However, I should also point out that my exclusive analysis indicates that, if they do follow through with the conventional Yary choice, I'm afraid Bud Grant and the boys are likely to rue their passing on Manny Fernandez, a relatively unknown defensive lineman from Utah.
I was right about Ron Yary.
ReplyDeleteHap Glaudi of WWL-TV, however, had it that the Vikings were trading the No. 1 pick to New Orleans for Gary Cuozzo, an undrafted quarterback from Virginia who broke out with a five-touchdown game as Johnny Unitas's understudy in Baltimore and then was the Saints' first-ever starting quarterback.
DeleteMilton Richman of United Press International, though, expected Minnesota to take Fred Carr, a linebacker from Texas-El Paso:
DeleteThe general belief was that the Vikings would go for (UCLA Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Gary) Beban quicker than most politicians go for a TV debate. All the ingredients were there.
To begin with, the Vikings' need for a quarterback borders on the desperate. With the bonus pick they got from the Giants in the deal for Fran Tarkenton, they'll be in perfect position to open the draft proceedings Tuesday by selecting Beba (sic), but they won't.
They won't because they've already begun negotiations for quarterback Bill Munson of the Los Angeles Rams.
The 1968 draft, by the way, took place on Tuesday, Jan. 30, and Wednesday, Jan. 31. That was 16 days after Super Bowl II.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that coaches were once less involved with the drafting decisions, and, if that was true, I wonder if the proximity of the draft to the prior season was one of the drivers in this.
ReplyDeleteRon Yary says he wasn't paid to play at USC.
ReplyDeleteThe Vikings were picking here because of the trade a season before that sent Fran Tarkenton to the New York Giants (and away from then-coach Norm Van Brocklin). Minnesota received first- and second-round picks in 1967 and '68 in exchange for Tarkenton.
ReplyDeleteYary made the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001. Here's part of his induction speech:
ReplyDeleteEvery play and every block that I ever made was to help our running back gain more yards or a quarterback and receiver complete the pass. Not for individual glory but for the benefit of the greater good - the success of the team. This is the creed of the offensive lineman that defines the spirit, the American spirit which is built into the fabric of football. All men who have played this game at any level identify with this creed. Whether it is a kid on a high school football team or the great NFL player. For no other sport in the world can offer up to its participants this internal yearning that exists within all men, this creed, this All-American spirit, this yearning inside of all men in which I speak of is called sacrifice. And it is in the sole possession and the very essence of American football.
2. Bengals: Bob Johnson, center, Tennessee
ReplyDeleteJack Zanger, in Pro Football '68, didn't seem to know what to make of Cincinnati's choice: "(S)couts say he has all the pro requisites."
ReplyDeleteBy Pro Football 1971, however, Brenda Zanger was sold:
The first man Cincinnati ever chose in the draft is alive and well--in Cincinnati. Bob Johnson hasn't missed a play since he joined the team in 1968. He was a rare first-round draft choice because he was a center at the University of Tennessee, and centers usually aren't chosen that high. But Johnson was an unusual center, as the Bengals soon found out. He is larger than most at 6-5 and 265 pounds, and he's very intelligent. The team made him offensive captain from his first game on. He made the AFL All-Star game as a rookie, and started getting some all-league second-team mentions last season. He won't turn 25 until before the opening game so he should be heard from for years to come.
Zanger, Brenda, Pro Football 1971 (New York: Pocket Books, 1970) 158.
Per Wikipedia, Johnson's 54 is the only uniform number ever retired by the Bengals. He retired in 1979, and then he was around for some fun Cincinnati seasons as a radio analyst 1981-85.
DeleteJohnson was an offensive team captain from his rookie season on. And per the 1974 Bengals media guide, Johnson, who holds a degree in industrial engineering, was "Assistant Director of Marketing for the Imperial Adhesive Division of U.S. Shoe Corp."
DeleteU.S. Shoe Corp. eventually owned Lenscrafter.
DeleteThe Zanger story is heart-wrenching.
ReplyDeleteThe dedication in the 1970 book: "In memory of Jack -- husband, father and friend."
