Remembering when the 1968 Eagles frittered away a chance to draft O.J. Simpson

Tom Woodeshick’s season ended with 10 stitches above his right eye after a brutal tackle forced him out of the 1968 finale at Franklin Field. He was 53 yards shy of a 1,000-yard rushing season, which would have been a highlight in an otherwise miserable Eagles campaign.

“I was sitting on the bench freezing my [butt] off in like 10- or 15-degree weather,” the 82-year-old Woodeshick said Thursday from his home in the Poconos.

And then the snowballs came. The fans already pelted Santa Claus during halftime and now were targeting Eagles coach Joe Kuharich. Woodeshick, his season over, told his head coach to stay away from him.

“I didn’t want to get pelted with these stitches in my eye,” Woodeshick said. “So I sat there the rest of the game with my helmet on.”

Woodeshick didn’t get 1,000 yards. But he did do enough at the end of the 1968 season to deny the Eagles a chance at drafting O.J. Simpson, who died Wednesday at age 76.

The Eagles started the season 0-11 before winning two straight games with Woodeshick leading the way. They beat the Lions at a muddy Tiger Stadium — “We turned out to be better mudders than Detroit,” Woodeshick said — and Woodeshick gained 176 total yards the following week to earn the game ball in a win over the New Orleans Saints.

The Eagles were in the driver’s seat to earn the No. 1 pick in the 1969 NFL draft, which everyone knew would be used on Simpson. USC’s superstar running back won the Heisman Trophy in 1968 after finishing as the runner-up a year before. Simpson rushed for 3,124 yards and 33 touchdowns in two college seasons and was the transcendent player the Eagles — and their fans — were after.

Instead, the Birds decided to finally win. They finished the season 2-12 and their late-season rally dropped them to the third overall pick in the draft. They selected Leroy Keyes, a running back and safety, while Buffalo grabbed Simpson with the No. 1 pick. Was Woodeshick motivated to make sure the team didn’t select a new star running back?

“Our opposition was worse than we were,” he said. “It had nothing to do with our motivation. Our motivation was the same every Sunday: Go out and win the game. It’s all a matter of how you perform on the field. You could have all the motivation, but it doesn’t really matter. Once you get on the field, it’s a matter of surviving, so you do the best you can to survive the 60 minutes.”

The fans had plenty to be angry about before that regular-season finale in 1968 against the Vikings. The team’s owner was in federal bankruptcy court, the team was terrible, and the head coach had lost the locker room. The Eagles won the NFL championship in 1960, reached the “Playoff Bowl” in 1966, and felt good about their future. But they struggled in 1967 and everything fell apart in 1968.

“It was such a poor season that the victories at the end didn’t make much of a difference, really,” Woodeshick said.

The fans wore buttons that said “Joe Must Go” and hung banners around the stadium blasting Kuharich. It was an ugly scene. The Eagles were wretched all season before winning two meaningless games, making them not hapless enough to land Simpson. Santa Claus never stood a chance.

“For the second year in a row, the crowd at the final Eagles’ game was so eager to convey its dissatisfaction that the halftime appearance of Santa Claus was greeted with boos,” Frank Dolson wrote in the following day’s Inquirer, recapping an incident the city has never shaken. “Poor St. Nick. He made his tour of the stadium waving cheerfully in the best holiday tradition. The fans responded, pelting him with snowballs in the worst Philadelphia tradition.”

Woodeshick was removed from the game in the third quarter after rushing for 80 yards. One Vikings player held him up while another rammed his helmet into Woodeshick’s face. Blood poured out and he heard a Vikings player say that Woodeshick lost his eye. He didn’t, but he did lose his chance at a milestone. Woodeshick was dismayed.

“I hate to say it, but we didn’t have much more to look forward to,” Woodeshick said. “When you start thinking about eclipsing personal records instead of collective records, you know the season is over.”

Woodeshick retired from the NFL after the 1972 season and began a long business career which included time as a stockbroker and restaurateur. He wrote an NFL column for The Inquirer in 1973 and was working in marketing for an Atlantic City casino in 1995 when Simpson was acquitted of murder in the slayings of his ex-wife and her friend.

Woodeshick said he wasn’t driven at the end of the 1968 season to keep Simpson away from Philadelphia. Now, he’s glad it happened the way it did.

“I’m just happy I never got to share a locker room with the guy,” Woodeshick said.