It’s easy to think of Jim Kelly as the quarterback he became. By the time he retired, Kelly had led the Bills to four straight Super Bowl appearances, amassed statistics that would make him an obvious candidate for Canton and embraced Western New York as his lifelong home.



Buffalo got to witness Kelly as a finished product — a quarterback with unmatched toughness, jaw-dropping arm strength and the mind to match. What Buffalo didn’t get to see was the early development of Kelly’s Hall of Fame career.



Think about how many onlookers dissected every snap of Josh Allen’s rookie season. In an age of social media and instant gratification, the rush to judgement on Allen was underway before he finished his first training camp. Back in 1984, Kelly’s first professional snaps took place nearly 1,500 miles away from Western New York in Houston. Kelly, who would become the most iconic athlete in Buffalo sports history, shunned the Bills for the...