Jim Gehman

I hope no one minds if I contribute these excerpts about J.D. from my book: “Then Levy Said to Kelly…” A Rough Start Buffalo’s top draft choice in 1971, J.D. Hill, a wide receiver from Arizona State, experienced a plethora of emotions at the start of his career, beginning with the fourth preseason game on August 29 in Atlanta. "I was sitting on the bench with [quarterback] James Harris, and I said, ‘I wish they’d put us in. We’d show them what we can do!’ Just about a minute after that they called us in," said Hill. "The first pass he threw to me was a 67-yard touchdown pass. We kicked off to them, they fumbled, and the next pass he threw to me was a 69-yard touchdown pass. After the game, I got a message. It said, ‘J.D., your mother has died.’ So I flew to San Antonio, Texas. I’m embarking upon my career and what have you, I’m excited about things, but emotionally now, I’m wrecked. I buried my mother. I hadn’t had any sleep. I had to drive from San Antonio to Dallas, got on an airplane, and flew to Detroit [for the next preseason game]. I met up with the team, and the next night I shouldn’t have even played. I hadn’t practiced. I was emotionally distraught, and I got my knee tore up and my back hurt. "I remember running a slant pattern, and I jumped to catch a pass, and [Lions defensive back] Dick LeBeau hit me on my left knee. [back on the field for a kickoff,] in the process of all the hurry-up and what have you, I went out there and somebody missed a block, and a guy speared me right in the back with his helmet. They carried me off the field, and in the locker room at halftime I hear O.J. [simpson] saying, ‘Let’s go out there and get them for Hill.’ Well, Buffalo won the game, and I ended up going to the hospital and had my first knee surgery." After an exhaustive rehabilitation that included getting advice from basketball star Wilt Chamberlain –"Follow everything they tell you to do, but whatever they tell you to do, do a little bit more. " Hill’s regular-season debut occurred on November 28, when the 0–10 Bills hosted the Patriots at War Memorial Stadium. The rookie caught three passes for a game-high 82 yards and scored touchdowns of 11 and 47 yards less than six minutes apart in the second quarter. Buffalo won, 27–20, for its season’s only victory. A Wideout that Blocks Adjustments, even when done reluctantly, are a part of the game. In 1973 Buffalo’s offense centered on running back O.J. Simpson, who on 332 carries would set an NFL record with 2,003 rushing yards. His backfield mates Jim Braxton and Larry Watkins added 908 yards on 206 carries. Rookie quarterback Joe Ferguson added 147 yards more. But receiver J.D. Hill, who was coming off a 52-catch Pro Bowl season, wanted to handle the pigskin, too. However, since the game is played with only one football, and he realized it wasn’t coming his way with any regularity, Hill became a blocker. "[Veteran quarterback Dennis] Shaw is out. Ferguson is in. [Wide receivers] Haven Moses and Marlin Briscoe had already said, ‘We’re out of here.’ They knew about Lou Saban and his running game. They knew Lou wasn’t going to throw," said Hill, who would catch 23 fewer passes than in 1972. "I’m a young kid believing they’re going to use my talents, and the next thing I know we’re running the ball 40 times a game. "There was just me and B.C. [bob Chandler], and then they added Wallace Francis and some other receivers. I’m believing that, ‘Hey, they’re going to throw the ball. We want to win!’ What I ended up finding out was that people were more excited about O.J. running 200 yards a game and trying to get 2,000 yards then we were about winning ballgames. It appeared that way anyway. We weren’t trying to do everything to win." He continued. "I got to the point where I became frustrated, and I got discouraged with the game of football. I was young and didn’t know how to handle a lot of things, so my attitude began to change. We were running O.J. so much, and I wanted to catch the ball. Eventually I said, ‘Hey, listen, I’m not going to get the ball, so I’m going to be an angry wide receiver. I turned into a wide guard and just started blocking. I became one of the best blocking wide receivers in the league, if not the best. "It bothered me that they gave the line the ‘Electric Company.’ The whole team should have been the Electric Company. Everybody blocked! If I don’t block the linebacker, he’s going to shoot in there and mess up the pulling guard and O.J. doesn’t get around the corner. I’m blocking guys that are 6’5" and 255, 260 pounds, and I’m at 190. And at times, they’d put me at double-tight, where I’d have to block with the tackles, Dave Foley or Donnie Green. It bothered me because I was a split end." Hill’s focus on playing without the ball wasn’t unnoticed by his teammates then or later when they look back at what the Bills accomplished that season. "It was on an HBO special. Reggie McKenzie said, ‘If it wasn’t for J.D. Hill, O.J. would never have got 2,003 yards,’" said Hill. "That was my trophy. I can’t put it up on a mantle. I don’t get to look at it, but I’ve got the picture of one of the greatest offensive teams ever assembled on my wall. When I look at that picture, I look at Dave Foley and Reggie McKenzie and Mike Montler and Joe DeLamielleure and Donnie Green, Paul Seymour, and Jim Braxton, O.J. and Bobby Chandler, Joe Ferguson. I know that I was a part of one of the greatest offensive units that was ever assembled. I loved the game, but I wanted to catch the ball. I wanted to win. I wanted to use my talents."

