Magical Mark: for The Juice: 2,003 Yards

The second to last game of that golden 1973 season, the Buffalo Bills were playing the lowly New England Patriots, and O.J. Simpson was still 416 yards away from the magical 2,000-yard rushing mark.

Simpson had racked up a single-game record 250 yards earlier in the year against the Patriots--but that was in autumn on a grass field. This was December in Buffalo, and the snow blowing in off Lake Erie left a slick coating on Rich Stadium’s artificial turf.

Simpson remained confident. He turned to Reggie McKenzie, the left guard on Buffalo’s swaggering “Electric Company” offensive line, and said, “The snow’s only bad if you don’t know where you’re going.” Laughing, he added, “I know where I’m going. It’s the defense that’s got to worry.”

Simpson knew where he was going. On that sloppy, snowy field he ran 22 times for 219 yards, including a 71-yard touchdown sprint. When the day was over, Simpson had 1,803 yards, 61 shy of Jim Brown’s single-season record. The season still had one game left.

That second-last game was a turning point. “Until then I don’t think anybody besides Reggie believed Simpson could get 2,000,” said Budd Thalman, then Buffalo’s public relations manager, now assistant athletic director at Penn State. “I didn’t think anybody who had to play in Buffalo snow could do that. O.J. made it all look so easy.”

O.J. made everything look easy. From his long, long, broken-field runs to how his picture-perfect smile always seemed in the right place for the cameras, all of O.J.’s moves appeared effortless.

But it wasn’t always so easy. There was a time, only two years earlier, when Orenthal James Simpson was a flop.

A Heisman Trophy winner out of the University of Southern California, Simpson was known as an electrifying slash-and-burn runner. But used mostly as a decoy or a receiver out of the backfield, Simpson became a round hole in Bills coach John Rauch’s square-peg offense.

Buffalo was ready to give up on the handsome, speedy back. Then Lou Saban took over as coach. After one practice, Saban went out and bought his wide receivers face masks.

“Saban told his wide receivers they were going to have to learn how to block,” recalls Larry Felser, The Buffalo News’ sports editor. “Simpson was their meal ticket and anyone who didn’t block for him wasn’t going to play.”

That year, 1972, Simpson won his first rushing title. He did it by beating out the Redskins’ Larry Brown on the last day of the season. Simpson scampered 101 yards at Brown’s home RFK Stadium to overtake the Redskins’ star.

“When Simpson won the rushing title in 1972 he did it without much of a front line,” said McKenzie, who spent the off-season working out and talking with Simpson.

“In 1973 we had a real line,” McKenzie said. “But it was more. O.J. had something going. I would say, ‘You can make 2,000,’ and O.J would say, ‘No. Maybe 1,500.’ Then I’d say, ‘No, you can make 2,000,’ and O.J. would say, ‘Maybe I could break Brown’s record.’ Finally, when I became real insistent, O.J. would just smile. He knew he could do it.”

McKenzie wasn’t the only Bill that was struck by Simpson’s charisma. The whole rag-tag front line gelled around the nimble back. O.J. made them something bigger: the Electric Company.

“Most of those guys were misfits,” one Bills insider remembers. “But O.J. made everyone play better. Nobody wanted to be the one to go out there and think, ‘I didn’t do my job. We didn’t win. O.J. didn’t get his yards because of me.”’

By the last game of the season, on Dec. 16, 1973, the line had done its job well enough to put Simpson within striking distance of both Brown’s record and 2,000 yards.

Simpson barely slept the night before his record-setting day. It was snowing hard at Shea Stadium, where the Bills played the New York Jets. The field was a muddy mess. Simpson, nervous, turned to McKenzie and said, “Reg, what if I only get 40 yards today?”

Earle Edwards, a huge defensive lineman, turned to Simpson and said: “Stop being so nervous and start being yourself. You’re going to have a big day, like you always do.”

Edwards, of course, was right. Four minutes and 26 seconds into the game Simpson broke Brown’s record. By the time O.J. was taken out with 5:56 left in the game, he’d run for 2,003 yards.

Two thousand and three yards in 14 games: 419 of them coming in the last two. Simpson’s magical dash was like Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game or Roger Maris’ 61st home run: impossible summits reached in an impossibly short time.

Simpson and the Electric Company will be honored Sunday at a pre-game ceremony before the Bills play the Indianapolis Colts at Rich Stadium.

Simpson, 46, now is a supporting player in the “Naked Gun” movie, where he plays the stooge to Leslie Nielsen’s violent bumbling actions. Some of the Electric Company linemen that turned on the Juice now work hauling furniture and freight.

And in 1984, the L.A. Rams’ Eric Dickerson rushed for 2,105 yards, breaking O.J.’s record.

Still, somehow it doesn’t seem to matter.

“Who cares that O.J. doesn’t hold the record anymore?” McKenzie said. “That year was special. Two-thousand. Man, no one had ever done that before. No one even thought you could do that. No one.”

Some O.J. Records

Some of O.J. Simpson’s accomplishments in 1973 during his 2,003-yard season:

--Most yards rushing in a game (250) and most rushing attempts in a game (39).

--Most rushing attempts for the season (332).

--Three 220-plus games and 11 100-plus-yard games.

--The first back to rush for 200 yards in consecutive games.

--Ran for more yards than the Bills passed for in 13 of 14 games.

--Accounted for 52% of Buffalo’s offensive output in 1973.

--Out-rushed Bills opponents in 7 of 14 games.

--Ran for more yards than 15 NFL teams.

--Had 653 more yards than the Houston Oilers.

--Finished with 853 more yards than the next leading rusher, John Brockington of the Green Bay (1,144).

--Registered at least one double-digit run in all but one game. The exception was a loss at Miami when his longest gain was 9 yards.

--Averaged 99.9 yards in games played on grass and 167 yards on artificial turf.