A Look Back: Keith Moody

by Stephen Brandt

I am seeing a theme in these profiles that I am doing, good player plays for the Buffalo Bills and then they leave to play in California. What’s so good about Al Davis? That’s a topic I will explore on a Brandt’s rant when we play them. He did some amazing things for the Bills. Let's take a look back at Corner Back Keith Moody, a cornerback with a purpose.

Keith Moody is a Central New York native he was raised here, and played most of his professional football career with the Buffalo Bills and he played his college days for the Orange at Syracuse. Like a lot of people from around here, they want to flee the cold weather and snow, something that I myself should have done. But in the 1976 NFL draft the Bills chose him in the tenth round. All football players dream of getting drafted, or playing in the NFL so I don’t think that Moody’s dreams of the NFL included the team drafting him, drafting someone else at his position too. However, that’s what the Bills did with their first pick, selecting Oregon’s Mario Clark.

It is said that it takes rookies a while to establish themselves in the league before they make an impact, not Keith. It took five games, when he took a punt to the house for 67 yards. Keith had fumbled a punt earlier in the game. That was the first time in three years a Bill had scored a touchdown via return. Keith ended up making two starts at cornerback and collected three interceptions.

The following year, Moody set a team record, which stood until McGee took one back, with a 91-yard punt return against Cleveland. Then guess what, in ‘78, Moody did it again making it three years in a row! In a game against the Houston Oilers, he returned a punt 82 yards for a touchdown. As a returner you want to show your stuff in front of the best in the business, and he did. Moody was that it was in front of Houston’s return ace Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, a legend in the return game to this day. During the four career (1976-79) that Moody had with the Bills, he led the team in punt returns each year and in kick returns three times.

Keith Moody concluded his playing career in ‘80 with the Super Bowl XV-winning Oakland Raiders, why do former Bills end their careers there? Keith still lives in Northern California, and is an assistant principal at Mountain View High School in Mountain View, California. He and his wife, Kathy, have two children, Amber, 6, and, Keith Jr., who is four-years-old. Moody also has a daughter, Shirley, who studies at the University of Maryland working on her doctorate degree.