Former NFL running back O.J. Simpson dies of cancer at age 76

O.J. Simpson transcended football, being as remarkable on the field as he ultimately became dubious off it.

Simpson, a cherished All-American at USC, evolved into one of the most exceptional running backs in NFL history with the Buffalo Bills. He later gained widespread fame as an actor and broadcaster. However, he became infamous as one of the most high-profile murder suspects in American history. Eventually, he served almost nine years in prison for an unrelated armed robbery conviction.

Simpson died of cancer on Wednesday, according to a statement released on his official X account. He was 76 years old.

Inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985, Simpson gained further fame post-career as an NFL commentator and Hollywood actor. However, in June 1994, this fame turned to infamy when his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, were found dead at her home in Brentwood, California. Despite being charged with the murders of Brown Simpson and Goldman, Simpson was eventually acquitted in what became one of the most notorious and contested trials in American history. This forever tarnished Simpson’s image, where his disgrace overshadowed his impressive football career and subsequent celebrity status.

Orenthal James Simpson, born in San Francisco on July 9, 1947, would later become famously known as O.J. or “Juice.”

His college football career began at San Francisco City College, where he scored 54 touchdowns and ran for 2,552 yards over the course of the 1965 and ’66 seasons. Afterward, he transferred to USC. Under the guidance of the renowned coach John McKay, Simpson emerged as one of the most illustrious Trojans in the program’s rich history.

As a junior in 1967, Simpson led the nation with 1,543 yards rushing, adding 13 rushing touchdowns (and three TD passes) while guiding USC to a national championship. Simpson finished runner-up in Heisman Trophy voting to UCLA quarterback Gary Beban that year, but he was the catalyst in the Trojans’ rivalry win over the Bruins. In one of the most lauded plays in USC history, Simpson broke loose for a 64-yard, game-tying, fourth-quarter TD run. The extra point vaulted the Trojans ahead, 21-20, which held as the final score.

Though USC did not repeat as national champion in ’68, Simpson’s senior campaign was one of the greatest in college football history. En route to winning the Heisman, Simpson put up staggering numbers to the tune of a then-NCAA-record 1,880 yards rushing and a nation-leading 23 touchdowns. Simpson won the Heisman by 1,750 points, a record that would stand for 51 years before LSU QB Joe Burrow‘s resounding triumph in 2019. No. 2 USC ended the season with a Rose Bowl loss to top-ranked Ohio State, but Simpson concluded his career with 171 yards rushing in the game.

Following a dismal 1968 season with just one win, the Bills had the first pick in the 1969 NFL/AFL Draft. As expected, they chose Simpson. However, Simpson, already a recognized star before turning professional, didn’t rush to New York. He had a dispute with the then-owner of the Bills, Ralph Wilson, before being granted a five-year contract worth $650,000 – a record figure at that time. Despite this, Simpson’s time with the Buffalo Bills did not begin on a high note.

In his initial three seasons with the Bills, Simpson witnessed the team secure a mere eight wins under the leadership of head coaches John Rauch and Harvey Johnson. Simpson made a name for himself as a rookie Pro Bowler, accumulating 1,040 total yards from scrimmage and catching 30 passes – a personal career record. However, these achievements did not paint a complete picture of his field frustrations. He was unable to get anywhere near 1,000 yards rushing during those first three seasons.

Simpson’s career took a significant turn in 1972 with the arrival of head coach Lou Saban. He made a comeback to the Pro Bowl and clinched the first rushing title with a performance of 1,251 yards. Following that, in 1973, he had one of the most remarkable seasons for a running back in NFL history.

In the 14-game campaign, Simpson ran for 2,003 yards, shattering Jim Brown’s single-season rushing record of 1,863 yards set in 1963. Simpson sat alone in the 2,000-yard club until Eric Dickerson joined him in 1984 — though Simpson, who averaged an astounding 143.1 ground yards per game, remains the only player to have accomplished the feat in fewer than 16 games. Simpson, who also led the league with 332 carries and 12 rushing TDs, was named league MVP. Simpson’s yards-per-game tally is still the highest single-season mark in league history by a full 10 yards, and he remains one of just eight players to have ever hit the 2,000-yard milestone mark.

In the 1973 season, the Buffalo Bills had a 9-5 record. This marked the first time in O.J. Simpson’s career that the Bills ended with a record above .500. Despite this achievement, they didn’t make it to the playoffs. Simpson was the standout player and his exceptional performance inspired the nickname “The Electric Company.” While this moniker was sometimes used to describe the entire offense, it primarily referred to the offensive line that blocked for Simpson, metaphorically “turning on the Juice.” The line was headed by Hall of Fame right guard Joe DeLamielleure and comprised left tackle Dave Foley, left guard Reggie McKenzie, center Mike Montler, and right tackle Donnie Green.

Simpson secured all four of his career rushing titles between 1972 and 1976. The only year he didn’t win was 1974, which ironically was his only playoff season. In the ’74 season, Simpson ran for 1,125 yards and scored three rushing touchdowns. The Bills, significantly helped by a defense led by Tony Greene, ended the season with a 9-5 record, allowing them to qualify for the postseason. However, the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated them 32-14 in the AFC Divisional Round. Simpson made a short touchdown catch from Joe Ferguson in the closing stages of the game, but was limited to only 49 yards on 15 carries.

