Jeff Hostetler
I was watching NFL Films, New York Giants road to the Super bowl for the 1990 season, and came away with a renewed appreciation for Jeff Hostetler.
Hostetler was a far more mobile and athletic quarterback then I recalled. He was also quite good at handling the ball and throwing on the move outside the pocket. He was more than just a caretaker managing the team. He made some big plays to maintain drives.
Hostetler doesn’t seem to get a lot of recognition as the 1990 team was thought to be Phil Simms team and OJ Anderson was the MVP of the Super bowl. Hostetler had a great Super bowl, completing 20 of 32 passes for 222 yards, with one touchdown,and no interceptions while managing a ball controlled offense.
Hostetler despite being a third round draft pick backed up Simms for 7 years before he got his chance in 1990.
It appears that the circumstances did not allow Hostetler to maximize his ability. In 1994 his tenth season Hostetler was selected to the Pro Bowl.
I think that in today’s NFL Hostetler would have flourished in the pistol style offense and he never would have sat on the bench for 7 years awaiting his turn.
When given starting job over Simms by Handley, he didn't exactly make the most of it. He caught passes and played special teams too (even blocked a kick once).
Great back-up. Good starting QB. Forever part of Giants lore...
His talents were never utilized properly as a pocket passer and his opportunity to start came after his skills started diminshining.
Could Hostetler have been a Colin Kaepernick type quaterback in a pistol offense?
An ugly purple welt ran almost the entire length of Jeff Hostetler's left side, and his right temple bore bruise marks from the Seals hit. Now Hostetler was moving in slow motion as he tried to put on his shoes.
"How do you feel?" Ron asked him.
"Still a little woozy," said Jeff. "Pretty bad headache right now."
"I knew that if he hangs in there, we're O.K.," said Ron. "It's like we were home again, back in the yard when we were kids. He'd get knocked down, get up, go into the house crying and then come back out, ready to go again."
Knowing what we know about concussion protocol today, odds are that doctors would not have given him clearance to return to the field. Back in 1990, you got the old smelling salts and get back out there. With Hostetler out of the game, and Matt Cavanaugh in, it would be easy to say that the Giants lose that game and Super Bowl XXV is thought of much the same was as Super Bowl XXXV...ie ignored. And Scott Norwood might never have missed that field goal...which meant that we might never had the whole Ray Finkle storyline from Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. Is your mind blown yet?
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/features/superbowl/archives/25/ - ( New Window )
He was battered and kept making plays. The hitting on both sides was intense and without Hostetler's great game the Giants do not win.
Tough SOB coming back from that one.
We are all happy he did though.
Don't get me wrong, he played brilliantly in 1990 and I agree we don't beat SF or Buff if Simms is QB'ing. Hoss just made plays that Simms wouldn't have, particularly versus San Fran.
However, I don't think he was ever realy ever ready to play full time with the Giants until he finally got his shot in 91/92. And even then, I think his best play was with the Raiders.
I think he was the classic pocket passer who could make plays with his legs when needed. So, I don't think he was misused in anyway.
I would suggest Eli's OT win at San Fran in the NFCC game was better and tougher. Eli got the $hit kicked out of him and came back time after time.
Hoss doesn't get the credit he deserves.
And he was doing it with the likes of mark Ingram and Stephen baker the touchdown maker, not Cruz/nicks/Manningham. I still contend the giants don't win it all without all of those three playing.
Eli was gifted an INT drop in that game which would have been big, and Hostetler had a TD dropped.
There's no mistaking who the better QB is, but that JH performance ranks up there with Favre and Aikman for NFC playoff frustration at candlestick park.
If Simms were the starting QB, the majority of plays designed to help JH would have been altered.
Are you folks ignorant enough to think that there was one O game plan and it just so happened that JH fit the bill better?
The regular season losses were by 4 points each. The one in SF came down to a 4th down for the Giants inside the 49ers 10. The one against Buffalo was nip-and-tuck all day and both Simms and Hostetler moved the ball well.
The playoff/Super Bowl wins were a credit to Parcells, Belichick, Ron Erhardt and an absurdly good defense. As a coaching staff, they coaxed everything out of that team from top to bottom knowing that they had very little margin for error.
And it's easy to go back and say it was 31-3, but the reality is, the Giants didn't match up well with the Ditka Bears over the years, even towards the end of their run in 1990. Belichick switched to a 4-3 just for that game, playing Mike Fox at DT along with Howard, and playing Marshall and Dorsey at DEs. At the time, they actually credited the late Dave Duerson, the former Bear, for pointers on how to attack the weaknesses on offense and defense.
Would the Giants have won the game with Simms? Probably, but they wouldn't have won it the way that they actually did with Hoss.
