Hall of Fame Packer fullback Taylor dies

Jim Taylor, the ferocious Hall of Fame fullback who embodied the Green Bay Packers’ unstoppable ground game during the Vince Lombardi era and helped the team win four NFL titles and the first Super Bowl, died Saturday. He was 83.

He died unexpectedly at a hospital in his hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the team said.

Taylor played on the great Packer teams and was the league’s MVP in 1962. He scored the first rushing touchdown in Super Bowl history.

“He was a gritty, classic player on the Lombardi teams and a key figure of those great championship runs,” Packers President Mark Murphy said of the player who left his mark on “multiple generations of Packers fans.”

Taylor was voted into the Hall in 1976. David Baker, president of the Hall, lauded Taylor for not only personifying Lombardi’s “run to daylight” philosophy but for living his life as he played game, with “passion, determination and love for all he did.”

Taylor spent 10 seasons in the NFL after being drafted in the second round out of LSU in 1958. He joined a backfield that featured Paul Hornung and began to thrive when Lombardi took over in 1959.

Lombardi devised the Packers’ “Sweep,” which featured pulling guards Jerry Kramer and Fuzzy Thurston clearing the path for Taylor or Hornung running around the end. The 6-foot, 216-pound Taylor best fulfilled the play’s punishing effectiveness, a workhorse always charging forward, dragging wouldbe tacklers along.

“He taught me lots of character, and virtues, and principles,” Taylor said of Lombardi, with whom he occasionally feuded, in a 2001 interview with the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “He established a caliber of football that he felt like would be championship.”

In 1960, Taylor ran for 1,101 yards, topping Tony Canadeo’s franchise mark of 1,052 yards in 1949. It was just the beginning. He Taylor ran for five straight 1,000-yard seasons from 1960-64 and led the Packers seven consecutive times in rushing.

In 1961, Taylor ran for 1,307 yards and scored an NFL-best 15 touchdowns as the Packers rolled to a 37-0 victory over the Giants in Green Bay for Lombardi’s first title.

The next year would be Taylor’s finest. He ran for 1,474 yards and 19 TDs in 14 games, and scored the only touchdown in the Packers’ 16-7 victory over the New York Giants for the second of his four titles.

Taylor said that season, when Green Bay finished 13-1 in the regular season, stood out for him.

“Being voted the MVP of the league in 1962 is something that I look back and cherish,” Taylor said. “I felt like I accomplished and achieved my goal.”

The 1962 title game pitted the Packers and the Giants, this time in New York, and was played in 40 mph winds and 13-degree temperatures at Yankee Stadium.

Taylor was at his toughest, picking up 85 yards on 31 carries.

Associated Press file photo Hall of Famer Jim Taylor, from the Green Bay Packers, died early Saturday the Packers announced. He was 83.