Perry Tuttle loved the people of Buffalo, if not our winter weather.
“I like to say that if I could take Buffalonians and put them in the South, I would have a pretty good life,” he says. “The people there were nothing but good to me.”
The Bills selected Tuttle in the first round of the NFL draft 40 years ago this week. He played just two seasons here, bounced around to a couple of other NFL teams, then blossomed for the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
“I don’t like to use the word ‘bust,’ but I left knowing I didn’t give the Bills what they invested in me as a No. 1 draft pick,” he says. “That was hard for me.”
Still, he learned things here that helped him years later: How to handle fame — and how to drive in snow.
“Let me tell you,” he says, “that came in handy in Winnipeg.”
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He had seen snow growing up in North Carolina, but nothing, of course, like what Buffalo gets.
“Where I’m from, if there is even a rumor of snow everything shuts down,” he says. “So we get the first big snow of the year in Buffalo, and I stay home. Then I get a phone call from Chuck Knox, and he says, ‘Are you coming to work today?’ ”
Tuttle, who was living in East Amherst, told the coach that he figured practice had been called off.
“I said, ‘It’s snowing on my side of town.’ And he said, ‘It’s snowing in Orchard Park, too.’ And then he told me he was fining me $500 for being late plus $50 for every five minutes after that.”
Tuttle struggled to get out of his neighborhood, but then “to my surprise, once I got on the highway, it was all clear. I couldn’t believe it.”
The next time it snowed, he got out there and drove — and crashed into a delivery truck. “Totaled my 380SL Mercedes,” he says. “At least no one was hurt.”
Tuttle is still fondly remembered at Clemson University for catching the touchdown pass that clinched the 1981 national championship in a win against Nebraska at the Orange Bowl. Recently the ACC Network interviewed him for a documentary on Clemson’s first national title team, he says.
Today, at 62, he and his wife, Loretta, live in Charlotte, N.C., where he is a speaker, author and entrepreneur. He is also a chaplain for the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets and a leadership coach who counsels pro athletes — often about the perils of fame.
“The thing no one prepares you for is how to handle fame,” Tuttle says. “I was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. I thought fame was going to be my friend. I learned that I couldn’t be me 100% of the time. I had to be Perry Tuttle, No. 22, 100% of the time.”
Tuttle wore No. 81 for the Bills, but he was No. 22 at Clemson and in Winnipeg in honor of Bob Hayes, the Dallas Cowboys' speedster of the 1960s who was his favorite player growing up.
“Even today, at 62 years old, there is fame attached to my name,” Tuttle says. “I don’t mind it now, but it is hard to handle at 22. No one ever taught me that. I learned a lot the hard way.”
Tuttle had 24 catches and three TDs for the Bills across the 1982 and 1983 seasons. He had brief stints with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons and then wound up in Winnipeg.
“I caught 88 balls my first year” there, he says. “Six NFL teams wanted me to sign with them after that. But I didn’t want to leave.”
He stayed six seasons and helped the team win two Grey Cups, catching 321 passes for 5,817 yards and 41 touchdowns. The first two of his six children were born there.
“The people in Winnipeg are a lot like the people in Buffalo,” Tuttle says. “They aren’t judgmental. I love the South, but sometimes people in the South prejudge you. I was a country bumpkin when I came to Buffalo. And the people there accepted me for me.”
How the Bills came to draft Tuttle is a classic story of treachery gone wrong. The weeks leading up to the NFL draft resemble a leaguewide poker game — everybody is bluffing and holding cards close to the vest. And Tuttle is one reason why.
The Philadelphia Eagles held the 20th overall choice of the 1982 draft. The Bills had the 21st pick. Knox was friends with Dick Vermeil, coach of the Eagles. Here is how Vermeil recounted, years later, what he thought was a friendly pre-draft conversation with Knox:
“He said, ‘What are you going to do in the first round?’ And I said, ‘I’m planning to get the wide receiver out of Clemson.’ ”
And then, as the story goes, Knox said: “Oh, we’re not interested. We have no interest at all.”
The Denver Broncos were on the clock with the 19th choice when Knox swapped first-round positions with them. (The Broncos also got the Bills’ fourth-round pick.)
So how did that game of first-round leapfrog turn out for the Bills? Well, Tuttle played those two seasons in Buffalo. The Eagles, meanwhile, took wide receiver Mike Quick, of North Carolina State, with the next selection — and he made the Pro Bowl five times in nine seasons, catching 363 passes for 6,464 yards and 61 touchdowns.
Quick also made one of the most memorable catches in Eagles history: Lackawanna legend Ron Jaworski hit him for a 99-yard TD in overtime against the Atlanta Falcons, in 1985. Only 12 other players in NFL history have caught 99-yard passes, and this one might actually have been the longest — a Falcons punt had put the Eagles an inch from their own goal line. Jaworski threw a quick slant to the 20, and Quick quickly covered the last 80 yards.
“He ended up being an All Pro,” Vermeil said, “and the other kid only played a couple of years. He bombed out.”
Funny that Vermeil should put it that way: Tuttle would go on to catch bombs for the Blue Bombers. He is fondly remembered in Winnipeg and at Clemson — and barely remembered in Buffalo. Even so, the story of how he came here is well remembered around the league.
“If I was told once about the Perry Tuttle/Mike Quick incident, I heard it 10 times,” Polian told me a few years ago. “It made an impression on me.”
Tuttle says he never knew the story of how the Bills got him until we talked by phone the other day. “This is the first time I’m hearing that,” he said. “But it makes sense. I got a call from my agent that day that the Philadelphia Eagles were looking to draft me.”
Tuttle ran the 40 in 4.4 seconds, and Quick in 4.6. That might have been the difference in where they were selected.
“We had them rated equal, but we had Tuttle rated one notch ahead,” Vermeil said. “The Bills jumped ahead, and we ended up with the All Pro.”
For all of that, Tuttle remains grateful for his time in Buffalo.
“More than anything, football has given me a stage to stand on all these years later,” he says. “And Buffalo was a big part of that. It’s a stage I still get to speak from. I want Buffalo to know I really do appreciate my time there. I count it as a great privilege.”
