[5][6][7] As a member of the BC Lions, the Calgary Stampeders, and the Toronto Argonauts, he was named the CFL's Most Outstanding Player a record six times and won three Grey Cups.

Flutie held his last starting role with the San Diego Chargers in 2001 and spent his final professional season as a backup for the Patriots.

After the dramatic slow-down of the space program in the mid-1970s, the Flutie family again moved in 1976 to Natick, Massachusetts, 20 miles west of Boston.

Flutie left school as the NCAA's all-time passing yardage leader with 10,579 yards and was a unanimous All-American as a senior.

He earned Player of the Year awards from UPI, Kodak, The Sporting News, and the Maxwell Football Club.

On the last play of the game, Flutie scrambled away from the defense and threw a "Hail Mary pass" that was caught in the end zone by his college roommate, Gerard Phelan, giving BC a 47–45 win.

This idea essentially states that a winning sports team can increase the recognition value of a school enough to make it more attractive to potential applicants.

[12] In addition to his collegiate athletic achievement, Flutie maintained a distinguished academic record at Boston College, where he majored in communication and computer science.

In November 2008, Flutie was honored by Boston College with a statue of him throwing his famous "Hail Mary" pass outside of Alumni Stadium.

[16] Meanwhile, the Buffalo Bills, who had the first pick in the 1985 NFL draft, still had the rights to Jim Kelly (who had earlier spurned them to go to the USFL) and also had concerns about Flutie's height.

began to wonder if the scouts who said Flutie could not compete on the pro level were right, despite the plenitude of great NFL quarterbacks with awful initial professional seasons.

[23] On October 14, 1986, the Los Angeles Rams traded their rights to Flutie to the Chicago Bears in exchange for multiple draft picks.

[20] Flutie appeared in four games for the 1986 Chicago Bears, who were in need for quarterback play when Jim McMahon suffered a season-ending injury late in the season.

Flutie crossed the picket lines in order to play for the Patriots, one of many NFL players to rejoin their respective teams, and the strike quickly collapsed.

[24] On October 2, 1988, after the Patriots began the season with a 1–3 record, Flutie came off the bench to lead a comeback victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Foxborough, scoring the winning touchdown on a 13-yard bootleg at the end of the fourth quarter.

However, after taking the Patriots to the brink of the playoffs, on December 11 Flutie was benched by head coach Raymond Berry and replaced with Tony Eason, who had not played football in over a year; Berry cited a need for more "explosive" play from the offense, which Flutie pointed out had thrown little to begin with.

No other NFL teams showed interest in Flutie and he subsequently signed to play for the Canadian Football League (CFL).

He won the Most Outstanding Player award for the fifth time in his career, and quarterbacked the team to a Grey Cup victory in The Snow Bowl held in Hamilton, Ontario.

With Flutie at quarterback, the Argonauts set a record for most consecutive completions in a Grey Cup game with 10, which occurred between the first and second quarters.

Prior to his final two Grey Cup victories with the Argonauts, Flutie was hampered by the opinion, supported by the media, that he was a quarterback who could not win in cold weather.

In his first action with the Bills, Flutie entered for an injured Johnson and passed for two touchdowns while leading a fourth-quarter comeback against the Indianapolis Colts on October 11, 1998.

Flutie was the hero of the Bills' victory as he scored the winning touchdown against the Jaguars by rolling out on a bootleg and into the end zone on a fourth-down play in the waning seconds.

Rob Johnson completed only ten passes, none for touchdowns, and was sacked six times, as the Bills lost 22–16 to the eventual AFC Champion Tennessee Titans.

The game has become known as the Music City Miracle, as the Titans scored on the penultimate play of the game—a kickoff return following the Bills' apparent game-clinching field goal.

In a December 24, 2000 game against the Seattle Seahawks, Flutie achieved a perfect passer rating, completing 20 of 25 passes for 366 yards and three touchdowns.

After the 2000 season, Bills President Tom Donahoe and head coach Gregg Williams decided to keep Johnson as the starter and cut Flutie.

It would be the last win for the Chargers in 2001, as they dropped their last nine games to finish 5–11 and cost head coach Mike Riley his job.

According to the report, Flutie was poised to return to Toronto on July 22, after their victory over the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the injury to backup quarterback Spergon Wynn.

A short stretch of road connecting the Natick Mall and the Shoppers World in Natick/Framingham, Massachusetts is named "Flutie Pass" in honor of his historic 1984 play against Miami.

[53] In February 2021, Flutie won the WWE 24/7 Championship from R-Truth during a celebrity flag football tournament, though he would then immediately drop the title back to Truth.