Every offensive play in football begins the same way—with the center’s snap. His first move triggers a ballet of X’s and O’s punctuated by violent collisions and explosive bursts of speed and strength. More often than most fans realize, the center determines to a large degree a play’s success.

That was never truer than in the early 1960s, when Vince Lombardi was tuning up the Packer juggernaut and Jim Ringo was his center. The level of power and precision achieved by the Green Bay running game has never really been equaled. It all began with an undersized, overachieving player who walked out of his first NFL training camp—because he thought he didn't belong.

James Stephen Ringo was born November 21, 1932 in Orange, New Jersey. (Click here for today's sports birthdays.) He grew up in the town of Phillipsburg in the western part of the state. On the eastern side of the Lehigh Valley, Phillipsburg lays right across the Delaware River from Easton, Pennsylvania. The towns have a high-school football rivalry dating back to the early part of the century; their Thanksgiving Day game is one of football's oldest traditions. As of 2008, Phillipsburg High had the most victories of any New Jersey school, totalling more than 600. Statliner games against Easton often draw 20,000 fans or more.

The son of a factory worker, Jim was tough, focused, and loved to win. When he made the Phillipsburg varsity football team, he had visions of running for touchdowns with thousands of cheering fans calling his name. Jim told the coaching staff that he wanted to touch the ball as much as possible. They acquiesced, sort of. Jim became a center.

As the star of the Stateliners in the late 1940s, Jim followed in the footsteps of other top athletes from Phillipsburg, including Charlie Berry—who played pro football and baseball—and College Football Hall of Famer Charlie Reinhart. In 1993, the school’s fieldhouse was named in Jim’s honor.

Jim was a solid student in high school. In fact, he was a class ahead of most boys his age. He had hoped to attend Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania, where family friend Ben Schwartzwalder was coaching the football team. That plan changed during Jim’s senior year, when Schwartzwalder was hired by Syracuse University. The Oragnemen’s once-mighty football program had fallen on hard times in the 1930s and 1940s. Syracuse needed a hard-nosed and committed coach to get it back on track. Schwartzwalder, a former paratrooper, was definitely the right man for the job.

With Schwartzwalder the new head honcho in Syracuse, Jim accepted a scholarship with the Orangemen in 1949. The 17-year-old stood 6-1 and weighed less than 200 pounds when he arrived on campus one season later. Despite his smallish size, Jim proved to be a capable two-way player.  Schwartzwalder, a fitness fanatic, challenged the teenager to push himself and fulfill his potential as a player and a person. He made Jim a building block of a program that would reach national prominence by the youngster's senior year—and compete for a national championship years later with players such as Jim Brown and Ernie Davis.

Jim’s roomate during his years at Syracuse was his former Phillipsburg teammate, Joe Szombathy. Both had been All-State in 1948. Szombathy was a receiver and defensive end who developed into one of the top players on the Orangemen.

The 1950 Syracuse squad started the season 5–2 and then lost three in a row, including a 19–14 heartbreaker to archrival Colgate. The highlight of the season was a victory over Penn State. As the Colgate athletic program declined in the 1950, the Nittany Lions would emerge as the new nemesis for the Orangemen.

In 1951, Syracuse finished 5–4, beating Colgate but losing to Penn State. The Orangemen were more talented than their record indicated. Their two best passers were felled by broken legs, and Schwartzwalder used a total of five quarterbacks. Finally, defensive back Avatus Stone settled in behind Jim at center, and the Syracuse offense began to click. The team’s two most impressive win were upsets of Fordham and Boston University. An added bonus for Syracuse was a rule instituted because of Korean War call-ups—freshmen had been allowed to play on the varsity, creating a pool of experienced players for 1952.

Jim had a good year on and off the field in 1951. He was one of the better centers in the East. He also tied the knot with his fiancée, Betty. They would have four children, Michelle, James Jr., Tony and Kurt.

Everything came together for Syracuse in Jim’s senior year.  Although fellow linemen Bob Fleck and Nick Rahal received most of the preseason press, Jim’s quickness and growing power helped the Orangemen control the center of the line of scrimmage. The team went 7–2 in the regular season and climbed into the Top 20. Syracuse pulled off a rare quadruple, beating Boston College, Penn State, Colgate and Fordham.

The Orangemen were invited to play Alabama in the Orange Bowl, but their magic eluded them against the Crimson Tide. In Jim’s last game as a collegian, Syracuse was slaughtered 61–6.

