[OC] Draft Scratchers- Part I: Roger Vick (FB, New York Jets, 1987)

The NFL Draft. An event unlike any other. Where millions of people gather around television sets just to hear names get called as a person in a suit gets booed and walks up to a podium. It’s a glorious event, and for me, the highlight of the year. I love the draft. I scout all of the players. I host draft parties. I’ve gotten multiple noise complaints while watching the draft… and none of those noise complaints involved anything that the Jaguars did.

Every year, the draft offers up surprises. You’ve got the obvious picks that surprise nobody, and you’ve got the head-scratchers. You’ve got the blockbuster trades, the guys that fall a lot and are proclaimed steals, the guys that get taken way too high and are the reaches, and then, the guys that you know absolutely nothing about. Every team gets better during the draft (or should, at least). The draft offers everything.

But every now and then, you get the picks that make you go hmmm. You’ve got the complete “what were they thinking” picks.

I’m not talking about picks that are questionable in hindsight. I’m not talking about picks that, while not favorable, were understandable to an extent. I’m talking about the picks that made absolutely no sense whatsoever. These are worse than just head-scratchers. These are picks that have you yelling “what are you doing” or “who did we just take?” in front of the television.

This series is going to run weekly every Tuesday, and I’m calling it Draft Scratchers. The picks that just make you question everything. We’re going to take a deeper look at these picks. Up on the table today- Roger Vick from the 1987 NFL Draft.

Part I: The 1986 Season

The year is 1986, and the New York Jets are no longer a laughingstock in the NFL. After Super Bowl III when they stunned the Baltimore Colts in arguably the greatest upset in football history, they didn’t really do much in the years after that. It took them until 1982 to win a playoff game again, and from 1970-80, they never had a winning record (although they had four seasons at .500 in between all of that).

The tide started to finally turn in 1981, though, when under head coach Walt Michaels, the Jets made the playoffs for the first time since 1969. While they lost to the Bills in the wild card round, at the time, it was the third best season in franchise history. In 1982, the Jets went 6-3 (remember that this was the strike-shortened season), and made it all the way to the AFC Championship. Unfortunately for them, AJ Duhe decided to turn on the jets that day. Duhe was 27 years old at the time and had played in the NFL since 1977. He had 2 career interceptions in the regular season prior to the AFC Championship.

Against the Jets that day, he had 3. The Dolphins won 14-0, and advanced to Super Bowl XVII, where they would lose thanks to John Riggins and company. Michaels resigned after that game due to emotional stress, and would later go on to coach the New Jersey Generals of the USFL.

After Jeff Fisher Joe Walton took over and the Jets went 7-9 in 1983 and 1984, the Jets made the playoffs again in 1985, though they would lose to the Patriots in the wild card round. However, in 1986, they went 10-6 and made the playoffs again. They hammered the Chiefs 35-15 in the wild card round, and got to play the Cleveland Browns in the AFC Divisional.

Keep in mind that the winner of this game, as they would find out the next day, would take on the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship. Earlier in the season, the Jets beat the Broncos 22-10, and it wasn’t even that close; it was 22-0 at the half, and the Jets held John Elway to just 145 yards passing. The touchdown during this Monday Night Football game that the Broncos scored was in the fourth quarter in garbage time. Even though it was only a 12-point game, make no mistake- the Jets dominated that game. If the Jets beat the Browns, then not only was there a likely chance that they would’ve beat the Broncos and advanced to Super Bowl XXI, but this would’ve set up an all-New York Super Bowl between the Jets and the Giants. That could’ve been epic.

And, for a while, everything was going New York’s way. They had a 20-10 lead with about 4 minutes left. After the first quarter, the Browns had nothing going on offense. While it wasn’t over, it was pretty close. So much so, in fact, that Jets’ radio announcer Charley Steiner actually said after Freeman McNeil’s 25-yard touchdown rush that the Jets were going to the AFC Championship. That didn’t come back to bite him at all.

