Add up the final ledger and the math is almost rude. For Gary Cuozzo — a quarterback who had never started a full season — the expansion New Orleans Saints surrendered the first overall pick in the 1967 draft, a third-rounder, a future seventh-rounder, and a center they never got to keep. The Baltimore Colts turned that package into Bubba Smith at No. 1 overall, two-time All-Pro center Bill Curry, and six seasons of relevance. The Saints got ten starts, a 3-7 record, and a one-year quarterback they then flipped for two more first-round picks that didn't help them either.718
This tree runs four trades across five teams, from March 1967 to January 1973. It is one of the most lopsided deals in the archive — 3,360 draft-capital points changed hands on the site's leaderboard — and it has a strange symmetry: both teams traded away the player they acquired, and neither kept anything they paid for except the Colts' draft picks. This is how it happened, one transaction at a time.
February 1967 — New Orleans claims a center it will never use
The Saints entered the NFL in 1967, and expansion teams were built the hard way: an expansion draft where existing teams left players unprotected. Vince Lombardi declined to protect Bill Curry, a Georgia Tech center who had started Super Bowl I for Green Bay, choosing to keep Ken Bowman instead. New Orleans took Curry on February 9.1
Curry never played a snap for the Saints. A month later he was Baltimore property.
The request to include him came from Colts head coach Don Shula, who admired Curry's special-teams versatility enough to make him a required piece of the deal. A center entering his third NFL season, obtained as an expansion-draft claim, treated as a throw-in by the team drafting him and as a necessity by the team acquiring him — that was the Saints' front office in 1967.
March 6, 1967 — the trade
The terms, verified against the trade archive: the Colts sent quarterback Gary Cuozzo, guard Buford "Butch" Allison, and their 1967 seventeenth-round pick to New Orleans. The Saints sent Bill Curry, their 1967 first-rounder, their 1967 third-rounder, and their 1969 seventh-rounder to Baltimore.7
Both sides had reasons that made sense on paper. Cuozzo, an undrafted Virginia product who had backed up Johnny Unitas for four seasons, had asked to be traded — Baltimore papers reported the request in December 1966, and the Colts had Unitas under center, so a capable backup was a luxury they could afford to convert into capital.7 The Saints, days into existence, needed a quarterback to take the field in September. An expansion franchise cannot open its stadium with nobody to throw the football.
So New Orleans paid a fortune for one. The first overall selection in the draft — the expansion Saints' crown jewel — went to Baltimore, along with the two extra picks and Curry. It is the only time in the Super Bowl era a team has traded a No. 1 overall pick for a veteran quarterback, according to Fantasy Index's trivia column.10
What the Colts did with the picks is the part Saints fans still feel. At No. 1 overall they took Michigan State defensive end Bubba Smith, a 6-7, 283-pound two-time All-American who had anchored back-to-back national title defenses.2 Smith started at left end in Super Bowls III and V, made back-to-back Pro Bowls in 1970-71, and was named first-team All-Pro in 1971.3 The third-rounder, No. 54 overall, became guard Norman Davis. The 1969 seventh-rounder, No. 163, became tackle Gary Fleming. The seventeenth-rounder Baltimore surrendered, No. 438, became Billy Bob Stewart — cut early in training camp. Allison was cut at the end of camp.