As much as i like JH, he didn't lead any TD drives in the NFL Ch.
What PS did in wk 12 as opposed to the JH in the NFL CH are mutually exclusive.
Simply, we don't know what would have happened. Perhaps the Giants would have won 30-14, or gotten shut out.
Against the Bills, he would have run a similar ball control offense and would have a great chance of finding a way to win.
That is not to diminish what Hoss did. He had a very good run. But, it is unfair to diminish what Simms could have done especially considering how well the team was playing with him a the helm before getting hurt.
Would the Giants have won the game with Simms? Probably, but they wouldn't have won it the way that they actually did with Hoss.
They may not have won 31-3, but that Bears team was EXTREMELY overrated. Everyone else in the NFC Central was 6-10, and they beat the Steve Walsh/John Fourcade Saints (who were 8-8) in the Wild Card game.
No way that Giants defense was going to let Mike Tomczak and that Bears offense score a TD that day.
The Giants had become VERY predicatble by the last quarter of the 1990 season. It was run/run/Simms in shotgun. And, Simms wasn't playing as well as he had in the begining. Not playing badly, but not nearly being as efficient.
When Hostetler took over, the staff knew they needed to tweek the offense more to his skill set.
I think that had a big part of us winning in the playoffs. The Giants had become, offensively, too predictable and easier to defend. Hoss became the wildcard, and to the staff's credit, they got everything out of him.
Could we have won with Simms...of course. But I don't think we would have............not those two games versus SF and Buff.
That said, I think the D should be given more credit for the stop on the final drive than Norwood should receive blame. Everyone watching knew Norwood, on grass, had a limited range. The Giants held the Bills to the very edge of that range. there was no realistic expectation that he would make that kick.
There are some big differences too. One is that Hoss took forever to learn his craft. Remember his horrific start in his fifth season that ended with a halftime benching?
As for the Simms vs. Hoss comparisons, the 1991 and 1992 seasons provided ample evidence that Hoss was nothing special. And thinking back to the early years of Phil's career, if Jeff Hostetler had played behind the 1979-1983 Giant lines, with little running game, I suspect his career would have been over before the Giants ever built a team around him. You know who else entered the NFL as a mobile QB? Phil Simms. By 1983, his 40 time could be measured on a sundial. Hostetler never had to deal with that kind of abuse until he got to Oakland.
I figured that to be the ultimate for a QB lol......
He was a Rhodes Scholar BTW.............
Buffalo got the ball after the Giants took the lead and punted again.
After the lead changed hands twice in the 4th, the Bills got the ball back and were again forced to punt, allowing the Giants to bleed another 3+ minutes off the clock.
You don't hold the ball for 40 minutes without the defense playing a big part in it. Rick Tuten punted 6 times in that Super Bowl, after having 3 punts total in Buffalo's two playoff wins.
that said, JH's run through the playoffs and the Superbowl that year were legendary. i can't even fathom the amount of pressure on him during those weeks and months.
this team has 4 championships in my lifetime, but only 3 Superbowl QBs and he's one of 'em.
The Giants had become VERY predicatble by the last quarter of the 1990 season. It was run/run/Simms in shotgun. And, Simms wasn't playing as well as he had in the begining. Not playing badly, but not nearly being as efficient.
When Hostetler took over, the staff knew they needed to tweek the offense more to his skill set.
I think that had a big part of us winning in the playoffs. The Giants had become, offensively, too predictable and easier to defend. Hoss became the wildcard, and to the staff's credit, they got everything out of him.
Could we have won with Simms...of course. But I don't think we would have............not those two games versus SF and Buff.
Totally agree BillKo. Well written.
That Buffalo team was so good at everything that season it was ridiculous - Offense/Def/ST. Their entire team was full of pro bowlers. Those insane, clock-eating drives were a thing of beauty to keep their offense off the field.
Bingo. They beat the hell out of Andre Reed in that first half and he was invisible after the 1st quarter, James Lofton had one catch on deep pass that was tipped up in the air by Perry Williams. Buffalo's offense was reduced to Kelly dump-off passes to Thurman Thomas and Kenneth Davis, or Thomas runs out of the shotgun ... which was exactly what Belichick's scheme was designed to do.
All BillKo said was that Hostetler gave the Giants a needed "shot in the arm" at the end of that year when they were in a rut, and I agree completely.
Simms could have gotten the team thru the playoffs and won the SB, but you just got the feeling we had peaked, as a team, earlier in the year. The team needed something different and Hoss really gave it to them.
I also think the rest of the Giants all picked up their game a bit when Simms went down as they knew the backup QB was playing.
And a little luck never hurts too :)
For a player past his PRIME he was A STUD.