In the NFL draft the following spring, Jim was selected in the seventh round by the then-lowly Packers. Syracuse teammate Stone went two rounds later to the Chicago Cardinals. Stone was a bust in the NFL. Another Orangeman, defensive back Carl Karilivacz, made the Detroit Lions that summer. He eventually played in NFL Championships with Detroit and later the New York Giants.

In a 12-team league, being a seventh-rounder was roughly equal to a third-rounder today. In other words, Jim stood a good chance of sticking with Green Bay. He was not yet 21 when he reported to camp in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. His weight was up over 200 pounds.

The Packers were used to undersized centers in the past, including Jay Rhodemyre the previous season. They were not put off by Jim’s lanky frame. When he saw the other linemen in camp, by contrast, he began to think he might be in the wrong business. Green Bay’s guards and tackles were all in the 230 to 250 range—and they were considered on the small side by NFL standards. After a few days of getting his butt kicked, Jim decided to save himself the trouble of being cut and returned to his home in Easton to begin his life after football.

The decision caught coach Gene Ronzani by surprise. He dispatched a scout to find Jim and bring him back to camp. By the time Jim arrived home, his wife and father had given him an earful. Kids from Easton didn’t turn down $5,000 for four months work. Jim returned to Minnesota. He earned a spot on the Packers as a backup to Dave Stephenson, a guard by trade. Jim saw action in five contests. He battled injuries that kept him out of the rest of games.

Green Bay was racked by turmoil in 1953, and Ronzani was eventually fired and replaced by a trio of assistants. The ownership situation was complicated. The team had thousands of stockholders and was run by an executive committee. During the rough spots—and there were many in the 1950s—coaches and players heard it from many different sources. The problem was that they never really knew who was in control.

Marquette football legend Lisle Blackbourn was hired to coach the Packers in 1954. He didn’t have much to work with, but recognized Jim’s talent and installed him as the starting center. It helped that Jim had begun to pack some meat on his bones. He weighed more than 225 pounds to start his second season. Jim watched and learn from the NFL’s top centers, including Frank Gatski of the Cleveland Browns, Bill Johnson of the San Francisco 49ers and Bill Walsh of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Jim got plenty of practice pass-blocking in 1954, as quarterback Tobin Rote fired a league-high 382 passes for Green Bay. The Packers showed brief signs of life, winning four of five mid-season games, but they were winless the rest of the way to finish at 4–8.

The 1955 edition of the Packers was surprisingly good. Receiver Billy Howton was already an established deep threat, and Green Bay had talent in the backfield, too. Howie Ferguson ascended to a starting role and gained 859 yards. With the offense on the field more, the defense—led by one-eyed cornerback Bobby Dillon and linebacker Roger Zatkoff—kept scores respectable. The Packers split their 12 games and finished third in the West.

A 2–6 start to the 1956 season brought the executive committee back into the picture, and the Packers were torn apart by internal strife. Green Bay restored some dignity later in the year when by knocking the Lions out of first place. Later, the team dealt the improving Cardinals a season-killing loss. Both clubs ended up in second place.

Despite a stressful 4–8 season, the Green Bay passing attack was in high gear. Howton was spectacular as usual, and Rote led the league in completions, yards and touchdowns. The problem was an uneven running game—consider that Rote was the team’s leading rusher. What good did come of the Green Bay offense had a lot to do with Jim’s play at center. More and more, his speed and intelligence were creating havoc for enemy defenses. Jim also had a pair of talented first-year tackles to work with, Forrest Gregg and Bob Skoronski.

By this time, most experts rated Jim as the best young player in the NFL at his position. It became official in 1957, when he earned All-Pro honors for the first time and received the first of his 10 invitations to the Pro Bowl. His season was all the  more remarkable considering that he had been battling mononucleosis. For five weeks, Jim was hospitalized from Monday to Friday, and then released to play over the weekend.

One Packer who was happy to have Jim out of bed and slugging it out with opponents was Bart Starr. The second-year quarterback became the starter after Rote was traded in the off-season and first-round draft pick Paul Hornung flopped at the position in training camp. In a 3–9 season, Starr put up respectable numbers, and Blackbourn got the axe. The Packers likely would been better had Gregg and Skoronski not been called into military service.