And Curry turned out to be far more than the special-teamer Shula had valued. He became the Colts' starting center, an All-Pro in 1971 and 1972, and the pivot for Johnny Unitas in Super Bowls III and V.1
September 1967 — the Saints' inaugural season
New Orleans went 3-11 in its first season under head coach Tom Fears. The quarterback situation unfolded exactly backward from the price tag. Billy Kilmer, the expansion draftee, started the opener against the Rams — the game John Gilliam opened with a 94-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in front of 80,879 at Tulane Stadium. Cuozzo, the man the No. 1 pick had bought, took over soon after: he started 10 of 14 games, threw for 1,562 yards with 7 touchdowns, and led the team in passing.11
By season's end he had lost the job back to Kilmer anyway. One year. Ten starts. A 3-7 record in the games he started.812
Meanwhile in Baltimore, Bubba Smith's rookie season was the first chapter of five seasons with the Colts, ending with a Super Bowl V ring — which Smith, in later interviews, said he would never wear, out of disappointment over the loss in Super Bowl III.3
January 1968 — Cuozzo becomes two more first-round picks
Eleven months after buying Cuozzo for a fortune, the Saints sold him at a discount. In January 1968 they traded him to the Minnesota Vikings for the Vikings' first-round picks in 1968 and 1969. The archive records both picks at No. 7 and No. 17 overall.8
The 1968 pick, No. 7, became Notre Dame defensive tackle Kevin Hardy. Saints personnel director Vic Schwenk told the press that draft season: "I'd say Hardy is as good as (Merlin) Olsen as a college senior," adding that Hardy's repaired back showed no ill effects.4 The comparison did not survive contact with reality. Hardy never played a down for the Saints — he was shipped to the 49ers as Rozelle-rule compensation when New Orleans signed free agent Dave Parks, then bounced through Green Bay and San Diego in a four-year career.5
The 1969 pick, No. 17, became Xavier guard John Shinners, the first and only football All-American in his school's history. Shinners spent three quiet seasons in New Orleans — four starts, all in 1970 — before finding his footing later with Cincinnati, where he started for two seasons.9
Cuozzo, meanwhile, got the best years of his career in Minnesota. He backed up Joe Kapp, then became the starter in 1970 when Kapp held out, led the Vikings to a 12-2 record and the NFC Central title, and started a playoff game against the 49ers.7 The Saints' expensive quarterback found his ceiling the moment he left.
April 1972 — the last flip of the Cuozzo chain
After the 1971 season the Vikings moved on, trading Cuozzo to the St. Louis Cardinals for wide receiver John Gilliam and two 1973 draft picks — a second-rounder (No. 34) and a fourth-rounder (No. 89). The archive resolves those picks to Jackie Wallace and John Lohmeyer. Gilliam was the same John Gilliam who had returned the opening kickoff of the Saints' first game; he went on to four productive seasons in Minnesota.13 Cuozzo backed up Jim Hart in St. Louis for one chaotic season and retired.
Two hops, four franchises, five years: Baltimore to New Orleans to Minnesota to St. Louis. The longest custody chain in the tree.
January 29, 1973 — the end of the Curry line
Six years after the trade that started everything, Baltimore sold off Curry too — and the context was ugly. Owner Carroll Rosenbloom's era had ended; new owner Bob Irsay had installed GM Joe Thomas, who was dismantling the championship roster on purpose. Unitas was benched in 1972. Curry had led what Thomas considered an anti-management clique, and the Colts acquired Fred Hoaglin from Cleveland four days earlier, which made Curry expendable.
On January 29, 1973, the Colts dealt Curry to the Houston Oilers for guard Tom Regner and Denver's 1973 third-round pick (No. 61 overall, later used on running back Bill Olds). Curry learned about the trade from a collect call from Thomas — while standing in Dallas at the Pro Bowl.1
Thomas made no apologies for the teardown. Asked about gutting the roster, he said: "Take Green Bay. They made the playoffs, but how many of those guys were on their great teams? Two. A team mushrooms together, wins together and fades together." Of Curry specifically, his verdict was blunter: "Cliques aren't good. I was breaking up a nice old nest."6
Curry's career ended almost immediately after. In Houston he suffered a catastrophic leg injury when Rams great Merlin Olsen hit him in the back of the leg; he never recovered, and retired in August 1975. He spent the last act of his football life where he had spent much of his playing life — in leadership, as NFL Players Association president from 1973 to 1975, a plaintiff in the Mackey lawsuit that killed the Rozelle Rule and opened the door to free agency.1
The ledger, six years later
Baltimore paid: a backup quarterback, a guard who was cut in camp, and a seventeenth-round pick who was cut in camp. Baltimore got: the No. 1 overall pick (Bubba Smith, five seasons, a Super Bowl ring, a College Football Hall of Fame career behind him), a third-rounder (Norman Davis), a future seventh-rounder (Gary Fleming), and a center (Bill Curry) who started two Super Bowls and made two All-Pro teams.