Granted, they’re winless, however, because of the Bills’ most recent efforts [three losses by a total of nine points], and the mild wave of respect they are earning for not just going through the motions, the possibility that things will turn around and they’ll find at least a sliver of success may not be as farfetched as it was, say, a month ago. It can be done, and, in fact, was done by Buffalo’s longtime guard Jim Ritcher, whose story I’m happy to share from my book about the Bills - “Then Levy Said to Kelly…”. Don’t Ever Give Up If he discovered change in a pay phone’s coin return, Jim Ritcher would likely mail it to the telephone company. An-honest-day’s-work-for-an-honest-day’s-pay type of guy, he came to Buffalo in 1980 as the team’s first-round draft choice and had his work cut out for him despite being a two-time consensus All-America center at North Carolina State and the 1979 Outland Trophy award winner as college football’s top lineman. It would be three years before he would get off the Bills’ bench and became a fixture at left guard. Becoming a two-time Pro Bowl selection, Ritcher left the Bills in 1994 after playing 14 seasons and an all-time team record 222 total games, including the four Super Bowls. He never complained about the beginning of his career with the Bills and never bragged about the ending. "It wasn’t something individual as it was just the team," was Ritcher’s reply when asked what he is most proud of regarding his Bills’ career. "Certainly in the first half it was not that the effort wasn’t there, but things weren’t going right. And just the fact that we didn’t give up in the [1993 32-point comeback] Houston wild-card game. I look back on that and there seem to be so many life lessons about not giving up. Showing up and continuing with the work that’s before you. Just plug away at it and good things will happen. I try to teach my sons that. Not to ever give up and just keep plugging away. "I think my career was a little bit like that. I had some success in college, but I got to the Bills and… Here I was a number one draft pick coming in, and I wasn’t a starter my first couple years, and I just really felt that I let the scouts and whoever had elected to bring me to the Bills, I really let them down. The people thought enough of me to draft me in the first round and then to not be able to be out on the field, that bothered me." He continued, "I remember reading an article, and I think the reporter was probably exactly right, but it doesn’t mean that it still didn’t hurt when I read it. It said, ‘Jim Ritcher, is he another first-round flop for the Bills?’ I guess we had a number of guys that just didn’t pan out previous to me being there. I felt like, gosh, yeah, maybe I am just a flop. So like I said, it was sort of a life lesson to keep plugging away and keep working at it, and things got better. "We went through a really bad time, back-to-back 2-14 seasons [1984-85], but the team and myself just kept working at it and tried to get better at something every day. Things ended up getting better, and here I finish my career with the Bills by going to four Super Bowls."

Congratulations to Booker for being put on the Bills’ Wall of Fame. I realize that some younger fans aren’t familiar with stories about his playing days, and hope these excerpts from my book about the Bills, “Then Levy said to Kelly…”, will help serve as an introduction. An in With the Boss Booker Edgerson arrived in Buffalo as a rookie free-agent cornerback in 1962 with an advantage. His coach at Western Illinois University three years earlier was the same man who was the Bills’ head coach at the time, Lou Saban. “When he got the call to be the coach [of the AFL’s Boston Patriots in 1960], Leroy Jackson, Larry Garron, and myself said, ‘Don’t forget us when we graduate,’” Edgerson said. “I was playing baseball and had signed a contract with the Patriots, but in those days you could not participate in college sports and sign a professional contract. I just told them to hold on to it until the baseball season was over with. But in the meantime he got fired. So he asked me what I wanted to do with the contract. I said just tear it up, throw it away, and wherever he ends up, give me a call." In addition to calling players that he was familiar with such as Edgerson, the coach was handing out pink slips. A lot of pink slips! Prospective players did not really face a secure future during Buffalo’s training camps under Saban. "Saban got rid of a lot of folks between ‘62 and ‘64," laughed Edgerson. "A lot of guys were hollering and screaming. They didn’t feel comfortable and they didn’t feel this. And he said, ‘Hey! I don’t feel comfortable either. [but] I’m going to fire somebody before they fire me!’ And basically, that’s what it was. "We’d go on a road trip, in particular in North Carolina [during the 1963 preseason], and they cut a guy basically on the bench and traded him to [that game’s opponent] Denver. The guy wanted to get back on the plane and they told him, ‘No, you’ll have to get on the other team’s plane.’ "And we had a situation in Houston where I think there had to be five or six guys that they cut right then! Cut them on the spot! It was brutal, but I guess it was something he had to do. It goes back to the story that he said, ‘I will fire somebody before I get fired.’ The [remaining] guys took it really seriously and worked very hard to maintain some kind of consistency in their play, and it all paid off." He Could Go All the Way! Or Maybe Not In Booker Edgerson’s first game, the 1962 season opener against Houston, the cornerback intercepted Oilers quarterback George Blanda twice, as did Marv Matuszak and Carl Taseff in the 28-23 loss. Edgerson would finish the year with six picks for 111 yards and would be named to the AFL’s All-Rookie team. Two seasons later, Edgerson was on the receiving end of another Blanda pass. On November 1, 1964, with a perfect 7-0 record, the Bills hosted Houston, a team that had just two victories. They witnessed an Oilers offensive attack: 93 plays for 428 yards. But coach Sammy Baugh’s team came up short and only found the end zone once in the 24-10 game. Edgerson came up short as well. Late in the fourth quarter, he intercepted Blanda’s pass at the Buffalo 1-yard line and returned the ball 91 yards to the Oakland 8. That’s right, a 91-yard return. No touchdown. "I should have run out of bounds in the end zone. I should have kneeled down," laughed Edgerson. "Then they could never say anything about it. It would have just been an interception and that’s it. "Blanda, he threw 68 passes that day. It seemed like 60 of them were to my side. So when I intercepted the ball, I ran it back as best I could. I guess everybody was in pursuit, because I went from one side of the field halfway to the other side, back and forth. And finally, at the 9, [running back] Sid Blanks stepped on my heel and I went down. Everybody said I just pooped out. I said, ‘No, no, no.’ If you really look at the film close enough you’ll see that he stepped on the heel. But nobody accepted that excuse." The good-natured Edgerson continued. "I was laying on the field and Blanks was laying on the sideline, and Saban said, ‘Well, we have to get you in condition.’ I raised up and looked over to the sideline, and that’s when I saw Blanks. I said, ‘What the hell? If he’s tired, what makes you think I wouldn’t be tired? He’s an offensive player. Offensive players are supposed to be in better shape than defensive players.’ "Plus, on top of it, I told Lou Saban, ‘I got the ball all the way down to the 8, and you guys couldn’t even score! You couldn’t even get eight yards! You had to kick a field goal, so don’t be telling me why I didn’t score the touchdown. Why didn’t they score the touchdown? They came in fresh!’"

Many rookies know that the preseason is the best opportunity they have to prove they can play in the NFL. They realize it’s a long shot to make a team’s roster. For most of them, that opportunity has all but closed with the final cut down date now less than two days away. But there’s always hope. Two former long shots, Merv Krakau and Shane Nelson, proved that, and were standout linebackers for the Bills. Their stories are included in my book: “Then Levy said to Kelly…” Late Round Pick to Starting Linebacker Merv Krakau knew that it was a long shot to even make it through his first training camp with the Bills in 1973 without seeing his name on the league’s waiver wire. Selected in the 14th round of the draft, the 344th player chosen overall, the Iowa State defensive end quickly found he would be playing as a linebacker. "They felt that they wanted a little bit more size as far as height and weight," said the 6’3”, 230-pound Krakau. "I think one of the things that really helped me was that I played in the Senior Bowl that year, and the coaches from Buffalo – Lou Saban and his assistants – were the coaches of the North team, which I was on. So they got the opportunity to watch me practice for a week and then play the game and see what I could do. I probably made enough of an impression on them to give me that opportunity." Having made the roster, when the season opened against New England, Krakau had the unexpected opportunity to be the starting middle linebacker. "The linebacker that was going to start, Jim Cheyunski, had hurt his knee in a preseason game," Krakau said. "So I had the opportunity and, believe me, it was an experience, because at first you weren’t planning on it. To come in and think the chances of making the team were pretty slim and then changing positions and then starting the season opener.... It was a thrill." And it turned out to be a thrilling game. The Bills won their season opener for the first time in six years by pounding the Patriots, 31-13. Buffalo’s O.J. Simpson set an NFL record by rushing for 250 yards, while fullback Larry Watkins added 105 yards more. Meanwhile, Krakau and his defensive teammates held New England’s star running back Sam Cunningham to just 53 yards on the ground. Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain It did not matter that Shane Nelson was not one of the 335 players chosen during the 1977 NFL draft. The Baylor linebacker would arrive at Buffalo’s training camp with the same attitude, whether he was a free agent, which he was, or a first-round selection. "My mind-set pretty much was all or nothing. There was no tomorrow," said Nelson. "As a rookie free agent, you’ve got to be able to strike quickly as far as getting the coaches to be aware of your talent. You don’t come in with any kind of guarantee. Maybe a first- or second-round draft pick has time to develop because they’ve invested in them. As a rookie free agent, boy, you’d better make things happen quickly to allow coaches to really recognize you. I had nothing to lose, everything to gain." It is not often when a rookie free agent is acknowledged right away by veterans. The newcomer is trying to take a job from them or their teammates. But Nelson’s “nothing to lose, everything to gain” mentality caught the attention of two veterans in the defensive huddle: linebacker John Skorupan and safety Tony Greene. "John really talked to me a lot about the game and helped me become even a better student of the game. He taught me a lot about preparation for a game. In college, you prepared yourself. But it’s a whole ‘nother level when you really start breaking down game films, understanding tendencies, down, and distance. All that means so much more in the NFL! "And Tony just was there, just constantly supportive and always encouraging me. He really was instrumental in helping me from the standpoint that it gave me somebody to go to. He constantly encouraged me and gave me little tidbits on the field." While Skorupan and Greene saw something in the young linebacker after making the Bills’ roster, opposing running backs did as well – a No. 59 jersey in their faces! Nelson started every game and totaled 168 tackles, earning a place on the NFL’s All-Rookie team.