As Justin Timberlake and Madonna proved two decades later, you can do a lot when you have 4 minutes. And that’s exactly what the Browns did. If you want to watch the full game, the NFL uploaded it. It’s just a comedy of errors one after the other for the Jets. They literally had every opportunity to win this game. In overtime, the Browns pretty much invited the Jets to win the game; kicker and former NFL MVP Mark Moseley missed what was roughly an extra point at the time to keep the Jets alive and extend overtime.

However, in the end, the Browns prevailed 23-20 in overtime. The Marathon by the Lake, as the game would later be known, would probably be the most heartbreaking moment in the history of the Jets. As for the Browns, their most heartbreaking moment came one week later during The Drive.

But that’s where the Jets were after 1986. They were this close to the Super Bowl, and they blew it.

Part II: The Offense

Make no mistake- in 1986, the New York Jets were a very good team. Had they upset the Browns, they would’ve been the favorite to make the Super Bowl, and while they wouldn’t have been the favorite to win Super Bowl XXI over the Giants (the Giants had won 11 straight entering that game, and earlier that postseason, had stomped on the 49ers by a final score of 49-3), they could’ve given them a run for their money.

One of the reasons for their newfound success in the mid-80s was their offense. Ken O’Brien wasn’t horrible. Was it a mistake for the Jets to pick O’Brien over Marino in 1983? Absolutely. However, it didn’t turn out to be catastrophic. O’Brien was actually halfway decent, and in 1986, threw 25 touchdown passes, which was 2nd in the NFL, only behind, you guessed it… Dan Marino. Marino threw 44 touchdown passes; second place threw 25. He was in a league of his own at the time.

Besides O’Brien, though, the Jets had some other good pieces on that offense. The Jets averaged roughly 23 points per game, and a large part of that came in their ground game. The rushing attack was led by Freeman McNeil, who was drafted third overall in the 1981 NFL Draft. Even though the pick was a bit of a head-scratcher at the time, it turned out to be really successful, so much so that he’s in the Jets Ring of Honor. He averaged at least 4 yards per carry every season, finished with over 8,000 rushing yards while playing from 1981-1992, and made the Pro Bowl three times (1982, 1984, 1985).

The other man in their ground game paving the way? That was fullback Tony Paige. By all accounts, Paige was a pretty good fullback for the Jets. He got drafted in the sixth round back in 1984, and ran for 7 touchdowns his rookie season. In 1985, he had 8 touchdowns, which not only led the Jets, but was fifth in the entire AFC that year, only behind Marcus Allen (11 for the Raiders), Ron Davenport (11 for the Dolphins), Tim Spencer (10 for the Chargers), and Larry Kinnebrew (9 for the Bengals). And in 1986, he played every game for the Jets. The Jets had a pretty good fullback on their hands.

Today, Tony Paige is a highly successful NFL agent. However, back in 1987, he was looking for a new contact and was holding out. In 1986, Paige was playing for $115,000, and the Jets offered a 20% pay increase for the 1987 season. Paige declined. This was back in the beginning of the offseason, sometime around late February or early March. As Paige refused the contract and held out, the Jets were now in a bit of a crisis. They needed a fullback. It’s not easy to replace a guy that had 17 rushing touchdowns in 3 years at the fullback position, and helped lead the ground game that brought the Jets back to relevancy.

The problem? They needed a fullback. The solution? Well…

Part III: The Pick

There have been lots of great reactions and moments during the draft. However, this might be my favorite of all-time, and it’s not even close. The “OH NO” when the commissioner announces that the Jets took a fullback is one of the funniest things to ever happen at the draft. I could watch this over and over again.

But fearing that they wouldn’t be able to get any deal done with Paige, they took a fullback, taking Roger Vick out of Texas A&M in the first round. Again, they took a fullback in the first round.

In fairness, it was a different era. The previous year in 1986, the same number of fullbacks (2) went in the first round as there were quarterbacks. However, let’s look at the other needs that the Jets had at the time of this draft in 1987 besides at fullback.

In 1986, the Jets allowed 386 points, and entered the playoffs with a negative point differential having lost five straight. One of the reasons for that was due to their poor secondary play. Russell Carter, by all accounts, was a huge bust for the Jets. After being taken with the tenth pick in the 1984 NFL Draft, he never lived up to expectations. He had 4 interceptions in 1984… and that was it. No interceptions for the rest of his career. He did nothing in 1985 and in 1986, and after 1987, he was traded to the Raiders for just a sixth round pick.

