In
light of recent events, this pick will no doubt disturb some people. O.J.
Simpson is featured here because of what he accomplished as a Buffalo Bill,
nothing more, nothing less. I feel I shouldn't have to apologize for featuring
him here and I won't. Simpson is one of two Buffalo Bills enshrined in the
Pro Football hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, Billy Shaw being the other. How could I not include him?
Born and raised in San Francisco, the Juice was a devoted 49ers fan. It is told he once ran into Jim Brown in a soda shop a few blocks from Kezar Stadium where Brown's Cleveland Browns had just beaten the 49ers, 13-10. While Brown was sucking on his milkshake, a brash 15 yr. old Simpson walked up to him and said, "You're not so good. When I'm a pro, I'm gonna be better than you are."
Some argue that he was.
O.J. attended the University of Southern California, transferring from City College of San Francisco in his junior year. In his first year at USC, the Juice rushed for 1,543 yards, led the Trojans to victory in the Rose Bowl and was runner-up for the Heisman Trophy.
The next year Simpson ran for 1,880 yards, including four 200 yard games, won the Heisman, and led the Trojans to their second straight Rose Bowl, where they lost to eventual national champion Ohio State, 27-16, despite Simpson's 256 yards from scrimmage.
O.J. was rated the highest pro prospect
ever by BLESTO, the NFL's oldest and most respected scouting syndicate.
He was the only collegiate athlete ever named, Sport magazines
Man of the Year. Every team in pro football was foaming at the mouth to
have him on their squad but only one team, the pathetic Buffalo Bills,
would get the chance to draft him.
Simpson's early years with the Bills were non-descript. First used as a decoy by coach John Rauch in his first two seasons, Simpson managed to only gain 697 yards and 488 yards in an injury shortened second season. Rauch quit in 1971 and Harvey Johnson was named interim coach, a disastrous move. In '71 the Bills finished last in the NFL with a 1-13 record and O.J. managed only 742 yards.
In 1972 Simpson's luck would change when the Bills re-hired Lou Saban as their coach. Saban's strategy for winning was easy, "If you got a big weapon, use it," Saban would say. And use it he did. Saban had gone out and rebuilt the offensive line, fitted his wide receivers with cages on their helmets and told them all to open up holes for the Juice. In '72 Simpson carried the ball 292 time for a league leading 1,252 yards, setting a new Bills single season rushing record. In '73 O.J. rushed for 2,003 yards, becoming the first ever to break the 2,000 yard mark. Another Bills single season record. In the Bills very first game that season, against the New England Patriots, O.J. rushed for 250 yards, setting the NFL single game record. He had 3, 200+ yrd. games that year. That year the Bills finished with a 9-5 record and things were looking up. The Bills equaled that mark in '74, making the playoffs as a wild-card team in the process. Simpson ran for 1,125 yards that year, losing his rushing title to the Bears Walter Payton.
In the second game of the 1975 season, O.J. Simpson and the Bills played one of their greatest games ever. The Bills traveled to Pittsburgh to take on the defending Super Bowl Champion Steelers, the team that had beaten them in the playoffs in '74. What O.J. and the Bills did was truly awesome. Simpson ran for 227 yards including an 88 yd. scamper for a TD. This all against the famous "Steel Curtain" and Pittsburgh's #1 rated defense. The Bills wholopped the Steelers 30-21.
Simpson
re-gained his rushing title once again with 1,817 yards in 1975. In 1976
O.J. held out of training camp while still under contract. Star players
were leaving in droves and all the promise from '74 and '75 was evaporating
fast. O.J. eventually signed a fat contract but in doing so, coach Saban
became frustrated with the direction the team was heading in and resigned.
Offensive line coach Jim Ringo was promoted to head coach and the Bills
finished the season with a 2-12 record despite Simpson rushing for 1,503
yds. In 1977 when things seemed like they couldn't get any worse for the Bills,
Simpson sustained a season ending knee injury against the Seattle Seahawks
in the 7th game of the season. O.J. left knee would require surgery and
he was never the same again.
In 1978, Chuck Knox was hired as coach of the Bills. O.J. gave the Bills one more great performance. This time it was as an actor and not as a football player. O.J. claimed his knee was fine and completely re-habbed, as Knox put him on the trading block. The ruse worked as the Juice was traded to O.J.'s boyhood team, the 49ers, for 5 draft picks. The Bills recieved for O.J. Simpson, San Francisco's #2 (DE Scott Hutchinson) in '78, #3 (WR Danny Fulton) in '78, #1 (LB Tom Cousineau, who would be traded to Cleveland in '82 for the draft pick used to select QB Jim Kelly) in '79, #4 (DE Ken Johnson) in '79 and #2 (Joe Cribbs) in '80.
O.J. Simpson left the Bills in 1978 holding every Bills rushing record. He still holds most of them today.