I appreciate both of your opinions and research. I agree that Lou Saban should be put on the Wall of Fame. It will hopefully occur sooner than later, and with Mr. Wilson standing on the field and congratulating the Saban family during the ceremony.

Granted, Dick Jauron is an exception and didn’t enjoy a lot of good days at the office while with the Bills, but three of the team’s most successful coaches arrived in Buffalo with NFL head coaching experience. Lou Saban, Chuck Knox, and Marv Levy shared their stories in my book: “Then Levy Said to Kelly…” Saban Goes to Work Lou Saban is synonymous with Bills’ firsts. He was on the sideline when the team earned its first victory on September 23, 1960, in Boston. He was, however, the head coach of the Patriots at the time. He joined Buffalo as the director of player personnel on October 27, 1961, and replaced Buster Ramsey as the head coach less than three months later. He was instrumental in turning the team around, guiding it to its first winning season in 1962. "I’ve always felt that you’ve got to be a good trader, be able to understand the market. I think we did," says Saban. "I had a very good coaching staff. Almost every one of them became head coaches. We could understand talent. Taking it from (my former coach) Paul Brown, I kept saying, ‘You win with talent and you have to make sure you coach them properly.’ That was what we were able to do. I didn’t want the players to lean on the coaches. I wanted them to feel the coaches were leaning on them. When they’re out on that football field and they’re in trouble, they’ve got to help themselves. The men I coached were an experienced group. You’re talking about Tom Sestak, Billy Shaw, Cookie Gilchrist, Jack Kemp, Daryle Lamonica, right down the line. As a group, they were tough to beat. They were my pride and joy." Saban’s “tough to beat” group were indeed tough to beat. In 1964 the Bills recorded a 12-2 record and won the AFL championship. In 1965 they were 10-3-1 and won the league title again. Yet, surprisingly, he resigned a week after that second championship-game victory over San Diego. "In a person’s own life, there are certain adjustments you think you have to make," said Saban, a two-time AFL Coach of the Year. "At that stage, because of my family, I thought maybe this might be a chance to make one of those adjustments. I tried to see if I could put a very difficult atmosphere, tied in with what I thought was a very congenial situation at home, and keep pressure off my family. That was impossible to do. Youngsters who happen to be children of head coaches in professional sports don’t have it easy. I just couldn’t fathom how difficult it was to make changes in that type of an atmosphere. But I gave it a try." Knox Landing Chuck Knox’s reputation for success preceded him. Hired for his first head-coaching job by the Rams in 1973, he guided Los Angeles to the penthouse of the NFC West division. And so with the goal to move into the AFC East’s top floor, in 1978 the hard-working Knox was hired by the Bills as their vice president in charge of football operations. In other words, he was the new head coach. "Ralph Wilson came out and visited with me and told me what he wanted to do," explained Knox. "I’d just finished five years within which we won five straight divisional championships. Fifty-four wins, 15 loses, one tie. And that was playing a 14-game schedule. So the Bills’ job appealed to me because they had won like three or four games [actually five] over a two-year period, and I felt like we could go in there and turn the program around." Knox’s willingness to tackle such an adventuresome project, considering that the Bills had only played in a single playoff game since the leagues merged in 1970, no doubt shocked at least a few around the league. "Anytime you leave a team like the L.A. Rams," says Knox, "where we were winning big, and going to situations like that, where they were having a lot of problems, I think it surprised a lot of people. "The goal always is to win the Super Bowl championship. But in light of that, you’ve got to put a competitive team out on the field, which they obviously didn’t have those last couple of years before we got there. We had to change the attitude of the team. We had to completely redo the scouting department, which wasn’t much of anything. So we hired some scouts. We brought Norm Pollom in [as the director of college scouting], who had been with me with the Rams. And then we also went and got some veteran players to bring some toughness. We became a pretty good football team. We were competitive that first year." "When Chuck took over it was like a breath of fresh air," said third-year defensive end Ben Williams. "We hadn’t been very successful. What Chuck did when he came was he brought the team together and showed us a lot of unity and how to win. Nobody ever taught you how to win early in my career." A Marvelous Hire When a team loses 13 of 15 games dating back to the previous season, a coaching change is not surprising. Dropping seven of their first nine games in 1986, the Bills replaced Hank Bullough with Marv Levy, who was the director of football operations for the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes. Levy arrived in Buffalo to take over the struggling team with an open and curious mind. "I knew the names of the players in the room, but I couldn’t have pointed out Jim Kelly or Bruce Smith or any of those guys," laughed Levy. "I know what I said initially: ‘What it takes to win is simple, but it isn’t easy. Run, throw, block, tackle, catch, and kick better than your opponent. We’re not going to do it with a bunch of Xs and Os. We’re not going to do it with a bunch of talk. We’re going to go to work on fundamentals.’ And I did point out to them, ‘I’m going to ask three questions for you to answer. I know mine. Where are we now? Where do we want to go? How are we going to get there?’" Three of the team leaders who were at the meeting and would have to help Levy and the Bills ‘get there’ were Kelly, Smith and Darryl Talley. "You always hope, you always pray that that’s going to be the case, but you really don’t know," said Kelly. "You just go with what you’ve heard about the man. You just hope that the owner, Ralph Wilson, gets the right players behind you and then it’s up to you to do your job. The coaches can only do so much coaching. When you get on the field, it’s up to the players to make the plays." "We felt that it was the beginning of something special," Smith said. "We knew his personality was contagious and the fact that he had a great deal of integrity. And if any of that rubbed off on us, we felt that we were headed in the right direction." Added Talley. "I didn’t know what really to expect. I just sat there and watched and just sort of looked at what he was doing. I was trying to figure out exactly which way I was going and what we were going to do as a team. How was he going to treat us, and how were we going to react?" Levy would make team history during his first week on the job by becoming the first head coach to win his first game, topping Pittsburgh, 16-12. "I didn’t know that," said Levy, who was Kansas City’s head coach from 1977 to 1982. "I’m surprised because there have been some good ones. Lou Saban and Chuck Knox, to name a couple. I’m pleased to know that we won any games. That it happened to be the first one, great!" Kelly agreed that the timing could not have been better and beating the Steelers – that was a personal bonus. "It might make me a little different than anybody else because I grew up in Pittsburgh, and I wanted to play for the Steelers, and here I am playing against the team that I grew up watching and cheering for. The Terrible Towel, Franco [Harris], [Terry] Bradshaw, [John] Stallworth, [Lynn] Swann, Mean Joe Greene, all those guys! So that was a memory from when I was a little kid, and here I’m playing against that team. It was exciting! "We’d just come off of a heart-wrenching loss against Tampa Bay the week before, and here we’ve got a new coach and a new identity. I was looking forward to it. I was looking forward to the change. So for me, it was just a matter of waiting and seeing what happened. And it turned out being the best thing the Buffalo Bills ever did, hiring a guy like Marv Levy."

Congratulations to Chris on the HOF. I’m proud to share a couple excerpts from my book “Then Levy Said to Kelly” about how he exhibited class on and off the field. A Modern-Day Throwback Let’s face it. There are times when a team just has good luck drop on its doorstep. For each of the eight seasons that he played in the NFL, Chris Spielman led the Detroit Lions in tackles, and he was selected to play in the Pro Bowl four times. But then the linebacker seemed to fall out of favor with the organization because of his salary, and became a free agent. "In the first quarter of the [1995] season opener, against the big running back by the name of Bam Morris, I partially tore a pectoral muscle. I played through it and still had a good year," Spielman said. "I was coming up to be a free agent, and I think I wanted a little bit too much money. They didn’t have it. They wanted to put it into an offensive guy. They really didn’t pursue me, so I pursued free agency, and Buffalo was one of teams that I was attracted to. They liked me, and they lost Cornelius Bennett to the Falcons that year, so that opened up room for me. That’s why I ended up in Buffalo." As was the case in Detroit, Spielman became an unquestioned team leader with the Bills about the same time he shut his car door after first arriving at the stadium in Orchard Park in 1996. "I think if you’re a veteran and you produce, you assume a role," says Spielman, who averaged 142 tackles per season with the Lions. "I think my position that I played was a leadership role automatically by the nature of the position, at least on the field. I started calling plays, and once I was familiar with the defense and what we were trying to do, I wasn’t afraid to assert myself. When the coaches tell you what’s expected of you, and you’re there to do the job, you pretty much do it. I had credibility with the players because I was a player for a few years and able to produce. So most guys figured, ‘Well, he’s the linebacker, he’s calling the plays, everybody line up and here we go.’" Beginning with the season opener against the New York Giants when he totaled 17 tackles and recovered a fumble during overtime that set up the game-winning field goal, Spielman led the Bills in stops 13 games and accumulated a career-high and team record 206 total tackles. However, statistics, as far as Spielman is concerned, are just clutter in a media guide. His mind-set when taking the field was very clear. "Win! Pure and simple, win! It was all about winning. I didn’t care when it was or where it was, as long as we did everything we could do to win the game. That was the mind-set. And winning’s hard in the NFL. It’s difficult. It didn’t always happen, but you always did everything in the world in your own power to make it happen." "If I’m Walking, I Can Play" After putting up a career-high and team-record 206 total tackles in 1996, Chris Spielman, Buffalo’s hardworking linebacker who would often be seen wearing his game face regardless of whether there was a game that day or not, was stopped midway through the 1997 campaign. Not by a massive offensive tackle trying to clear a path, but by an injury. A serious injury! It occurred during a Monday night