Remembering a Halcyon Day at Shea

By Joe Zagorski 

Simpson running against jets, December 16, 1973
Photo credit: Associated Press

On December 16, 1973, the Buffalo Bills met their AFC Eastern Division rivals, the New York Jets, in the final game of the season at Shea Stadium on Long Island. Almost 50 years ago, that game is still fondly remembered by fans of both teams, for different reasons. It was a day and a game where history was made, and where one of pro football’s greatest accomplishments took place. On the Jets side, their venerable head coach, Weeb Ewbank, would end his 20-year coaching career in the pros at the conclusion of this contest. Ewbank stands alone for all time as the only head coach who won world championships with a team in the NFL (the Baltimore Colts in 1958 and 1959) and a team in the AFL (the New York Jets in 1968). On the Buffalo side, their incomparable running back, the legendary O.J. Simpson, would achieve the greatest rushing accomplishment that the sport had ever seen up to that time…a 2,000-yard season.

Added to this excitement was a little bit of pressure, at least as far as the Bills were concerned.  A victory over the Jets would give Buffalo a 9-5 record and would keep their faint playoff hopes alive.  Now by the end of this game, both the Steelers and the Bengals won their games on this final weekend of the 1973 regular season, which eliminated the Bills from postseason competition. But 50 years later, no one would be remembering whether Buffalo made the playoffs or not.  Rather, older pro football fans and the game’s historians would more likely think about the individual records of both Ewbank and Simpson, when reminiscing on the memories of this epic day.

New York, in contrast to the Bills, had no shot at the playoffs.  In fact, another loss in this meeting with Buffalo would give the Jets a 4-10 record, good enough for last place in their division. But it was not the failures of the 1973 season that caused the local fans in Flushing, New York, to be making their appearance at Shea Stadium on the cold and snowy winter day. Rather, it was more of a token of respect that the spectators had to send their favorite coach off into retirement which would be the main reason why 47,790 people filled the stands to watch this game.  

Now Coach Ewbank retiring after this contest was a sure thing. He had already made the announcement to hang up his coach’s whistle well before the season’s final month. O.J. Simpson setting a new league rushing record, on the other hand, was certainly not a sure thing. Simpson, otherwise known as “The Juice,” was just 61 yards away from eclipsing the mark of 1,863 yards set by the great Cleveland runner Jim Brown in 1963.  But for dreamers of a more ambitious sort, the thought of Simpson – or of any running back – breaking the 2,000-yard barrier, was just too much to even imagine.  Yet that is something that was incredibly plausible by the end of this game. Simpson had set himself up for that mark all season long, having rushed for 1,803 yards through the first 13 games of the 1973 season.  Simpson, who would unanimously win the league’s Most Valuable Player award in this historical year, had already rushed for at least 200 yards in two games, dating back to the season opener on September 16 at New England.  

But even prior to that first game, Buffalo offensive guard Reggie McKenzie was bold enough to make a prediction early in the preseason which proved to be.

“I said all along that he (O.J.) could get and would get 2,000 yards (in 1973),” said McKenzie in a 2021 interview. “The year before he almost got 1,300 yards (Author’s Note: Simpson finished 1972 with 1,251 yards rushing), with little or no blocking. So, I said that he was going to get 2,000 yards in ’73.  He (Simpson) was the one who downplayed it (McKenzie’s prediction) to 1,800 yards.  I told him ‘No…we’re getting you 2,000. We’re gonna do something special.’  I said that he’d get 2,000 yards rushing at the beginning of the year.”

Now the end of the year drew near. If Simpson could somehow manage to run for 198 yards against the Jets in week 14, he would eclipse the 2,000-yard plateau.  As it turned out, “The Juice” ran for 200 yards, his third 200-yard rushing effort in 1973. Simpson’s deed is even more impressive for several reasons.  First, the New York defense was keying on him all day long. They knew ahead of time that the Buffalo game plan would call for quarterback Joe Ferguson to hand the ball off to Simpson, again and again. Even without all that added attention, the task to earn 200 yards rushing was tough enough.  Secondly, the field as Shea Stadium was a mess. A combination of ice, snow and frozen dirt made select places on the gridiron slippery, and other locations on the field as hard as a rock…and sedimentary rocks at that!  Finally, Simpson’s accomplishment of running for over 2,000 yards in one season is extremely unique, because no other pro football player will ever achieve that feat in a mere 14 games as O.J. had done, especially when one considers that NFL regular seasons are now 17 games long.

