JIM TAYLOR: FULLBACK, PACKER

When the news came that the Packers' great Jim Taylor had died aged 83, the first message I got was from a Philadelphia friend of mine. 'You can get up now Jim, the game's over,' it read. That was a reference to the 1960 NFL championship game, the only playoff game Vince Lombardi ever lost. The Packers were driving, but with about 20 seconds left Bart Starr couldn't find a receiver in the end zone, and dumped the ball off to Taylor, who broke a couple of tackles but was then wrapped up by Chuck Bednarik and Bobby Jackson. Bednarik sat on him for 12 seconds until the clock ran out, then gave Taylor the famous quote.

Jim Taylor was a winner and Jim Taylor was tough. Those two things defined him and I'd put the second one first. His face looked like it was chiseled out of stone: a crew cut topped rectangle with a flat nose and powerful jaw. He was a huge college star at LSU. I can remember seeing Billy Cannon star for them when I was young, in his Heisman winning season, but in 1957 when Cannon and Taylor shared the running duties, it was Taylor who was the focus of opposing defenses. He was drafted by the Packers, but didn't come into his own until Lombardi took over the team, and paired him and Paul Hornung, another Heisman winner. When you think of the power sweep you think of Hornung (or Donny Anderson or Elijah Pitts) running behind the two guards, Fuzzy Thurston (63) and Jerry Kramer (64) and Taylor, but the Pack also ran it the other way, with Taylor the ball carrier. He was also a receiving threat out of the backfield, a hard guy to tackle one on one in the open field.

His good fortune was to be a part of that Packer dynasty, whose greatest ability was to be able to separate themselves from good teams like the Colts or Giants or later the Cowboys when it mattered most. They had talent, but the talent grew because they fit and played Lombardi's system to perfection. In a sense, the idea that players on great teams tend to get overvalued (see all the Packers from that era in the Hall of Fame) also means they get undervalued as individuals as time moves on, and the numbers of that era get lost in the bigger shinier numbers of the present day.

Jim Taylor was also hampered by being only the second-best Jim to play fullback in his era, behind Jim Brown. But look what happened in 1962, when Hornung was suspended for the season for associating with gamblers. Taylor ran for 1,474 yards and19 touchdowns (in 14 games) and that was Brown's only season not leading the NFL in rushing. The Pack beat the Giants 16-7 in the NFL championship game on a frozen Yankee Stadium surface with the temperature at 17 degrees F (-8 C) and the winds at 40-50 mph. Green Bay's D ( led by game MVP Ray Nitschke) forced five fumbles.Taylor ran 31 times for only 85 yards, scoring the only TD (guard Jerry Kramer, subbing for an injured Hornung, kicked three field goals). Taylor, who it turned out was suffering from hepatitis and had lost 15 pounds in the week before the game, took a beating, mostly from Giants' MLB Sam Huff. He bit through his tongue and required six stiches on his elbow. Steve Sabol, whose father Ed had bought the film rights (a key step to becoming NFL Films) recalled the intense violence and profane trash talk between Taylor and Huff. Watching the game on black and white TV as a kid, I can recall it and a 60 Minutes segment called 'The Violent World Of Sam Huff as if they were one thing.

Fullbacks were not just blockers in those days. I recall, besides Brown and Taylor, John Henry Johnson, Nick Pietrosante (a local guy from my area), Johnny Olszewski, Jim Nance, Cookie Gilchrist and the likes: guys operating from two-back sets who did a bit of everything—think Larry Csonka as maybe the last great example of the genre.

Taylor was known as the kind of runner who would seek out potential tacklers and run through them, rather than try to avoid them. 'Jim Brown will give you a leg and take it away,' Lombardi said. 'Jim Taylor will give you a leg and ram it through your chest.' He was old school all the way, exactly what we thought of football players being when I was a kid. It makes me remember why I hesitated for an instant as a 13 year old high school freshman about which sport I was going to be given the kit for. But only for an instant.

Taylor played one best-forgotten season for the Saints in his adopted home town of New Orleans, then ran a business on the docks there. He didn't place much store in the modern game, which probably won't surprise you. As he said to Bob McCullough in My Greatest Day In Football, “Forget all that talk, I like action. Today’s athletes, they’re just full of so much conversation instead of keep your mouth shut and just do your job. I don’t even watch a game.” I would watch a Jim Taylor game any time.

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