game in Indianapolis on October 20, while tackling Colts running back Lamont Warren. "I was paralyzed for a few seconds, then got up. It was toward the end, so I finished the game," said Spielman. "And then the next week [versus the Broncos], it happened like three more times. I didn’t really say anything immediately after the Indianapolis game. I said something after the Denver game, and that’s when they discovered that my disc had exploded onto my spinal cord. That’s why I was having bouts of paralysis." Spielman’s reaction? "Probably that I should get this checked out, something’s not right. But when you’re all caught up in the moment of the game, as a player, for me, anyway, I had a feeling of invincibility. Like nothing could be wrong with me. My code was if I’m walking, I can play. So I was having these little bouts, but it would always come back, and I wouldn’t have any other symptoms. Looking back on it now, I wasn’t very smart. Stupid! But you know, as a player, you get yourself in a mind-set, you get whooped up, and you’re going to do everything in the world to play and produce. Thankfully, I had the good sense to finally seek medical attention." The injury required surgery to fuse two vertebrae. Eight months of rehabilitation followed, and by June of 1998 he felt healthy enough to return to the game. But all the workouts, all the sweat, all the determination that he experienced while getting physically ready could not help with what he faced next. During a self-examination, his wife, Stephanie, discovered a lump in her right breast and underwent a mastectomy after two tumors were discovered. Understandably, playing football again was no longer important. The Spielmans would face months of aggressive chemotherapy together. Chris decided to step away from the game and help take care of her and their two young children. Spielman skipped training camp and was not seen around Orchard Park until he showed up unexpectedly and joined his teammates on the sideline for Buffalo’s game against San Francisco on October 4. His return was acknowledged by the 76,615 fans in attendance with a standing ovation. "I think that people respected the decision that I made," Spielman said. "It was an easy decision to make, but it still felt like you were letting people down. I certainly made the right decision, don’t get me wrong. I felt like the people in Buffalo, for the two years, treated me great, and I loved playing there and being a part of it, but I still felt like I let them down. I guess it justified my decision to not play football because I got a standing ovation. It made me feel good, obviously. I guess that I was accepted as a Buffalo Bill."

More deserving? No. As deserving? Absolutely. In addition to Byrd, Saban, and Gilchrist; a couple others come to mind. Shane Nelson. His career was unfortunately cut short because of a knee injury, but Fred Smerlas and Jim Haslett will tell you that Shane was not only the heart and soul of the “Bermuda Triangle,” but of the entire defense. Jerry Butler, who also had his career shortened because of a knee injury, was a thrill to watch. Simply put, he made the game better because he was in it. Jerry and Shane were great football players, but they are even better people.

Congratulations Booker! He collected 23 interceptions during the eight seasons [1962-69] he played for the Bills, and talked about a memorable one in my book, "Then Levy Said to Kelly...". He Could Go All the Way! Or Maybe Not In Booker Edgerson’s first game, the 1962 season opener against Houston, the cornerback intercepted Oilers quarterback George Blanda twice, as did Marv Matuszak and Carl Taseff in the 28-23 loss. Edgerson would finish the year with six picks for 111 yards and would be named to the AFL’s All-Rookie team. Two seasons later, Edgerson was on the receiving end of another Blanda pass. On November 1, 1964, with a perfect 7-0 record, the Bills hosted Houston, a team that had just two victories. They witnessed an Oilers’ offensive attack: 93 plays for 428 yards. But coach Sammy Baugh’s team came up short and only found the end zone once in the 24-10 game. Edgerson came up short as well. Late in the fourth quarter, he intercepted Blanda’s pass at the Buffalo 1-yard line and returned the ball 91 yards to the Oakland 8. That’s right, a 91-yard return. No touchdown. "I should have run out of bounds in the end zone. I should have kneeled down," laughed Edgerson. "Then they could never say anything about it. It would have just been an interception and that’s it. "Blanda, he threw 68 passes that day. It seemed like 60 of them were to my side. So when I intercepted the ball, I ran it back as best I could. I guess everybody was in pursuit, because I went from one side of the field halfway to the other side, back and forth. And finally, at the 9, [running back] Sid Blanks stepped on my heel and I went down. Everybody said I just pooped out. I said, ‘No, no, no.’ If you really look at the film close enough you’ll see that he stepped on the heel. But nobody accepted that excuse." The good-natured Edgerson continued. "I was laying on the field and Blanks was laying on the sideline, and Saban said, ‘Well, we have to get you in condition.’ I raised up and looked over to the sideline, and that’s when I saw Blanks. I said, ‘What the hell? If he’s tired, what makes you think I wouldn’t be tired? He’s an offensive player. Offensive players are supposed to be in better shape than defensive players.’ "Plus, on top of it, I told Lou Saban, ‘I got the ball all the way down to the 8, and you guys couldn’t even score! You couldn’t even get eight yards! You had to kick a field goal, so don’t be telling me why I didn’t score the touchdown. Why didn’t they score the touchdown? They came in fresh!’"

