Nov. 17, 1964 - The Buffalo Bills, leading the AFL’s Eastern Division in a strong bid for their first league title, created a sensation tonight by firing star fullback Cookie Gilchrist.
The Bills, who lead the Boston Patriots by 1½ games with four games left for each team, placed the league’s leading rusher and 1962 AFL Player of the Year on 24-hour waivers for $100.
That means for a 24-hour period any team in the AFL can claim him, in reverse order of standings (last-place Denver gets first chance) unless the Bills recall waivers on him. Coach Lou Saban said the Bills will definitely not do this.
If he is claimed, the Bills will get $100 for him. The team that claims him must put him on their active roster and pick up the remainder of his salary. He gets roughly $28,000 a year.
These are the three big reasons Gilchrist no longer is with the Bills:
No. 1 — He did not return to the field with the rest of the offensive unit just before the first half of Sunday’s losing game with Boston. Instead, he sent in reserve Willie Ross.
He says he “did not refuse to go in,” but says he himself substituted Ross. Players, on the Bills or any other team, do not substitute for themselves. That is the coach’s job.
A regular does not have to be asked to return to the game in pro football. He goes in with his unit when the ball changes hands.
No. 2 — In the next issue of a monthly sports magazine, which will be released on newsstands tomorrow, some inflammatory statements about coach Lou Saban and quarterback Jack Kemp are attributed to Gilchrist.
The title of the article is: “I Play for Me.”
Gilchrist’s lawyer has threatened the magazine with a libel suit. That did not soothe Saban’s ire, however, when he saw galley proofs of the story.
No. 3 — Cookie has been absent from practice on several occasions this season. At the start of the season, he missed several due to difficulties with customs officials at the Peace Bridge.
Cookie has missed several practice sessions since then.
Saban almost got rid of him then, but several of the outstanding Buffalo players asked him to keep him and “try to get through the year with him.”
To top things off, Saban was told by a hostess in one of downtown Buffalo’s restaurants that Gilchrist was seen in the cocktail lounge early Sunday morning, with game time about a dozen hours away.
Gilchrist’s performance in the second half of the Boston game, which the Bills lost, 36-28, didn’t help him either.
Boston sportswriter Will McDonough quoted Patriot captain Bob Dee as saying: “In the first period, Cookie played his normal game and blocked like he always did. In the second half, it didn’t look like he was concentrating.”
Cookie came to the Bills in 1962 after a long career in Canadian pro football. He was declared a free agent after Toronto suspended him for a curfew violation.
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