ReplyDeleteFrom the 1971 book:
ReplyDeleteJust five years ago Brenda Zanger was working toward a career as a designer of theatrical scenery, costumes and lighting. Then she met and married Jack Zanger, whose enthusiasm for sports proved to be contagious. Brenda's love for theater took a back seat to a new interest in sports; she found herself preferring a night out at Yankee Stadium to an evening of theater. In 1968, Jack asked Brenda to try writing some of the profiles for Pro Football-1968, and with each of the following books her involvement and productivity increased. Each year the Zangers wen to Florida during spring training, and Brenda--unlike many sportswriters' wives--attended the ballgames, arriving well before batting practice and leaving well after the final out. It was on their return from Florida in 1970--a trip which served as a well-deserved vacation for Jack, who had just finished collaborating with Tony Conigliaro on Tony's book, Seeing It Through--that Jack was stricken by a brain tumor. He died within a week. With the aid of many of Jack's friends, Brenda Zanger saw to it that Pro Football-1970 came out on schedule, and then was given the opportunity to continue writing the baseball and football books herself. Brenda has since written some magazine articles, most recently about quarterback Fran Tarkenton. She resides in New York City with her two-year-old daughter, Nora.
Brenda Zanger's dedication in Pro Football 1971: "For my mother, who always comes through in the clutch."
ReplyDeleteThe John Clayton-lives-at-home-with-his-mom This Is Sportscenter commercial is The Best.
ReplyDelete3. Falcons: Claude Humphrey, defensive end, Tennessee State
ReplyDeleteThis fight song makes me like the Atlanta Falcons a good bit more.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, in the Feb. 1, 1968, issue of Sports Illustrated--which would've had to be prepared before the Jan. 29/30 draft--Tex Maule leads off the features with a letter to NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle in which Maule warns that the league is becoming boring despite the fact that it's coming off its most successful season. In "Dear Pete," Maule draws on his "past 20 years deeply involved, one way or another, with pro football players, coaches, owners, fans and even commissioners" to propose the following changes:
ReplyDelete-- Improve the likelihood that the Super Bowl pits the two best teams by having the NFL conference champions play the AFL conference champions in semifinals to determine the Super Bowl participants.
-- Reduce Sunday TV doubleheaders. Giving viewers in any given market four games from which to pick on a given Sunday afternoon is oversaturation, Maule writes.
-- Don't put games on Monday night. This would hurt the competitive position of the participating teams on the following Sunday, Maule writes.
-- Revise the new four-division format to organize teams by team quality (seeding the best four teams in a first division, the next-best four in a second, etc.) "They group according to ability in England, you know. Or maybe you don't know. ..." (And then Maule goes on to explain the setup.)
-- Ban trades of first-round draft choices. Maule writes that bad teams are too often tempted to trade high draft choices for low-risk veterans who aren't quite good enough to start for top teams. (Green Bay traded veterans for draft choices that ultimately yielded young stars Donny Anderson, Jim Grabowski and Bob Hyland, for example, SI points out in accompanying photograph captions.)
-- Move the league's trading deadline to the start of training camp so that teams with too many good players at a given position are forced to make their extras freely available to all teams as opposed to being able to balance their depth via trades.
These are exactly the sort of ideas I would have expected Tex Maule to come up with.
DeletePresumably George Allen and the Redskins are glad the NFL didn't forbid them from trading their draft picks.
Ron Yary is USC's No. 77 in this game. Watch for him flattening two UCLA Bruins on the right side of the defense at about 5:08 (and then again when the play is shown in "ABC COLOR SLO-MO"), to spring (amazing) O.J. Simpson for a long run.
ReplyDeleteThat video is a pretty darned compelling 8 minutes, 45 seconds if, like me, you don't know who is going to win and don't let yourself read the Wikipedia summary until after you watch to the end.
It was regarded at the time, and has been ever since, as one of the greatest college football games ever played.
DeleteOh, man! At 4:05 there's a fabulous shot of the L.A. Coliseum Scoreboard. I've been looking for one of those for a long time.
DeleteI had never realized the extent to which UCLA was hurt by poor special teams play in this game. The Bruins missed one field goal, had two other field goals blocked, and had an extra point that was blocked. If any of those kicks had been good, the result might have been different.