To be fair, Patulski and Cousineau told their sides of what happened with the Bills in my book: “Then Levy Said to Kelly…” The NFL’s Top Pick Walt Patulski had a unique and, at times, a strained relationship with head coach Lou Saban. Both coming and going. The NFL’s top draft choice in 1972, Patulski, a unanimous All-America defensive end at Notre Dame as a senior and the Lombardi Award winner as the nation’s top lineman, came to Buffalo the same year that Saban was back for his second stint with the organization, having guided the Bills to back-to-back AFL titles in 1964 and 1965. "It was interesting. Lou really was responsible for drafting me, and he was also responsible for peddling me," says Patulski. "He gave me a fair shake. I don’t think his methods of operation were particularly effective with my temperament and demeanor. I think there was a little bit of conflict there. I had come from an environment with Ara Parseghian as a head coach that really left it in the hands of the defensive line coach, and he was like an overseer or a manager. Lou was more of hands-on, working more directly with some of the players. It wasn’t an effective strategy with me, so it was a little bit strained. He was clearly in a rebuilding program in what he was looking for. He was trying a lot of different things and had players coming in. A lot of veterans came in and were gone quickly. But he was fair." It is also fair to say that Patulski did not enjoy the same level of gridiron success in Buffalo that he had experienced at Notre Dame. He did, however, have exceptional performances at times. An example: during a 24-17 victory in Baltimore on November 25, 1973, Patulski was credited with three pass deflections, five unassisted tackles, and two assists, and he sacked Colts quarterback Marty Domres, earning the NFL Defensive Player of the Week honor. But after four seasons with the Bills, he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for their second-round draft choice in 1976, which Buffalo would use to select offensive tackle Joe Devlin from the University of Iowa. "I got a call," Patulski said. "It was April Fool’s Day, and what was an omen, was the day before, Mike Kadish and I were playing Lou Saban and [assistant coach] Jim Ringo in pinochle, and we beat them soundly. I think Lou just got his revenge and traded me. I was disappointed, was very disappointed, because I had made a commitment to the area and it felt like the Bills hadn’t honored their commitment to me. They were certainly within their rights, but I was disappointed." Trading the No. 1 Tom Cousineau, Buffalo’s and the league’s number one draft pick in 1979, never found his way to the team’s training camp at Niagara University. He instead headed north of the border to play for the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes. But in March of 1982, he bid au revoir to his Canadian team and returned home with the intention of playing in the NFL. The Bills had retained the rights to the former Ohio State All-America linebacker during his CFL tenure and could have him on their roster by matching any contract offer an NFL team rendered him. And there were rumors that Buffalo planned to do just that. The Houston Oilers tested that speculation and signed him to a reported five-year, $3.5 million offer sheet which included a $1 million signing bonus. The Bills matched it, only to then trade Cousineau to his hometown Cleveland Browns for their first-round draft choice in 1983, their third-round selection in 1984, and their fifth-round selection in 1985. "The three years I was in Montreal, the company line out of the Buffalo front office was that if I was going to play in the NFL, I was going to wear a Buffalo uniform," said Cousineau. "We did our thing. We talked to a number of teams. We came out with what we feel is an excellent offer from the Houston Oilers. We signed a deal, the offer sheet was sent to the Bills, and then all of a sudden their stand wavers a bit. They don’t respond. At that point, I was pretty certain that something was going to happen. They were going to try to make a trade. The offer sheet was very simple. It was one page with about six lines, and they said that they had to analyze it. Well, I had given them more credit business-wise. To analyze something that was not very complex at all, I felt that they were looking for a way out of the situation, which they were. "I didn’t speak to anybody from Buffalo. They never once called me during the time I was negotiating with other teams. What they wanted to do, basically, they said that they were going to match any offer that came down the pike, or across the table. I think they did that to scare people off, to intimidate them into not making an offer. Because what’s the use? Buffalo’s going to hit it anyway. Well, that wasn’t the case. I think that it got a little out of hand. They needed to talk with both myself and [my agent] Jimmy Walsh to come to terms. They couldn’t have made the deal themselves, and I think that’s where they made the mistake, with not talking to us and not trying to work things out." Backtracking the three years to when he was initially drafted, did Cousineau even want things to be worked out and play for the Bills? "I was very proud to be Buffalo’s number one pick in ’79," he said. "They let me know well in advance that they were going to draft me, and did I have any problems with that? I replied, ‘No,’ and that was the truth. The problem came when they offered me a very embarrassing contract. What made even less sense was when they didn’t sign me, they turned around and hired a man named Isiah Robertson. I don’t understand that! I think that my position was very well justified. It was pointed out even further with the Robertson deal."

