Ignoble endings: A periodic series examining the sad conclusion to the careers of some of the greatest sports icons in history.
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In 1973, Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson was the greatest football player on the planet. That “The Juice” as he was also known, had reached the pinnacle of the sports world was not surprising, only that it had taken him so long to get there. O.J. burst onto the sports scene as a running back at the University of Southern California. His unique blend of speed and power combined with peripheral vision that gave him an uncanny ability to avoid defenders earned him the Heisman Trophy as he led the Trojans to the national title. In 1969, O.J. was drafted number one overall by the Buffalo Bills. Although the Bills had been competitive in the old American Football League, winning back-to-back titles in 1964 and 1965, as the decade came to a close and the AFL’s merger with the NFL neared, their fortunes had taken a turn for the worse. More so, after the merger became final in 1970, the Bills found themselves in the AFC East, competing with the still powerful Baltimore Colts and the ascendant Miami Dolphins, who had a pipeline of young talent that would lead them to three straight Super Bowl appearances.
Simpson’s first few seasons with the Bills were solid, if unspectacular. Perhaps owing to the dearth of talent around him, defenses loaded up to stop the run. O.J. was limited to eight games in his second season but even in years one and three, where he played all 14 games, he failed to crack the 1,000 yard barrier and the team won just eight games in that three year stretch.
The tide began to turn slightly in 1972. The team was a little better and Simpson notched his first 1,000 yard season. But the following year would be his masterpiece. With a better offensive line and more playmakers, the Bills started out 4-1 and Simpson broke out of the gate with a 250 yard performance in the team’s season opening win. Seven games into the season, O.J. topped 1,000 yards and the unthinkable was actually on the table – could he eclipse 2,000 yards in a single season? A three-game skid dashed the team’s hopes of a playoff berth but they – and Simpson - closed strong. Riding a three-game winning streak into the season finale at Shea Stadium against the New York Jets, O.J. was just 61 yards away from breaking Jim Brown’s single-season rushing record of 1,863 yards. The field was in awful shape. Snow mixed with mud and grass to make for difficult footing, but none of it bothered Simpson. He bested Brown in the first half but he was not close to being done. Although the Bills had put the game was out of reach, quarterback Joe Ferguson (who only threw five passes the entire game!) kept feeding O.J. the ball. In the fourth quarter, Ferguson pitched the ball to O.J., who followed his fullback Jim Braxton over the left side of the line for a seven yard gain, going over the magical 2,000 yard mark. In the end, O.J. carried the ball 34 times for 200 yards, ending the season with 2,003 yards. To this day, he remains the only player in NFL history to go over 2,000 yards in just 14 games.
For this singular achievement, Simpson won the MVP award and he followed up the 1973 campaign with a solid 1974 (more than 1,100 yards and his lone playoff appearance), an even more impressive 1975, where he came within just 46 yards of again surpassing Brown’s previous record while tallying more than 2,200 yards of total offense from scrimmage and setting a then-NFL record of 23 touchdowns, and another first-team All-Pro performance in 1976, where he topped 1,500 yards. That five-year stretch, from 1972-76, is among the greatest in NFL history, with O.J. playing all 14 games in each year and totaling 7,699 yards, an average of more than 1,500 yards a season and 110 yards a game. Indeed, O.J. was so far ahead of the competition, no other running back came within 2,500 yards of that five-year total.
The Bills rewarded Simpson for his efforts. Before
the 1976 season, he signed a three-year contract extension through the 1979
season for a then-unheard of amount of $2.2 million. A knee injury limited O.J.
to seven games in 1977. While he recovered from surgery and with two years left
on his deal, the Bills shipped O.J. back to the West Coast. While the Rams and
Raiders both balked at the trade compensation needed to acquire Simpson, the
San Francisco 49ers bit, sending Buffalo five draft picks while picking up the
tab on the remainder of O.J.’s contract.
It was a calculated risk. The 49ers were not a particularly good football team, they won just five games the season before trading for Simpson, but with O.J. just 2,129 yards away from breaking Brown’s all-time rushing record, perhaps they thought he still had enough left in the tank to lift them into contention while the team could market his attempt to break Brown’s record as a means of goosing attendance at their games. The bet did not pay off. In 1978, the first year the NFL went to a 16-game schedule, the 49ers won just twice, averaging an anemic 14 points a game while committing more than 60 turnovers. Like his early seasons in Buffalo, O.J. was running behind a weak offensive line, but with more than 2,300 carries under his belt, the wear and tear of nine seasons in the cold and snow of Buffalo, and the injuries he suffered to his knees, O.J. no longer had the speed to avoid tacklers, the agility to cut back, or the strength to break long gains. Still recovering from knee surgery, O.J. played in just 10 games that year and rushed for less than 600 yards. Worse still, one of the draft picks the 49ers traded for him ended up being the first overall in the following draft owing to the team’s 2-14 record.
The 1979 season would be O.J.’s final one. Whatever magic he once had in his legs was now gone. He was a shell of the player he had once been and his performance on the field toggled between mediocre and poor. Relegated largely to a back-up role, O.J. would tally just 85 yards in his final five games, a total that earlier in his career he would have eclipsed in one half of a single game. In nine of the 13 games he played, he gained 30 or fewer yards. With the team on its way to matching its woeful 2-14 record of the previous season, O.J. was handed the ball just twice in the final game of the season, a loss at the Atlanta Falcons. It would be the last game of Simpson’s career.
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