His pro career was fundamentally defined by a highly productive five-season stretch in the mid-1970s. In his other six seasons, he never reached 1,000 yards or scored over five touchdowns. After earning the 1976 rushing title with 1,503 yards, an injury limited Simpson to only seven games in the 1977 season. The subsequent offseason saw him traded to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for several draft picks. His last two seasons proved disappointing, with him playing in only 23 out of a potential 32 games and rushing for a total of 1,053 yards during two 2-14 seasons for the 49ers. His average yards per carry dropped to 3.7 in 1978 and 3.8 in 1979, a significant decline from his peak performance.

Nonetheless, at the time of his retirement, Simpson was second in the league’s history having achieved 11,236 career rushing yards, with only Brown (12,312) ahead of him. His career spanned 11 seasons, six of which saw him named to the Pro Bowl (nine seasons with the Bills, two with the 49ers), and he received five first-team All-Pro selections. His accomplishments earned him a place on both the 1970s Hall of Fame All-Decade Team and the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team.

Simpson’s post-playing career had already gotten underway long before his final season. He was a professional actor prior to becoming a professional football player, and more than 15 of his nearly 40 acting credits came prior to his final season of 1979. Among Simpson’s most notable roles: playing “Nordberg” in the Naked Gun movies.

Perhaps his greatest fame on the small screen came in 1975, when he became a spokesman for the rental car company Hertz, filming an iconic commercial in which Simpson sprinted through an airport, hurdling obstacles as an onlooker yelled, “Go, O.J., go!” It was also in 1975 when People magazine declared Simpson “the first [B]lack athlete to become a bona fide lovable media superstar.”

Though retired from the playing field, Simpson remained a star in the NFL world as an analyst and more so an on-field interviewer. From 1983 through ’85, Simpson was a color commentator on Monday Night Football. He was a staple of The NFL on NBC for years, as well, and also a commentator for ABC’s Wide World of Sports.

Simpson, however, entered a no contest plea to a domestic violence charge involving his wife in 1989. Fast forward to summer 1994, Brown Simpson and Goldman were discovered brutally stabbed to death, and O.J. was almost immediately considered a prime suspect in the murders.

An arrest warrant was issued for Simpson following the filing of charges against him. Simpson was supposed to surrender himself on the morning of June 17, but instead, he led the police on a slow-speed chase. His friend and former teammate from high school, college, and NFL, Al Cowlings, was driving a white Ford Bronco. The chase ended at Simpson’s home. The incident became nationally recognized as it was broadcasted live on every major TV network, including NBC, which interrupted the 1994 NBA finals to cover the event. The chase, which lasted for over two hours, attracted crowds of people in Los Angeles who gathered on streets and freeway overpasses to watch the spectacle. Roughly an hour after reaching his home, Simpson gave himself up to the police.

The murder trial that followed was a media frenzy like no other. Simpson’s defense, nicknamed the “Dream Team”, comprised of high-profile lawyers such as Robert Shapiro, Johnnie Cochran, Robert Kardashian, F. Lee Bailey, and Alan Dershowitz. The trial spanned 11 months and on October 3, 1995, the day of the final verdict, the nation practically stopped in its tracks to listen in, even affecting school schedules. Simpson was acquitted of both murders. Following Simpson’s acquittal, there were no further arrests made in relation to the murders of Brown Simpson and Goldman.

Simpson was confronted with a wrongful death civil lawsuit a year later. During this trial, video and still cameras were not allowed in the courtroom. Starting on Oct. 23, 1996, and concluding on Feb. 5, 1997, the jury unanimously determined that Simpson was responsible for wrongful death. He was directed to pay $33.5 million in damages to the families of the victims.

Simpson found himself in legal trouble again a decade later following an occurrence in Las Vegas. On September 13, 2007, he, along with several other men, stormed into a room in the Palace Station hotel and forcibly took a collection of sports memorabilia, with Simpson asserting that these items had been pilfered from him. Thirteen years to the day after being acquitted in the double-murder trial, on October 3, 2008, Simpson was found guilty by a jury on a dozen charges, including armed robbery and kidnapping. He was sentenced to 33 years behind bars on December 5, 2008, with the possibility of parole after nine years. On July 20, 2017, parole was granted to Simpson.

Simpson, a dark horse who ascended from destitution to the pinnacle of global sports and cultural stardom, experienced a shocking downfall that unfolded dramatically on a nationwide scale, a grimly appropriate scenario. Throughout every phase of his adult life, be it positive, negative, or downright appalling, O.J. was perpetually under public scrutiny.

“As a kid growing up in the ghetto, one of the things I wanted most was not money — it was fame,” Simpson said, per O.J.: Made in America, an ESPN documentary that garnered widespread attention in 2016, along with an FX miniseries from that same year, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story. “I wanted to be known. I wanted people to say, ‘There goes O.J.’ “