Ken Anderson (football player)
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Kenneth Allan "Ken" Anderson (born February 15, 1949 in Batavia, Illinois) is a former American football quarterback who spent his entire professional career playing for the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL and later returned as a position coach.
NFL career
After playing for and graduating from Augustana College (Illinois), Anderson was drafted 67th overall in the 1971 NFL Draft by the Bengals. He earned the starting job in 1972. He would become one of the most accurate short-range passers in the league, and was an extremely effective at rushing the ball for a quarterback. He is considered to be one of the first quarterbacks to run what would become known as the "West Coast Offense."[[Citing sources citation needed]]Anderson's best season was in 1981, although it started out very badly for him. In the Bengals opening game against the Seattle Seahawks, Anderson was intercepted 3 times in the first half and the Seahawks built up a 21-0 halftime lead. In the second half, Cincinnati coach Forrest Gregg benched Anderson and brought in third string quarterback Turk Schonert (second string quarterback Jack Thompson was injured at the time). With Schonert in command of the offense, the Bengals stormed back and won the game 27-21. Gregg considered starting Schonert or Thompson for the next game against the New York Jets, but decided to stick with Anderson. Anderson took advantage of his second chance by throwing for 246 yards and 2 touchdowns, and the Bengals won the game 31-30.
By the time the season ended, Anderson had completed 62.6% of his passes for 3,754 yards and 29 touchdowns, with only 10 interceptions leading the NFL with a career-high 98.4 Passer Rating. He also gained another 320 yards and 1 touchdown on the ground. This performance earned him both the NFL Most Valuable Player Award and the NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award. Anderson then lead the Bengals to their first ever playoff victory over the Buffalo Bills, and then he led Cincinnati to a win in the AFC championship game(which later became known as the Freezer Bowl) against the San Diego Chargers, earning a trip to the first Super Bowl appearance in franchise history.
The Bengals lost Super Bowl XVI 26-21 against the San Francisco 49ers, but Anderson had a fairly good performance in it. He completed 25 of 34 passes for 300 yards and 2 touchdowns, with 2 interceptions, and gained 14 rushing yards and a touchdown on 5 carriers. At the time, his 25 completions and his 73.5% completion percentage were both Super Bowl records.
The following season (1982), Anderson set an NFL record by completing 70.6% of his passes. But his team lost in the first round of the playoffs. Anderson continued to be the Bengals starting quarterback for the next 2 seasons, but in both of them he threw more interceptions than touchdowns and his team failed to make the playoffs. In 1985 he was replaced by Boomer Esiason, and spent the rest of his career as a backup before retiring after the 1986 season.
In his 16 NFL seasons, Anderson completed 2,654 out of 4,475 passes (59.3%) for 32,838 yards and 197 touchdowns, with 160 interceptions. He also gained 2,220 rushing yards and 20 touchdowns on 397 carries. His completions, passing yards, and touchdown passes are all Bengals records. His 2,220 rushing yards are the most ever by a Bengals quarterback. Anderson led the NFL in Quarterback Rating 4 times during his career (1974-'75 & 1981-'82) and was selected to 4 Pro-Bowls (1975-76 & 1981-82). Anderson was voted All-Pro in 1981, 2nd Team All-Pro in 1975 and 2nd Team All-AFC in 1974 & 1982.
His Rankings
At the time of Ken's retirement, he held NFL records for consecutive pass completions and completion percentage for a season. Furthermore, Ken was ranked 6th all-time for passing yards in a career. As of 2005, he is among the top 30 all-time leaders in pass attempts (24th), completions (18th), passing yards (21st) and passing touchdowns (28th). He led the NFL in passing yards and completions twice, and lead the league in fewest interceptions per pass attempt 3 times. He has been nominated for the Pro Football Hall of Fame several times, and on 2 occasions was among the 15 finalists for enshrinement, but to this day he has not yet been voted in.Quarterback Coach
Ken Anderson is now Quarterbacks Coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars.External link
- [Pro-Football-Reference.com] - career statistics
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