Quote:
Originally Posted by rico
Was he kind of Trent Richardson-ish?
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Yeah, maybe so. However, I did find a "season preview" newspaper article from 1975 that said that the Chiefs' weak link going into the year was the offensive line, so it's possible that he just didn't have running room. The OL that year was LT Charlie Getty, LG Ed Budde, C Jack Rudnay, RG Tom Condon, and RT Jim Nicholson. Getty, Nicholson, and Condon were all second year players, Budde apparently got hurt in Week 1 and missed the rest of the season, while Condon missed half the season. Rudnay was a pro bowler, but it seems like they weren't very established as a line.
Here's the excerpt from the article. It's scanned, so there are lots of typos:
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/31284113/ Wiggin doesn't sound very motivational in this interview at all.
The Kansas City Chiefs are definitely a question mark starting the new National Football League season. I;Only one thing is really certain: Hank Stram, the dapper coach who guided the Chiefs through all of their previous years, won't be pacing the sidelines with a program rolled up in his hand. The Stram era is over. Stram was fired last winter after a dismal 5-9 season, the worst in the Chiefs' history.
Paul Wiggin, plucked from the coaching Staff of the San Francisco 49ers, is the new boss. The Chiefs hired the energetic, personable, 40-year-old Wiggin to try to return the team to respectability on the field and to restore the club's public image which sagged to rock-bottom in the waning years of Stram's regime.
Wiggin says the new coaching staff and the players are "trying to adapt to one another. There's still a lot of Apprehension. We need some success now. Our big area of concern is our offensive line."
Wiggin figures the Chiefs n'ave no place to go but up. How fast they can accomplish this, He won't predict. "I won't say we'll finish8-6," Wiggin said. "I won't say we'll Have it in three years. We've going to struggle and fight to be a winner."
Wiggin doesn't relish the thought of building his team around 40 - year-old Len Dawson, who quarterbacked the Chiefs to a Super Bowl victory as the climax to the 1969 season and since has watched the team gradually decline.
"I hope somebody beats Dawson out of the quarterback spot," says Wiggin.
If anybody beats Dawson out, and that isn't likely, it wilt have to be Mike Livingston, his understudy; Greg Cook, a rookie star with Cincinnati in 1969 but since plagued by shoulder problems, and Tony Adams, who led the World Football League in passing last season with the Southern California Sun.
No m a t t e r who plays quarterback, he's certain to have problems. The offensive line of the Chiefs simply isn't adequate despite the presence of veterans Jack Rudnay at center and guard Ed Budde and the likes of tackles Charlie Getty and Jim Nicholson and guard Tom Condon. The Chiefs' fullback outlook has been bolstered by the acquisition of MacArthur Lane from the Green Bay Packers.
Wiggin has a trio of fine running backs in Woody Green. Ed Podolak and Cleophus Miller. Green's status isn't certain, he is facing a rape charge in Portland, Ore. Wiggin is at least slightly optimistic about his offensive line. "I look for us to show a more dramatic improvement there than anywhere else on our team," says Wiggin. "We've got some good, young guys like Nicholson and Getty." About the running backs, Wiggin says, "I think we are the haves . . . not; the have- nots." And our fullback situation has turned around completely with the addition of Lane . . . and there's Jeff Kinney and Morris LaGrand."
The Chiefs figure they are pretty well set defensively. Wiggin lured premier linebacker Willie Lanier out of retirement. Lanier is joined by two old standbys, Jim Lynch and Bobby Bell. The rest of the defense is loaded with veterans Wilbur Young and John Matuszak at end, Buck Buchanan and Marvin Upshaw at the tackles, Emmitt Thomas and Jim Marsalis at the cornerbacks and Mike Sensibaugh and Jim Kearney at safety.
"It would be a mistake to come into a team like this and decide to clean house," Wiggin says. "There are some excellent older players on this team capable of helping us. "I think we'll be better than last year." predicts Wiggin.
As a side note, Woody was the last first-round pick of Hank Stram. Paul Wiggin took over from there, and man oh man, he and Tom Bettis were bitter about being fired as the subsequent head coaches. If you want to read the most whiny article ever, check this out:
https://www.si.com/vault/1978/03/13/...-but-wiggin-a#