The Best of One Bills Drive - Dec. 9, 1973

(Greg D. Tranter and Budd Bailey have written a book about the history of the football stadium in Orchard Park called "The Best of One Bills Drive." It is scheduled for publication by Reedy Press around October 15. The books covers the top 50 games played in the stadium's history from 1973 until January 2025. However, there are several other games that qualified as thrilling - but they couldn't crack the top 50. Those contests deserve to be remembered too, so we'll offer them in this space a couple of times per week during the season.)

Score by Quarters:

                                       1       2       3       4       Final

New England (L, 5-8)   3       3       7       0       13

Buffalo (W, 8-5)             7       10     17     3       37

Scoring Summary:

Quarter – Team – Play

1 – Patriots – White 14-yard field goal

1 – Bills – Francis 90-yard kickoff return (Leypoldt kick)

2 – Bills – Simpson 6-yard run (Leypoldt kick)

2 – Bills – Leypoldt 34-yard field goal

2 – Patriots – White 12-yard field goal

3 – Bills – Ferguson 37-yard pass to Chandler (Leypoldt kick)

3 – Bills – Leypoldt 34-yard field goal

3 – Patriots – Plunkett 5-yard run (White kick)

3 – Bills – Ferguson 6-yard touchdown pass to Chandler (Leypoldt kick)

4 – Bills – Leypoldt 19-yard field goal

Recap:

The Bills were still in the Wild-Card playoff race with a 7-5 record, but it was a long shot. Pittsburgh and Cincinnati were sitting a game ahead of them at 8-4 and the Bengals held the tiebreaker over Buffalo due to a victory earlier in the season. Attention at that point was focused on O.J. Simpson and his quest for Jim Brown’s NFL single season rushing record of 1,863 yards and an outside chance at the improbable thought of 2,000 rushing yards in a single season. Simpson came into the Patriots game with 1,584 yards. He needed 280 yards in the season’s final two games to break Brown’s record and 416 yards for 2,000. He was averaging 132 yards rushing per game, so breaking Brown’s record seemed possible. Either way he needed a big game against New England.

It did not seem like it would be beneficial to the California-born running back when a pregame snowstorm covered the field with wet snow. But the Bills were determined to give the ball to Simpson. His teammates were hoping he could approach his opening game heroics against New England when he set a single-game NFL rushing record of 250 yards.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Patriots middle linebacker and former Bill Edgar Chandler said. “He’s not going to get 250 yards. He’s not going to get 200 yards. I don’t care HOW good he is.”

Simpson struggled with the Rich Stadium snow covered turf in warmups. “I can’t cut,” Simpson said after trying on five different pairs of footgear. “First I tried was from Hong Kong, another pair from Canada, another France, a pair of turf cleats, American made.” Finally, he went back to his original shoe, a rubber-cleated pair from West Germany. Alan Miller, former Patriots player turned television commentator said, “This is not O.J. Simpson’s kind of day.”

Simpson spent most of the first quarter watching from the sidelines. The Patriots opened the game with an extended drive that resulted in a field goal. On the ensuing kickoff, Bills’ returner Wallace Francis raced 90 yards for a touchdown. Buffalo’s offense ran only nine plays in the quarter with Simpson touching the ball just twice. His first carry was a three-yard loss as New England was keying on the star ball carrier. Finally, with less than two minutes to go in the first quarter, Simpson busted loose for a 26-yard gallop.

As the second quarter began, the Bills fed the ball to Simpson and he culminated the drive with a 6-yard touchdown to extend Buffalo’s lead to 14-3. The teams traded field goals before halftime, but Simpson had carried only eight times for 43 yards. Brown’s record was looking more and more distant. “My feet were cold,” Simpson said. “It was tough keeping warm and the snow hindered me turning the corner.”

That began to change as the second half got underway. Simpson had two five-yard carries, then broke a 30-yard run. It was followed by Joe Ferguson’s 37-yard touchdown pass to Bob Chandler. The Bills got a John Leypoldt field goal following a New England turnover and Patriots quarterback Jim Plunkett ran for a score to cut Buffalo’s lead to 27-13.

On the first play following New England’s touchdown, Simpson burst through a hole on the right side of the line, cut back to his left, and raced 70 yards before he was tackled at the Patriots’ nine-yard line. “He came around that corner and cornerback George Huey turned the play in, just like it’s supposed to be done,” defensive end Ray Hamilton said. “The tackle was trying to block on me and the tight end was trying to block (linebacker) Steve Kiner. We both fought off the blocks, but somehow I tripped over the end and O.J. just made a move on Steve.”

“It was like he came around and I was in front of him and he made a move and he was gone,” Kiner said. Two plays later, Ferguson capped the drive with his second touchdown pass of the game to Chandler and the Bills went to the fourth quarter with a 21-point lead.

On Buffalo’s next possession, the strategy was Simpson right and Simpson left. He carried the ball on seven of eight plays, including a 28-yard scamper and a 25-yard run to set up another field goal by John Leypoldt.

Buffalo triumphed not only on the scoreboard, 37-13, but Simpson positioned himself to break Brown’s record and maybe even threaten the 2,000-yard mark. He finished the game with 176 yards in the second half for a total of 219 yards on 22 carries. He was 61 yards away from breaking Brown’s record with a game against the Jets at Shea Stadium awaiting.

“We rested O.J. today,” Bills head coach Lou Saban quipped. “He only carried 22 times. Jim Braxton makes it easier for The Juice.”

“This was the kind of day we wanted for him to have,” Bills guard Reggie McKenzie said. “We’ll get him the record; if we have to run the Juice 64 times, we’ll get it.”

“I always played well in the mud in California,” Simpson said, “but I never played well in snow until today. … The longer I played on it, though, the better I felt. I couldn’t use my moves, so I had to just go – pssssshew – whenever I got a hole. All straight ahead.”

Tim Horgan, sportswriter for the Herald American, summed up Simpson’s day when he wrote, “It would have been a virtuoso performance by Simpson under the best of auspices. Coming as it did, in a whooping blizzard and on a slush-covered field, it was one of a kind for the Heisman Trophy winner out of Southern California. I mean, the Canadian Mounted Police couldn’t have gotten O.J. yesterday.”

Noteworthy: The Bills rushed for 293 yards with Braxton chipping in with 70 yards on 15 carries. … Ferguson only threw seven passes with two completions, both touchdowns to Chandler. … Simpson became the first running back in NFL history to have 10 rushing games of 100 or more yards in one season. … Simpson gained 419 yards in two games against New England. … The Patriots outgained Buffalo 390 to 336 but only scored 13 points as they committed four turnovers in the wintry conditions. … It was the Bills’ final home game in their first season at Rich Stadium and they led the league in paid attendance with 549,393 and in in stadium attendance of 531,270. “The atmosphere of Rich Stadium, and having a first-class facility to work in every day, has helped our morale tremendously,” Saban said.

Legacy: Simpson broke Brown’s record against the Jets the following week and also achieved an unthinkable milestone as he went past 2,000 yards. He rushed for 200 yards against New York to finish the season with 2,003 yards. He was named NFL’s Most Valuable Player, the first Bills player ever to receive that honor.

Buffalo ended the season with a 9-5 record, its first winning season since 1966. But the team fell one game short of the playoffs as both Pittsburgh and Cincinnati finished 10-4. The Bills’ three-point loss to the Bengals in November cost them a playoff spot.