21, 1937) is a former American football coach and quarterback. After his retirement as a coach, he was a radio announcer for more than twenty years. Flores won a total of four Super Bowls in his playing and c ...

and Krieg was let go; Stouffer won the starting job in 1992, ahead of Dan McGwire and Stan Gelbaugh. Stouffer was injured in week 5, as the Seahawks started the season 1–4. After McGwire was quickly injured, journeyman Gelbaugh became the starter, yielding the job to Stouffer once Stouffer recovered. Stouffer, who seemed to have been showing a return to his rookie form just before his injury, was never the same, however, and Gelbaugh quickly became the established starter. The following season, Stouffer was released; he was signed by the

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

to a

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 ...

contract in April 1994 but was released prior to the regular season. Two years later, Stouffer was signed by the

Carolina Panthers The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL), as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. ...

to a

contract in March 1996 but was released prior to the regular season.

After football

In 2000, Stouffer finished his B.S. degree in

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

from the Colorado State University College of Agricultural Sciences and became the first undergraduate to earn that degree via the college's

distance learning Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...

program. Stouffer is a television color analyst for college football games on

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

/ ABC, and was formerly with the NFL on FOX, Versus,

MountainWest Sports Network The MountainWest Sports Network, also known as The Mtn. (stylized as the mtn.), was an American college sports television channel. Launched on September 1, 2006, it was dedicated to the Mountain West Conference (MWC), including studio programs fo ...

and

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansi ...

pre-season games.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stouffer, Kelly 1964 births Living people American football quarterbacks Carolina Panthers players College football announcers Colorado State Rams football players National Football League announcers Seattle Seahawks players People from Scottsbluff, Nebraska People from Sheridan County, Nebraska Players of American football from Nebraska