DeleteHere's a person who's really, really upset that Claude Humphrey hasn't yet been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. (Warning: Language unsuitable for SmartGirl, Number3Son and maybe even Number2Son and the wives of the HP after he starts ripping on the NFC East about five minutes in.)
ReplyDelete4. Chargers: "Mountain Man Russ" Washington, offensive tackle and defensive end, Missouri
ReplyDeletePer his 1980 Topps football card, Russ Washington "now holds Charger records for longevity. He has played in more games (172) and has made more consecutive starts (142) than any other player in club history."
ReplyDeleteWashington--who, as a player, spent part of the year living on his wife's native Micronesia island and now operates a San Diego car wash, per Wikipedia--was a Chargers team captain in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1978 and 1979.
ReplyDeleteSo, anyway, four picks in--Yary to the Vikings, Johnson to the Bengals, Humphrey to the Falcons and Washington to the Chargers--and all four picks have been fantastic. All four are considered to be among the best players in the history of their teams; all four had careers of more than a decade, and all four spent most of those careers with the teams that drafted them. Some of the contemporary reports on the 1968 draft indicate that this one doesn't have the star power of next season's draft--featuring USC's O.J. Simpson--but, man, this is going to turn out to be an unusually fruitful top of a draft.
ReplyDelete5. Packers: Fred Carr, linebacker, Texas (El Paso)
ReplyDeleteNos. 1, 3, 7 and 8 on the Dallas Cowboys/Optimum Systems computer ratings are now off the board:
ReplyDelete1. Fred Carr (Texas-El Paso)
2. Maurice Moorman (Texas A&M)
3. Russ Washington (Missouri)
4. Haven Moses ( San Diego State)
5. Bob Wallace (Texas-El Paso)
6. Kevin Hardy (Notre Dame)
7. Ron Yary (USC)
8. Claude Humphrey (Tennessee A&I)
9. Dennis Homan (Alabama)
10. Earl McCullouch (USC)
Fred Carr played in all 140 games of his 10-year career with the Packers. Per his 1974 Topps card, he intercepted a pass on the first play of his first game with the team.
ReplyDeleteUPI's Milton Richman had the Packers taking Haven Moses, to replace newly retired Max McGee.
ReplyDelete6. Boston: Dennis Byrd, defensive end, North Carolina State
ReplyDeleteRest in peace, Dennis Byrd, who died in 2010. From his N.C. State obituary:
ReplyDeleteA member of the famed "White Shoes Defense" in 1967, Byrd was the physical leader of the defense that gave the Wolfpack its first national acclaim on the gridiron by beating third-ranked Houston in the Astrodome and rising to No. 3 in the Associated Press poll, the high ranking in school history. However, the Wolfpack, with Byrd out of the lineup because of a knee injury, lost its final two games in the regular season, to Penn State and Clemson, before earning the school's first post-season bowl victory, a win over Georgia in the 1967 Liberty Bowl.
Byrd was the No. 6 pick of the American Football League's Boston Patriots in 1968, just the second first-round draft pick in school history after quarterback Roman Gabriel. But Byrd never fully recovered from the after-the-whistle knee injury he suffered against Duke late in his senior season. His professional career ended after two seasons.
WOOOOOLF!
ReplyDeletePAAAAAAAACK!
7. New Orleans: Kevin Hardy, defensive tackle, Notre Dame
ReplyDeleteIn their first season, 1967, the Saints surrendered the No. 1 overall choice as part of their trade with Baltimore for Gary Cuozzo.
ReplyDeleteIn 1968, New Orleans should've been picking fifth overall, but the league awarded that pick to Green Bay as compensation for the Saints' signing Jim Taylor. That's the pick that became Fred Carr.
Hap Glaudi was right that Minnesota was trading with New Orleans for Cuozzo. But the deal was for Minnesota's No. 7 overall choice in 1968 (not No. 1), as well as the Vikings' first-round pick in 1969. The No. 7 1968 pick nets Hardy.
However, Hardy never played for the Saints. When New Orleans signed free-agent end Dave Parks from San Francisco, the league awarded Hardy and the Saints' own first-round pick in 1969 to the 49ers.