New Orleans paid: the No. 1 overall pick in its first draft, two more draft picks, and a center it traded before he played. New Orleans got: one season of Gary Cuozzo, two first-round picks that produced a guard who never started for them (Hardy) and a guard who barely played for them (Shinners).
Expansion teams were supposed to be bad at the start. The Saints' tragedy wasn't that they lost — it was that they spent the one asset that could have made them good. You can trace every branch of this tree in the archive, from the 1967 draft room to the Houston Oilers' training camp in 1973, and the verdict never changes: Baltimore understood what the No. 1 pick was worth, and New Orleans didn't yet.87
Explore the full chain in the archive: Bill Curry (1967) trade tree14
Trade terms, teams, and dates verified against the site's trade tree for this deal and cross-checked with the sources below.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Bill Curry — expansion draft Feb 9, 1967; traded to Colts Mar 6, 1967; Shula's special-teams request; All-Pro 1971-72; Oilers trade Jan 29, 1973 (Regner + No. 61/Bill Olds); leg injury vs. Merlin Olsen; NFLPA president; retirement Aug 1975
- Sports Illustrated / Spartan Nation: Bubba Smith, 31st best college football player ever — 6-7, 283 lbs; All-American 1965-66; #1 overall 1967
- Michigan State Athletics: Bubba Smith all-time ranking — five seasons Baltimore 1967-71; Super Bowl V win; Pro Bowls 1970-71; First-Team All-Pro 1971
- 247Sports: Kevin Hardy, Notre Dame's Man for All Seasons — No. 7 overall 1968; Schwenk's Olsen comparison
- Wikipedia: Kevin Hardy (defensive tackle)) — never played for Saints; Rozelle-rule compensation to 49ers for Dave Parks
- Sports Illustrated Vault: "Eleven Days That Shook the Colts" (Feb 12, 1973) — Joe Thomas's teardown quotes; Curry-to-Houston terms
- Wikipedia: Gary Cuozzo — undrafted out of Virginia; Unitas's backup 1963-66; asked to be traded Dec 1966; 10 starts for Saints; terms of the 1967 trade; Vikings 1968-71, 12-2 in 1970; traded to Cardinals Apr 1972
- Wikipedia: 1967 New Orleans Saints season — 3-11; Cuozzo lost starting job to Kilmer; traded to Vikings early 1968; Saints traded No. 1 overall for Cuozzo
- Wikipedia: John Shinners — Xavier guard; 17th overall 1969; Saints 1969-71, Colts 1972, Bengals 1973-77
- Fantasy Index: Trivia for October 5, 2026 — only Super Bowl-era No. 1 overall pick traded for a veteran QB
- 103.3 The GOAT: 1967 New Orleans Saints season — Kilmer opened the season; Cuozzo led team in passing (1,562 yds, 7 TDs); Gilliam's 94-yard return; 3-11 record
- Canal Street Chronicles: History of No. 15 — Cuozzo 3-7 as Saints starter; traded to Vikings after 1967
- New Orleans Saints History: Gary Cuozzo — The First Saints Quarterback — Gilliam traded for Cuozzo; Gilliam's four productive Vikings seasons with yearly Pro Bowls
- Football Trade Trees: Bill Curry (1967) trade tree — the full four-trade chain, March 1967 to January 1973
About this article: it was drafted with AI assistance from the Football Trade Trees database and public reporting, then reviewed by a human editor. Spot an error? Email [email protected].