I offer my condolences to the Janik family. I enjoyed talking with Tommy a couple times, and proudly included him in my book. Leaving ‘Broadway Joe’ in the Dust Some players are upset when they are traded from one team to another. Tom Janik was not one of them. Joining the defending AFL champions may have had something to do with that. "I was glad because I didn’t like the coach at the time with the Broncos," said the safety, who was acquired by the Bills in 1965. "I liked Jack Faulkner, but then they let him go and they got another guy [Mac Speedie] there and I didn’t care for him at all." After collecting a team-high eight interceptions in 1966, the Poth, Texas, native topped that the following season when he picked-off a pass in four consecutive games, including three during a 44-16 victory against the Patriots on December 9. He finished with a league-leading 10 interceptions and earned a place in the AFL All-Star Game. "It was just one of those years. When you saw it coming and it came out right, you were there," Janik said. "You just had one of those years where everything works out right. The next year you might try the same thing and it might just backfire on you, too." New York’s quarterback, Joe Namath, would likely attest that, in fact, it didn’t backfire. Hosting the undefeated Jets on Sept. 29, 1968, the winless Bills made Namath’s afternoon miserable. Trailing 10-7 in the second quarter, New York was going for the lead when Janik stepped in front of a pass that was intended for Curley Johnson at the goal line and raced the interception untouched 100 yards for the touchdown. "I loved every minute of that! When I saw Namath throw that pass, I said, ‘Man, that’s all she wrote,’ and I took off," laughed Janik. "About the 30, I was laughing so hard because I turned around and looked, and he was limping and gimping, chasing me. I knew he couldn’t run with his bad leg. [in the end zone] I threw the ball in the air and about 15 fans fought like crazy. After the game there was one guy that handed the ball back to me, and it looked like he was whipped on all day and all night long. But he had a smile from ear to ear." Namath finished the game with five interceptions. In addition to Janik’s return for a touchdown, Butch Byrd [53 yards] and Booker Edgerson [45 yards] returned picks to the end zone as well. The Bills won, 37-35, for their only victory in the 1-12-1 campaign.

I hope you don't mind me sharing, but I included a story about this game in my book "Then Levy Said to Kelly...". Showdown in San Francisco Jim Kelly had many special games under center for Buffalo. But when the Bills traveled west on September 13, 1992, to meet the San Francisco 49ers, he was spectacular! As was his counterpart, Steve Young. Kelly completed 22 of 33 pass attempts for an NFL career-high 403 yards and three touchdowns, two to tight end Pete Metzelaars and one to running back Thurman Thomas. Young, meanwhile, passed for a career-high 449 yards and three touchdowns. The teams combined for 1,086 yards of offense, the fourth-highest total in league history. However, they did get into the NFL’s record book by playing in a game where, for the first time, no punts were attempted by either team. The Bills won, 34-31, for their second of four victories to open the season. "It was one of the most exciting games I’ve ever played in," said Kelly. "When you don’t punt, either team, and you rack up as many yards as we did and wind up winning the game, we were very fortunate. Andre [Reed] was a key. Of course, Kent Hull was a key and Thurman [Thomas] was a big key. But as far as the passing game, Andre was my man. He was the guy that I knew to go to in certain situations. I knew that he was the guy that not many could handle one-on-one on the inside. He was my go-to man, without a doubt! "Pete was a guy that if I was ever in trouble, I knew I could look for that big ‘ol frame, and he was going to be there. He ran the best routes probably of anybody on the team. Not much as far as run after catch, but Pete was one of those guys who was Mr. Reliable. We were on the same page every single play." As far as what turned out to be a Quarterback Challenge that was not a made-for-television event and did not involve trying to hit a target on a moving golf cart? "I remember playing him (Young) in the USFL, too," recalled Kelly. "‘The Greatest Game That Nobody Saw’ was the Sports Illustrated caption. We dueled out in Los Angeles and the final score was like, 38-35, or something like that [actually 34-33]. They [L.A. Express] were beating us [Houston Gamblers] by three touchdowns, and we came back to beat them. Every time I played against Steve Young it was a battle."

There are some available at Borders in Henrietta, Bill. Thanks and I hope that you enjoy the book.

Thank you very much for the review, Lori. I have enjoyed reading your articles and scouting reports and appreciate your opinion.