The cat-and-mouse game to land Ken Anderson
Without another QB being drafted between the third and 56th overall choices, demand kicked in again for the remainder of the third round. Dickey went 56th to the Oilers; Duke’s Leo Hart, 59th to Atlanta; Ken Anderson, 67th to Cincinnati; and Texas A&I’s Karl Douglas, 78th to the Colts.
In the fourth round, Miami chose Notre Dame’s Joe Theismann; and in the sixth round, Green Bay took Alabama’s Scott Hunter, who had started ahead of Hart for the South in the Senior Bowl.
Among those nine quarterbacks, the one NFL personnel people had been tight lipped about was Anderson, who played at Augustana College, a school of roughly 2,000 students located in Rock Island, Ill. Playing in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin against the likes of Carthage, Millikin and Elmhurst, Anderson had passed for 6,131 yards, 48 touchdowns and ran for another 21 – all glittering numbers – over four seasons.
In the end, he dictated to a degree where the other QBs were drafted and arguably turned out to be the best of the draft crop.
On Christmas Day 1970, Dickey and Anderson were the quarterbacks for the North squad in North-South Shrine All-Star Game played in Miami’s Orange Bowl. Dickey started, led the North to a 28-7 victory and was named MVP. He led the North to its first 21 points over the first three quarters, completing 14 of 27 passes for 180 yards. Anderson was 8 of 20 for 77 yards
Then came the Senior Bowl, played Jan. 9, 1971, less than three weeks before the draft.
When Dickey arrived in Mobile, he immediately made a favorable impression on Denver’s Lou Saban, who was his coach for the North squad. “We’ve got two great quarterbacks (Pastorini and Dickey),” said Saban. “They can really throw the ball.”
But Dickey developed a sore arm in practice and made just a cameo appearance in the game, throwing one pass, which was intercepted and returned 41 yards for a touchdown. Pastorini, in turn, led the North to a 31-13 victory.
While his Senior Bowl experience might have blown Dickey’s chances of being drafted in the first round, Anderson was uninvited and unhurt by it. No doubt, scouts had taken notice when he ran a 4.8 40-yard dash on timing day at the North-South game, reportedly beating Dickey by three steps.
Plus, by then, it probably wasn’t any secret that Cincinnati assistant coach and quarterback guru Bill Walsh had been hot on Anderson’s tail since fall.
Two years earlier, the Bengals had selected quarterback Greg Cook of the University of Cincinnati fifth overall. That season, Cook was named the American Football League Offensive Rookie of the Year and led the league in passing, despite suffering an injury to his right shoulder in the third game.
Then, during an offseason basketball game, Cook reinjured his shoulder, underwent surgery in August and missed the entire 1970 season. The Bengals were hoping that Cook would fully recover but also were looking to protect themselves.
On Oct. 10, 1970, the day before the Bengals played the rival Browns in Cleveland, Walsh traveled to Waukesha to watch Anderson face Carroll College. Augustana lost, 31-14, but Walsh saw plenty of the one player he was there to see. Anderson threw 58 passes and completed 25 for 249 yards and two touchdowns.
Evidently, in Walsh’s eyes, Anderson was more impressive than his numbers. Thereafter, Anderson became the Bengals’ safety net if Cook didn’t recover. However, they would have to play their cards right to get him at the right time.
Augustana coach Ben Newcomb (Moline Daily Dispatch, Jan. 27, 1971): “It’s just unbelievable the demand we’ve had for film of Kenny’s games. He didn’t play at all in our last two games (with a sprained ankle), and he played only briefly in our Carthage game, so our supply of film on Kenny is pretty limited. … Dallas has contacted him. Cincinnati sent a man in Monday, and Green Bay had a coach here talking to him Friday. Atlanta and Denver have both been in contact with him. I’d say that Cincinnati has shown the most interest in Ken. They’re not sure about the condition of Greg Cook’s arm after surgery last fall.”
Doug Hafner, Cincinnati’s assistant director of player personnel and future Packers player personnel director (Christl interview, Oct. 28, 1978): “Everybody knew about Ken Anderson. That wasn’t a mystery selection. All the combines had evaluated him. Most of the clubs had been in to see him because he had a make-it grade. He wasn’t a sleeper or anything. That’s one of those things where they grade him and say, ‘He’ll be there in the seventh round.’ It goes back to if you recognize this guy is going to be a great player, you don’t sit there and wait for the seventh round.”
Fast forward to draft day. By then, Walsh had drawn two conclusions. One, he preferred Anderson to Dickey. Two, he felt confident no other team would take Anderson over Dickey because of his small-school background.
Thus, the Bengals’ game plan on draft day was to wait until Dickey was selected before pouncing on Anderson (6-2, 205).
Walsh (Rock Island Argus, Feb. 2, 1971): “There was every possibility that we’d draft (Anderson) in the first round. It just depended on how the other quarterbacks went. When Dickey didn’t go in the first round, we thought we had a cushion between Ken and the rest of the league. We watched the way things went carefully. He’s the man we wanted, but we felt as long as Dickey wasn’t taken, Ken would be available.”
Bengals head coach Paul Brown (Dayton Journal Herald, Jan. 29, 1971): “(Anderson) played against poor competition, but he’s built in the Greg Cook style. Outside of the first three quarterbacks, this was the quarterback we wanted. We were holding our breath for fear that he’d go in the first two rounds. We gambled that he’d still be around.”
It almost cost them.
Brown said the Bengals debated over taking Anderson in the second round even though Dickey hadn’t been drafted yet and decided to pass. Lucky for them, Anderson wasn’t snatched up by Atlanta after Dickey was selected 56th overall and before the Bengals’ pick at No. 67.
The Falcons, who owned the 59th choice, debated over Hart and Anderson but took Hart. “It was that close (between the two),” Falcons coach Norm Van Brocklin said, holding his fingers slightly apart, after making their choice.
Future Pro Football Hall of Fame general manager Bobby Beathard, then Atlanta’s West Coast scout (Wall Street Journal, April 27, 1982): “I remember we thought Kenny Anderson was going to be a great quarterback. But instead, we took Leo Hart because he was from Duke.”
Hart spent his rookie year on the Falcons’ taxi squad, got cut the next season and appeared in only three NFL games over a two-year career.
Among the eight quarterbacks taken over the first four rounds, only Plunkett and 99th overall choice Joe Theismann of Notre Dame won Super Bowls, although not with the teams that drafted them.
Plunkett won two with the Oakland Raiders: Super Bowl XV, when he was named the game’s MVP, and again in XVIII. Theismann, who was drafted by Miami, won Super Bowl XVII and was on the losing side in XVIII. Anderson also was on the losing side in Super Bowl XVI.
Arguably, Anderson turned out to be the best of the eight. He played the most seasons, 16, and started for 13 seasons, more than any of the others.
Theismann, who played 12 years with Washington, had the best regular-season winning percentage as a starter with a .621 mark. Anderson was the only other long-term starter to have a winning record at a .529 clip.
Anderson in 1981 and Theismann in 1983 were named the league’s MVP by AP. Both also were named AP All-Pro those seasons. None of the others ever received that honor. Anderson was named to four Pro Bowls. The only others to be named were Manning and Theismann, twice; and Pastorini, once.
Statistically, Anderson finished with the highest passer rating, the most passing yards and the most touchdown passes.
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