Teammate Howard Green once said in admiration of him, “When T.J. He has great size and power and is a brawler at 6’4” 305 pounds. Lang has played all five positions along the offensive line and has started at every slot except center. For five years, the two gave the team its best set of guards since the Rivera-Wahle team ten years before. The feisty Lang was drafted out of Eastern Michigan as a tackle by the Packers in the fourth round of the 2009 draft and has proved to be a very nice complement to the more celebrated and accomplished Josh Sitton on the other side. That would be his final Packers’ touchdown, as he played out his option and signed with the expansion Saints as a free agent in 1967 and played one last very diminished season. Sure, Jim blasts past linebackers and crashes through defensive backs, but he’d never get those opportunities if he wasn’t moving in the right direction and using his blockers the way he should.”Īfter contracting hepatitis and turning 30 in 1965, Taylor’s rushing average dropped to a paltry 3.5 yards-per-carry, but he still managed to have a superior 1965 championship game against the Browns and score a touchdown on a sweep in the very first Super Bowl a year later. Don’t ever get the idea it’s all legs and power. He is hard to knock off his feet, and he fights for every yard.” Vince expanded on Taylor’s gridiron savviness, “He hits the right hole at the right time, He follows the right blocker, and he doesn’t blow assignments. Lombardi commented in 1962, “Taylor may not be as big as some fullbacks, but he has balance and determination. He liked to lower his shoulders and swing his forearms and elbows to crash through defenders and was a fine blocker with a nasty attitude. Very muscular from his dedicated weight training, he ran hard and had pretty good speed. I like to sting ‘em a little.” He was small for a fullback at 6’ and 215 pounds, but he was the epitome of a power runner. You’ve got to deal out more misery than the tacklers deal out to you.” On another occasion, he described his running style, “I don’t always run at them. Taylor had firm ideas on how to play the game, “Football is a contact sport. His best year was 1962 when he gained 1,474 yards and scored 114 points to lead the league in both categories, while setting a league record with 19 rushing touchdowns. By 1960, Taylor was fully ensconced as the top fullback in the Western Conference and ran for more than 1,000 yards each of the next five years, finishing second to Jim Brown four times. He won the starting fullback job under Lombardi in 1959, but missed three games after being burned by scalding grease in a home accident. Taylor did not see much action as a rookie until the last two games when he ran for 236 yards against the 49ers and Rams. Drafted out of LSU in the second round of the 1958 draft, he joined the Packers that year along with Ray Nitschke, Jerry Kramer and Dan Currie in perhaps the team’s best ever draft haul. Taylor was the biggest offensive star on Lombardi’s Packers and always a driven and fiery player. September 20 is a day for players with attitude it’s the birthday of Hall of Fame fullback Jim Taylor and battling guard T.J.
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