His arrival in Buffalo was surely unexpected, to say nothing of bizarrely timed.
From the Bills’ inception in 1960, owner Ralph Wilson had developed a reputation for operating on the cheap. After winning the American Football League championship in 1964 and ‘65 and losing the AFL title game a year later in a failed bid to earn a berth in Super Bowl I, Buffalo would make the playoffs only once in the next 11 seasons. That despite the presence of O.J. Simpson, pro football’s premier running back, for nine of those campaigns.
Between 1967 and ‘77, Buffalo went through five head coaches — Joe Collier, John Rauch, Harvey Johnson, Lou Saban and Jim Ringo — making the postseason in the merged NFL only in 1974. And when Ringo replaced Saban, who resigned five games into the ‘76 season, Buffalo went 3-20 under the Hall of Fame center, including a13-game losing streak, before being fired.
So who would coach the Bills in 1978?
It wouldn’t be Chuck Knox who, in five seasons with the Los Angeles Rams, had gone 54-15-1 — those were the days of 14-game schedules — and taken his team to the playoffs each year, three of those campaigns ending with losses in the NFC Championship Game. And, oh yeah, he’d just signed a contract extension.
Yet, there he was, standing at the podium in a ballroom at Buffalo’s Statler Hotel, on Jan. 11, 1978, being introduced as the Bills’ seventh head coach.
Apparently, Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom wasn’t happy with Knox’s results. Oh, the record was good, but not the Rams’ 3-5 postseason mark, their season ending with three losses to the Vikings (two in the NFC title game) and two to the Cowboys (once in the conference championship).
Then, too, some of Rosenbloom’s high-rolling friends weren’t enthralled with the way the Rams won. Knox was called “Ground Chuck” for a reason … he favored a rush-oriented attack and tough defense. But that running game didn’t enthuse the L.A. faithful who wanted more passing and field-stretching plays.
My thoughts turned to Knox’s time in Buffalo after hearing of his passing due to dementia, at age 86, on Saturday in California.
There was that weird press conference at the Statler in 1978.
It was the week of Super Bowl XII between Dallas and Denver. Hence, the pro football writers from the Buffalo Evening News and Courier-Express were in New Orleans doing pre-game coverage.
Back then, radio stations didn’t carry press conferences live and there weren’t minicams … what you saw on TV was film taken on 16 millimeter movie cameras that had to be processed. It was long before Twitter and cellphones.
The assembled media was mostly TV news-types and few print people familiar with the inner workings of the Bills.
Sitting next to WBEN radio’s Stan Barron, after five years covering the team, I felt it was my responsibility to ask the elephant-in-the-room question.
“Why, after you just signed a contract extension, would the Bills have any reason to think you were available for hire?”
Knox looked at me for a moment, then conjured an evasive explanation that would have made Sarah Huckabee Sanders proud.
To this day, I can’t recall how he spun the non-answer, but Barron looked at me, laughed and said, “That was a great question … too bad you didn’t get an honest response.”
That said, I liked Chuck. He was an old-school, no-nonsense coach who had cobalt-blue eyes that seemed to look through you.
In one way he was ahead of his time … way more guarded than his peers. Now it’s the norm.
He populated his team with veterans who were close enough to the top of the hill they could see over it.
Knox always treated me well because of a mutual friend. Bob Newcombe, a special advisor to the president at Pitt-Bradford, had started his college career at Juniata, in Huntington, Pa., and returned there after World War II as director of admissions. Part of his time at Juniata coincided with Chuck’s undergraduate years.
But it was also a different era.
Most Wednesdays, Knox would have lunch with the media in a suite at the team’s administration building. In those days, there were only six or eight members of the press in attendance and while Chuck wasn’t exactly a fountain of information, those luncheons humanized him.
They also let him vent about his favorite annoyance … officials.
On more than a few occasions, he would stand up from the table and, with sweeping gestures, imitate a referee making a call via his wireless mic … pointing out the official was only doing it so his wife could see him on TV.
Imagine Bill Belichick sitting down and sharing a meal with the press and offering that off-the-record moment.
Occasionally, there were media days without the luncheon and Milt Northrop or Vic Carucci from The Buffalo News, Scott Pitoniak of the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle and yours truly would sit on stools in Knox’s office and ask him questions.
These days, 25-35 people populate the media room — print reporters, broadcasters and 8-10 minicams — for a coach’s press conference.
Signing Knox was a coup for Wilson … but not without controversy.
The new coach and his hand-picked scouting guru, Norm Pollom, were in charge of personnel acquisition. But crafting contracts, after the first year, was in the hands of Bradford-born Stew Barber, who played nine years for the Bills, retiring at age 30, after being a five-time all-AFL tackle.
In essence, Barber’s job was looking out for Wilson’s money and, given Knox’s penchant for acquiring veteran (read: more expensive) players, there was near-constant friction between them.
Chuck did his job, though. After 5-11 and 7-9 seasons, Buffalo went 11-5 winning the AFC East and earning him NFL Coach of the Year in 1980 and, at 10-6, claiming a wild-card spot in ‘81.
But, after a 2-0 start the following season, an eight-week NFL players strike adversely affected the Bills and, post-stoppage, they went 2-5, their 4-5 record failing to put them in the expanded playoff pool.
Frustrated with the disappointing season and weary of the player-salary tug-o-war with the front office, Wilson and Knox agreed to forego the final year of their contract and Chuck signed with Seattle.
He spent nine years with the Seahawks, taking them to the playoffs four times — in the first six seasons — including making the AFC Championship Game in his initial campaign.
Knox’s career ended when he returned to the Rams for a second go-around, but retired after struggling to a 15-33 mark over three seasons.
Still, it’s not hyperbole to say he was one of the great coaches in NFL history.
He was the first to win division titles with three different teams and was named Coach of the Year with the Rams, Bills and Seahawks.
Even now, in the NFL’s 98 seasons, Knox still ranks ninth in regular-season (186-147) and overall victories (193-158).
Longtime Bills fans also remember that in the first 18 years after 1970’s NFL merger, Buffalo made the playoffs a mere three times … and Knox was responsible for two of them.
(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)
