GRHater69 Posted March 15, 2020 Posted March 15, 2020 Cousineau allowed them to draft Kelly. They traded his negotiating rights and got an extra #1 for their efforts. Now at the time, I was livid that they couldn't sign him on draft day and let him get away to Montreal and rumor has it that their not being able to meet his demands when he came back from the CFL a few years later was one of the reasons why Knox walked away after the strike year. Getting back on topic, Saban was the guy who made OJ a star. He came in in '72 and basically made the WRs into extra blockers. They built an excellent offensive line for him in '73. Think about it; rookie QB in Fergy who threw for only 6 TDs that year, the NFL knew they were going to run all the time yet couldn't stop them. That team should have made the playoffs, a bad road loss to the Saints hurt them (as did a bad last second loss to the Bengals). That era peaked in '74 with the playoff game in Pittsburgh, but '75 should have been their year. The offense was still good, Fergy was in his 3rd year and was developing nicely, OJ still had something left. But they had no defense. Tony Greene was coming back from a torn ACL, in the preseason (which was 6 games back then) they lost their starting CB (Robert James) their starting safety (Doug Jones) to ACL injuries so the secondary was a mess. Their top two picks, Nebraska LBs Tom Ruud and Bob Nelson held out through all of training camp and the preseason. Ruud went on to be one of the biggest busts the team has had until maybe Aaron Mabin. The D line was solid with guys like Mike Kadish and Pat Toomey, but once you got past them, they couldn't stop anybody. In '76 OJ held out for big contract, but as clearly on the downside of his career. Saban was not comfortable with Ralph over issues from the previous season. The OJ holdout seemed to be the last straw as he quit 2 games into the season. Making matters worse, Fergy got hurt and Gary Marangi took over and was horrible which was a surprise to a lot of people including myself who thought he could be a decent starter if given the chance. Perhaps the biggest blunder of that "era" was Ralph Wilson promoting Jim Ringo to HC after the season. He was a good OL coach, but not a HC. Wilson seemed to do that a lot, first with Joe Collier, then Ringo, then Hank Bullough. 1
RevWarRifleman Posted March 15, 2020 Author Posted March 15, 2020 GRHater69, GREAT post! That was a great read of the years I specified. Good info, well laid out and explained. Thanks a lot!
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