Tuesday, October 16, 2018

To Absent Friends - Jim Taylor

The Famous Packer Sweep - Taylor follows Kramer and Thurston

My earliest memories of a Great Team in the NFL are of the Green Bay Packers of Vince Lombardi, and thoughts of those teams came rushing back to me when I heard the news a few days ago of the death of Jim Taylor at the age of 83.  Bart Starr was the  quarterback and Paul Hornung was the Golden Boy who got all the headlines, but make no mistake, fullback Taylor was the the guy who got it done when it was most needed.

He played ten years in the NFL, nine of them with the Packers.  He rushed for 1,000 yards five straight seasons (NOTE: they only played twelve game seasons then), was the League MVP in 1962, played on four NFL championship teams ('61, '62, '65, '66), and was the first of the Lombardi Packers to be inducted into the Pro Football hall of Fame.

As much as anyone, Jim Taylor epitomized the toughness of pro football as the NFL rose to prominence in the 1960's and supplanted baseball as America's favorite sport.


RIP Jim Taylor.





  

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