Most of Simpson’s runs on that day were difficult. It would be a struggle for him not just to get through whatever holes in the line of scrimmage developed, but it would be even tougher to stay upright as he attempted to flow into the defensive secondary. His longest run in this game went for 30 yards.  He only had two other runs that went for more than 10 yards. The ball was given to Simpson a total of 34 times against the Jets, which meant that he would work extremely hard to obtain the amount of yardage that he did.  He managed to score one touchdown on a 13-yard sprint which boosted Buffalo to a two-touchdown lead just before halftime.

Simpson grew nearer and nearer to his goal as the third quarter of the game turned into the fourth quarter. Along the way, he managed to run for over 5,000 yards in a career (which at this time was five years in length). He also helped the Bills to break the Miami Dolphins’ team rushing record of the previous year.  By the end of the game at Shea Stadium, the Buffalo team would earn a total of 3,088 yards rushing for the season. Not a bad consolation prize for a team that just barely missed out on making the playoffs that year.  

Finally, the moment that everyone who was in attendance and who was watching on television had waited for…Simpson’s final run of the game. He followed McKenzie and fullback Jim Braxton on an off-tackle run to his left for seven yards. When he arose from the field, the greatest running back in the 1970s had done it. He became the first man to ever run for over 2,000 yards in a season.  His durability during 1973 was a huge key to his accomplishment.  Simpson toted the pigskin a total of 332 times that year for his final total of 2,003 yards. He had carved for himself a renowned place in NFL history.

“I knew in that moment that I did something that nobody had done before,” remarked Simpson in a 2022 interview. “And I had no doubt that it would be done again, but I knew that I was the first.  No matter what I did after that, no matter what happened, my legacy would be the first guy to go over 2,000 yards.  So I kinda felt satisfied and thankful.”

Weeb Ewbank would remain thankful too. He survived a stellar coaching career and had as a testament to his greatness groomed two Hall of Fame quarterbacks over the years. Both the legendary Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath would list Ewbank as the coach who helped them each develop into the star signal callers that both eventually became in pro football. Ewbank, like Simpson, would soon earn a bust in Canton, Ohio, at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Simpson would add another unique gesture to his epic afternoon in New York, however, when he invited all his offensive teammates into a cramped interview area after Buffalo’s 34-14 victory over the Jets. Once there, he would introduce every one of those guys and say something good about each one of them to the members of the media. The two dozen or so reporters who were there had never seen anything like that before. But then again, the league had never seen anyone like O.J. Simpson before.  And the sport of pro football had never seen a day quite like December 16, 1973, before…a halcyon day for the game to treasure in all its historical annals. 

O.J. Simpson jersey worn on December 16, 1973
Photo credit: Joe Zagorski

Works Cited:

Boss, David.  “After 332 Carries and 2,003 Yards, O.J. Simpson’s Looking for Work…Lots

More of It!” Profile magazine, 1974, 60-65.

Zagorski, Joe.  The NFL in the 1970s: Pro Football’s Most Important Decade.  Jefferson, NC:

McFarland and Company, Inc., 2016.

Interviews:

Reggie McKenzie on June 13, 2021.

O.J. Simpson on April 12, 2022.

Joe Zagorski is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America and the Pro Football Researchers Association.  He has written five books on pro football and the game’s personalities.  His next book, The 2,003-Yard Odyssey: The Juice, The Electric Company, and an Epic Run for a Record, will be published by Austin-Macauley publishers of New York City, sometime in 2023.  He is currently working on a biography of former Miami Dolphins Hall of Fame offensive guard Larry Little.