Raiders Fred Biletnikoff Was a Hands-On Mentor for Cliff Branch
Hall of Famer Fred Biletnikoff of the Oakland Raiders might have been the most sure-handed wide receiver in the history of the National Football League and he was a perfectionist, not only in running flawless pass patterns but also in holding onto the football.
Once, after dropping a pass during Raiders training camp at the El Rancho Tropicana Hotel in Santa Rosa, about 60 miles north of Oakland, Biletnikoff knocked down a long, portable fence next to the practice field with one swift kick.
“The thing that is most impressive about Fred is that he is a man-made receiver,” Raiders Hall of Fame Coach John Madden said. “He has had to work hard for everything he’s got. He can catch anything he can touch. That’s no accident. Some receivers might catch 15 or 20 passes in practice. Fred will catch 100.
“ … If he dropped a pass in practice, he would not only cuss himself out but after practice, he would get one of the quarterbacks to throw him that pass, sometimes as many as a hundred times. He did it with hard work.”
The 6-1, 190-pound Biletnikoff was selected by the Raiders in the second round of the 1965 American Football League Draft out of Florida State and was signed by Coach and General Manager Al Davis under the goalpost after the Seminoles defeated Oklahoma, 36-19, in the Gator Bowl, in which he caught 13 passes for 194 yards and four touchdowns.
Biletnikoff was not even close to being the biggest or fastest receiver in the NFL, but he could get open against any defender or zone defense because of his incredible moves, and he made 589 receptions for 8,974 yards and 76 touchdowns in 18 incredible seasons with the Raiders.
“Freddie would catch 500 balls every day in practice, and that’s after he was already an All-Pro," former Raiders linebacker Gerald Irons said. “He hated dropping the ball in practice. He wanted to go through the entire practice without dropping one ball. If he dropped one, he’d get miffed and kick the ball.”
In addition to what he did on the field for the Raiders, Biletnikoff’s role as a mentor for young wide receivers was almost as important for the success of the Silver and Black, especially the way he took speedy Cliff Branch under his wing.
The 5-11, 170-pound Branch, chosen in the fourth round (No. 98 overall) of the 1972 NFL Draft out of Colorado, ran 10.1 seconds in the 100-meter draft at the NCAA Track and Field Championships but passed up a chance to run in the Olympic Games that year in Munich, Germany.
“This is my last track meet, since I expect to sign a pro contract in the next two weeks and go to training camp with the Oakland Raiders,” said Branch, who had already missed rookie camp and felt he was behind other young receivers.
Strictly a deep threat at Colorado, Branch came to the Raiders and learned those deceptive moves from Biletnikoff, the master of his craft, and before long he could get open deep with his speed or underneath with the moves that he learned in that first training camp.
Essentially, Biletnikoff helped turn Branch into another Hall of Famer.
"In training camp, when he first came in, it was just a matter of, ‘Well, if he’s going to play with us, and be on our team, he has to learn how to catch the football,’” Biletnikoff recalled. “I really cared a lot about Cliff from the standpoint that I’d seen so many guys with speed on different teams that just didn’t make it, because of the fact that they could never catch the football.
“I didn’t want to see that happen to Cliff, so we struck up a little pact—every day after practice, we were going to spend time out on the field just catching footballs.”
And did it ever pay off?
Branch wound up catching 501 passes for 8,865 yards, a 17.3-yard average, and 67 touchdowns including a 99-yarder, in 14 seasons with the Raiders, helping them win Super Bowls XI, XV, and XVIII, while going to four Pro Bowls and making All-Pro three times.
“I learned a lot from him,” said Branch, who passed away suddenly in 2019 at the age of 71, a year before he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “I would see him and say, ‘Hey, Father,’ and he would say, ‘Hey, Son.’
“He taught me to catch the ball with my hands, not my chest. ‘Reach out and catch the ball,’ he'd tell me, ‘With your hands.’ He would ask me, ‘You catching the ball with your hands?' ‘Yes, Father.’”
Biletnikoff and Branch became perhaps the best wide receiver duo in NFL history and it all started in training camp at the El Rancho in 1972.
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