Leo Roth|Democrat and Chronicle
The date was Jan. 11, 1978, and Buffalo Bills players and fans were rubbing their eyes looking at the headlines.
The Bills hired Chuck Knox?
“Everybody’s going crazy,’’ guard Joe DeLamiellure said. “He’s one of the top football coaches, right up there with John Madden, Don Shula, Bud Grant. And now we’ve got him. The encouraging thing to me is that a guy of his stature would want to come to Buffalo. He must think there’s something here.’’
Or perhaps, owner Ralph Wilson made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Inheriting an aging O.J. Simpson, whose legs were shot, and a roster that had produced records of 2-12 and 3-11 the previous two seasons wasn’t that appealing to Knox, who had won five consecutive division titles with the Los Angeles Rams.
But a contract worth $1.2 million over six years and full power over all football operations sure was.
And so, Chuck Knox, the son of an Irish-born steelworker from Sewickley, Pennsylvania, came back east.
Creating in Buffalo a huge buzz, expertly crafting one of the most colorful and entertaining eras in Bills football.
More: Chuck Knox, former Rams, Seahawks, Bills coach, dies at 86
Knox, who died May 12 at age 86, is remembered with great fondness. He was cast in the mold of tough, gruff, demanding football coaches. He liked to hike up his pants and stare through people with steely blue eyes, kidding that Frank Sinatra wasn’t ol' Blue Eyes,"I am.’’
He loved dependable quarterbacks like John Hadl, Joe Ferguson and David Kriegand absolutely cherished workhorse running backs from Lawrence McCutcheon to Terry Miller, Joe Cribbs and Curt Warner.
In 15 of his 22 seasons as an NFL head coach, Knox’s teams ranked in the Top 15 of rushing attempts. They didn’t call him “Ground Chuck’’ for nothing.
Lastly, with coordinator Tom Catlin by his side, Knox’s teams played a nasty 3-4 defense that punched first and asked questions later.
And with this formula, he won.
In L.A., in Buffalo and in Seattle to the tune of 12 playoff seasons and a record of 186-147-1.
Underneath the external toughness, though, was a coach who genuinely cared about people. A “players coach’’ in the best sense.
A fatherly figure whose players played their hearts out for him because they didn’t want to let him down. A coach who didn’t demand respect, but commanded it the second he entered a room.
Who pushed all the right buttons, leaving players hating him one minute and loving him the next. Pushing them to another level.
“Chuck got it,’’ said Fred Smerlas, the Bills five-time Pro Bowl nose tackle and Wall of Fame member drafted by Knox in 1979. “He knew how to create unity. Other coaches just don’t get that. If there’s a sport where you need adrenaline, you need energy, you need unity, it’s football.’’
You want unity?
During one Bills training camp at Fredonia State, a particularly hot, muggy stretch of summer had drained the players of all energy. Their legs were spaghetti noodles. Another two-a-day wasn’t going to help, it could only hurt the team’s progress, and Knoxknew it.
“The next day we come out and we’re dragging,’’ Smerlas said. “Chuck sees it. He brings us together and says, ‘OK fellas, you’re working hard, this is what we’re doing today. Everyone take it in!’ We go into the locker room and there are four kegs of beer. We stayed in there until dinner time.’’
Knox had a knack for playing head games and Smerlas was a guy he loved to tweak.
Two games into his rookie year, Smerlas said Knox walked past him during stretching one day and barked “Big, mean and tough, really? You suck. I wasted a second-round pick on you.’’
“As a rookie, I’m going ‘Wow, what’s this about?’ " said Smerlas, who found himself out of the starting lineup. “He was really Bill Parcells before Bill Parcells with all that thinking crap.’’
But it worked.
Smerlas began studying tapes of the great nose man Curley Culp, worked on his footwork and hands, and began mastering the two-gap technique.
“About five games later, Chuck eyeballs me and goes ‘Hey, you’re doing great now.’ I go, ‘Really? Then why don’t you put me back in there?’ " Smerlas said. “Chuck slaps me and we get into a slap fight on the way to the team meeting. He just liked that energy, that aggression.’’
“Street fighters’’ Knox called them.
Ben Williams, Shane Nelson, Lucius Sanford, Smerlas and so many more. Like Bill Belichick today, Knox could identify veterans with gas left in their tanks, and gave new leases on football life to veterans like Isiah Robertson, Bill Simpson, Phil Villapiano and the notorious offensive guard, Conrad Dobler.
After two seasons of building, all the parts came together in 1980 and ’81 when the Bills posted records of 11-5 and 10-6.
When Buffalo ended its 20-game losing streak to Miami with a 17-7 win in the 1980 season opener at Rich Stadium, everybody knew the Bills had turned a corner.
The fans tore down the goal posts and passed one up to the owner’s box. After calling it the greatest win in franchise history, Wilson quipped, “I’ll be happy to buy new goal posts.’’
The Bills had a Top 10 defense three years running under Knox including No. 1 in 1980.
Smerlas and inside linebackers Haslett and Nelson formed what became known as “The Bermuda Triangle.’’ Any running back who dared enter the middle of Buffalo’s defense disappeared.
“We had pretty good players but mostly we played together and we were aggressive,’’ Smerlas said. “We had the chemistry and everyone loved to play for each other. We had unity. We lived together, we partied together, it was great and Chuck got that.’’
Unfortunately for Knox, playoff success didn’t follow and his relationship with Wilson soured. After the difficult 1982 strike-shortened season, he resigned on Jan. 25, 1983, with a year left on his contract and quickly signed with Seattle.
Assistant Kay Stephenson was offered the Bills head coaching job, even though he never expressed interest in it. Soon, Buffalo entered a Bermuda Triangle of a different kind, a dismal four-year stretch that included a pair of two-win seasons.
“Kay was a nice guy and everything but he was a complete opposite of Chuck,’’ Smerlas said. “You can’t do that and with the wrong personnel, it was devastating for a lot of guys. It was a shot to the heart and you could see it in our performance.’’
Knox ranks 10th on the NFL’s career win list but like No. 7 Marty Schottenheimer (200 wins, 5-12 playoff record), his post-season mark of 7-11 continues to keep him out of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Of course, both deserve to be enshrined in Canton, as does No. 9 Dan Reeves (190 wins, 11-9 playoff record).
Still, Chuck Knox doesn’t need a bust to be a Hall of Famer in the eyes of his former players.
“Everyone respected him, everyone liked him,’’ Smerlas said. "He was one of us but he had the ability to elevate himself above us so he was respected as the head coach. I think someone like Rex Ryan, he tried to be one of the guys but never elevated himself enough to gain the respect of the guys. Chuck had that. He would slap you on the back and have a beer with you.’’
He’d even order the kegs.
LRoth@Gannett.com