Interesting article on Ron Yary on the 50-year anniversary of the 1968 draft: https://www.twincities.com/2018/04/20/n ... just-fine/.
This was the draft that had that really confusing "bonus first overall pick, but you must draft a QB pick" that the Giants traded to the Vikings as part of the Tarkenton trade. By trading for the pick, the Vikings apparently didn't have to draft a QB, but got the first overall pick, and could have used the pick in 1967, but deferred until 1968. They tried to defer one more year to get O.J. in 1969.
It's remarkable to me how many mediocre QBs were traded for top picks in that 1968 draft. San Diego got two first-rounders from Denver for Steve Tensi. The Saints got two first-round picks from the Vikings for Gary Cuozzo. The Chiefs got a first-rounder, Ernie Ladd and Jacky Lee from Houston for Pete Beathard. The Dolphins got a first-rounder and second-rounder from Cincinnati for John Stofa.
Does anyone know how Gary Beban fell to the second round? Reading articles from the 1967 season, it was assumed that the Vikings would draft Beban with their first overall bonus pick, and the Giants would rue the Tarkenton trade for decades to come as the Vikes would build a young team around "The Great One". What happened between the end of the season and the draft to Beban, and what is the conventional explanation as to why the Redskins eventually traded for him to sit behind Jurgensen, and why Beban never really got a chance to play in the NFL? Was he that bad in practice and the pre-season? Any anecdotes or specifics would be interesting to me.
Snippets from the article:
“We actually tried to trade the pick to somebody so we could get O.J. the next year,’’ said Bud Grant, the hall of fame coach who was entering his second season with the Vikings in 1968. “We thought maybe we could go through the league and we could postpone the pick until the next year, but there was no avenue for us. It was more of a fantasy. So, we put that to bed and we all agreed Yary was the best player in the draft.”
“I had heard from one of my coaches (USC assistant Marv Goux) about a month earlier that the Vikings were considering drafting me as the first player in the first round,” Yary, 71, said from his home in Murrieta, Calif. “But it didn’t really even enter my mind.
“On the morning of the draft, at about 6 o’clock, I was in my apartment (in Los Angeles). Bud Grant called me on the phone about five minutes before the draft started and said, ‘We’re going to draft you. Do you want to play for the Vikings?’ The call lasted 30 seconds.”
Yary answered yes, and that was it.
“It was a normal day just like any other,’’ said Yary, a business major at USC. “I went to class.”
“I had never met him. I wouldn’t have known Ron Yary from a fence post,” Grant said. “I only saw, I think, one film on him, but we had scouts and they filed reports. It was a consensus for us that Yary was a no-lose option as a pick, and he turned out to be great for us.’’
Grant said the phone call he made to the tackle on the morning of the draft was routine.
“We just wanted to make sure he hadn’t fallen down and broken his leg the day before,” he said. “We asked him if he wanted to play for the Vikings, but that was a standard question. What’s a guy going to say?”
Minnesota Vikings RB O.J. Simpson
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BD Sullivan
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Re: Minnesota Vikings RB O.J. Simpson
Some of the articles leading up to the draft are fascinating with regard to the "where will they go?" speculation:
*Supposedly, Beban dropped off the Vikings radar because they were trying to acquire Bill Munson from the Rams. One rumor was that the Vikes would draft Beban--and then trade him to the Rams.
*Fred Carr was going to be the Vikings pick--via the rumor mill. The Packers, who were supposedly looking at Haven Moses, instead grabbed him.
*Beban's height (6-0) and the fact that he was a rollout passer (instead of the preferred pocket) were seen as question marks, with one comment nailing what ended up taking place: "Don't be surprised if Greg Landry of Massachusetts and Kenny Stabler of Alabama are tapped ahead of Beban."
*Beban's attitude going into the draft didn't help his cause: "I won't name the teams I'd rather not play for, but they know who they are. I've answered their questionnaires. It (getting drafted by a bad team) really does place a lot of limitations on the player. But there are ways of informing a team if you don't want to play for them. If a team is willing to waste a draft choice, especially a high one, for a young man who doesn't want to play for them, it's a poor way to run a business."
*Supposedly, Beban dropped off the Vikings radar because they were trying to acquire Bill Munson from the Rams. One rumor was that the Vikes would draft Beban--and then trade him to the Rams.
*Fred Carr was going to be the Vikings pick--via the rumor mill. The Packers, who were supposedly looking at Haven Moses, instead grabbed him.
*Beban's height (6-0) and the fact that he was a rollout passer (instead of the preferred pocket) were seen as question marks, with one comment nailing what ended up taking place: "Don't be surprised if Greg Landry of Massachusetts and Kenny Stabler of Alabama are tapped ahead of Beban."
*Beban's attitude going into the draft didn't help his cause: "I won't name the teams I'd rather not play for, but they know who they are. I've answered their questionnaires. It (getting drafted by a bad team) really does place a lot of limitations on the player. But there are ways of informing a team if you don't want to play for them. If a team is willing to waste a draft choice, especially a high one, for a young man who doesn't want to play for them, it's a poor way to run a business."