The New York Giants finished 3-9 in 1953, the last year of legendary coach Steve Owen’s 24-year stewardship of the team. Jim Lee Howell would take over and lead the Giants to seven consecutive winning seasons, three NFL Championship Games and a league championship in 1956.
Howell gave way in 1961 to Allie Sherman, who took the Giants to three consecutive championship games, losing all three. By 1964, the Giants were old and falling apart. They finished 2-10-2, earning them the first overall pick in the 1965 NFL Draft, which was held at the Summit Hotel in New York on Nov. 28, 1964.
The Giants held the first pick, followed by San Francisco (4-10), the Pittsburgh Steelers (5-9) and the Chicago Bears (5-9). The Bears would actually pick third and fourth in 1965, having acquired the Steelers’ selection via trade in late 1963.
The Giants selected Auburn fullback Tucker Frederickson to help bolster their backfield. San Francisco also went the running back route with North Carolina fullback Ken Willard.
Then the Bears were on the clock and took two players who are still talked about to this day: Illinois linebacker Dick Butkus and Kansas halfback Gale Sayers.
The Bears came into Yankee Stadium that fall to play the Giants, and three of the NFL’s top four draft picks were on display for the football world to see. Both teams had improved their lot from the year before. The Bears were 6-4 and the Giants 5-5.
It wasn’t much of a game. Chicago led, 21-0, at halftime and won the game easily, 35-14. Sayers rushed 13 times for 113 yards and two scores. Butkus had an interception off of Giants quarterback Earl Morrall.
Frederickson had 12 carries for 37 yards and did not catch a pass. It was indicative of how the three players’ careers would go. Frederickson, after racking up 836 total yards and six touchdowns as a rookie, injured his knee and missed the 1965 season. He never really got back on track and retired after 1971 season.
Willard was a key cog on the 49ers teams that went to two straight NFC Championship Games in 1970 and ’71. He would go on to be named to four Pro Bowls, and when he retired in 1974, his 6,105 rushing yards were the eighth-most in NFL history.
Butkus and Sayers became household names who both ended up in Canton. The Bears, however, didn’t fare much better than the Giants in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Sayers battled serious knee injuries and was out of football after the ’71 season, just like Frederickson. Butkus became the standard at middle linebacker for several years (and beyond) but was gone after the ’73 season. Neither ever got to play in a postseason game.
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