Their longtime center, Joe Fields, was getting up there in age. By the start of the 1987 season, he was 34 years old. The 1987 season would be his last with the Jets, as in 1988, he would play with the Giants before retiring. Linebacker was also a need for the team, as after the 1986 season, linebacker Charles Jackson, who started 14 games for the team, retired. While fullback was certainly a need, it’s not like they could exactly afford to make a luxury pick here in the first round.

Instead, they take Roger Vick. For what it’s worth, he got a 6 on the Wonderlic. At the time, it was the lowest Wonderlic score for any first round pick.

The funny part? They actually passed on a much better fullback. Early in the second round, the Chiefs chose Christian Okoye, otherwise known as the Nigerian Nightmare. You can make a case for Okoye being one of the top five fullbacks of the last 40 years. He led the NFL in rushing in 1989 and is in the Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Fame.

After taking Vick, a few months later, when Paige still held out, the Jets cut him and refused to negotiate any further. When you take a fullback in the first round and you’re a fullback that’s holding out, your leverage is gone at that point. But the pick was done with at this point. The Jets had taken a fullback, even though the position was slowly dying (three years later, in 1990, the first fullback taken was Larry Centers by the Phoenix Cardinals in the fifth round, and you can genuinely make the argument that Centers belongs in the Hall of Fame), and had done so in the first round as a bit of a panic pick due to the situation with Paige. But would the pick pay off?

Part IV: The Career

Sometimes, you get lucky. Sometimes, a pick is universally panned and makes no sense, and even though that might be the case, it ends up working out. The Raiders taking a kicker in the first round when they took Sebastian Janikowski was mind-boggling, since he was the first and only kicker taken in the first round since 1966. However, in a weird way, that pick ended up working out. So sometimes, you do get a player that turns out to be pretty decent.

Unfortunately for the Jets, Roger Vick was not one of those players. In fact, he was one of the biggest busts in the history of the franchise.

The Jets offense that was pretty good in 1986? That was all but gone in a disappointing 1987 season when they went just 6-9 (one game was lost due to the strike). It was so bad that the Jets, in 15 games, only scored 2 touchdowns in the first quarter that year. The Jets were 6-5 at one point, but lost their final 4 games of the season to miss the playoffs, and in those 4 games, averaged under 75 rushing yards per game.

Roger Vick did absolutely nothing his rookie year, as he scored just one touchdown. In fact, he would only play 3 years with the Jets, and after the 1990 preseason, got cut (he was on the roster at the start of the 1990 preseason, as shown by this article, but was gone shortly thereafter). After scoring just 12 touchdowns in 3 seasons with the team, he played in 14 games with the Eagles in 1990 before never playing another NFL game again.

He wasn’t done with football, though. In 1992, he played with the Orlando Thunder of the World League of American Football. However, he committed a crime against humanity, as he was a part of a team that wore these uniforms. I can’t tell if these uniforms are hideous or the greatest things I’ve ever seen in my life, but I want one.

There were four fullbacks taken in the 1987 NFL Draft- Vick, Okoye, Tim Manoa by the Browns, and Steve Smith by the Raiders (oddly enough, both Manoa and Smith went to Penn State). Of the four fullbacks taken, Vick actually lasted the shortest amount of time in the NFL. So not only did the Jets take a fullback in the first round, but they actually managed to take the worst fullback.

Even though Vick didn’t pan out in the NFL and was a massive bust, his legacy will always live on because of the reaction to the pick. I think this comment that I found on a Jets forum back in 2011 sums it up nicely:

I broke my friend’s TV when they made that pick. And my friend was more upset about the pick than his TV. Enough said.

Enough said is right.

JG9’s Offseason Series Hub

Lost Leagues (Sundays)	Record Watch (Mondays)	Draft Scratchers (Tuesday)
Part I: United Football League	Part I: Passing Yards	Part I: Roger Vick (NY Jets, 1987)