Assistant Scooter McLean, who had served as de facto head coach for a couple of games during Jim’s rookie year, was promoted to top dog for 1958. The Packers beefed up their offensive line with rookie Jerry Kramer and strengthened their backfield with Jim Taylor, also a rookie. Two more talented first-year players joined the defense, Dan Currie and Ray Nitschke.

Unfortunately, the result was disaster. Inexperience—plus apathy—added up to one win, one tie, and 10 losses. It was the lowest win total in team history, and even that lone win was a nail-biter. The Packers led the Eagles 38–7. and then nearly succumbed to a furious comeback by Philadelphia that ended up just short, 38–35. McLean didn’t hang around after the season for his pink slip. He quit and took a job with the Lions.

Jim was one of only two Green Bay players to receive All-Pro recognition in 1958. The other was Dillon, who was a year away from retirement. None of the backs carried the ball more than 74 times, no receiver caught more than 37 passes, and Starr had to be bailed out of several losing battles by Babe Parilli.

The Packers had basically hit rock bottom. After the season, the NFL briefly considered eliminating the franchise. In the simplest terms, the team was becoming an embarrassment. The man hired to raise Green Bay from the ashes was Vince Lombardi. Commissioner Bert Bell and Cleveland coach Paul Brown had proffered his name, and the Packers had actually considered Lombardi in the past. Back then, however, Green Bay wanted someone with head coaching experience. Now the team wooed Lombardi with a five-year contract as coach and general manager. He was promised unquestioned authority on the sidelines and in the front office.

In camp that summer, Lombardi told his players that he had never been associated with a losing team, and he did not intend to start now. As the offensive coordinator of the Giants—and before that as one of Fordham’s Seven Blocks of Granite—Lombardi had developed a feel for blocking schemes that he felt could create an unstoppable running attack. In Green Bay, he would build this attack around his one and only All-Pro offensive player, Jim Ringo.

Indeed, for Lombardi’s offense to work, much depended on strong and agile linemen. In New York, he had the great Roosevelt Brown, as well as Ray Wietecha and Jack Stroud. In Green Bay, Lombardi had the makings of an even greater offensive line. The 1959 campaign marked the first of five consecutive seasons in which the unit of Jim (center), Skoronski (left tackle) Gregg (right tackle), Fuzzy Thurston (left tackle) and Kramer (right tackle) lined up together as a starting five.

Jim’s skills were especially well suited to Lombardi’s style. He was quick on his feet, good with his hands, and had tremendous balance, whether popping open a hole or spearheading Green Bay’s pocket protection. What endeared him most to Lombardi was the fact that the coach could count the number of mistakes Jim made during a season on one hand.

The Packers began the Lombardi Era with morale-boosting road victories over the Bears, Lions and 49ers. The games in Chicago and San Francisco were the kind of close affairs the Packers had lost during Jim’s early years with the team. Hornung and Taylor were getting the hang of Lombardi’s power sweep, and veteran Lamar McHan—acquired from the Cardinals before the season—was getting the job done at quarterback, while Starr worked to perfect the team’s revamped offense in practice.

Jim was one of the Packers who sensed a sea change with the arrival of Lombardi. Although the new coach worked himself to near exhaustion during the week, on game day he was more confident than anyone Jim had ever played for. Lombardi’s confidence in his own game plan was unwavering and absolute.

Lombardi was also a shrewd judge of character. Not only did he begin weeding out players who would impede Green Bay’s progress, he named Jim the team's co-captain along with linebacker Bill Forester. A college star at SMU, Forester had been a rookie with Jim in 1953 and built up a winning resume despite Green Bay’s losing ways.

Lombardi’s management skills—both during games and in player personnel—helped buoy the club when the Packers lost five straight. An overhaul was not required; just a few intelligent tweaks. With four games left and a 3–5 record, Lombardi chose to reinsert Starr, who rewarded him with four stirring victories. The Packers finished with a winning record, and Lombardi set his sights on a division title in 1960.

The following season was a dogfight from the opening weekend, with the Packers emerging as top dog in a strong NFL West. It was their first division crown since 1944. Green Bay used Taylor as a human battering ram, and then finished off opponents with Hornung, who scored an eye-popping 176 points on 13 rushing touchdowns, two receiving touchdowns, 15 field goals and 41 extra points. The Green Bay sweep was the talk of the NFL. Defenses knew what was coming, but were unable to stop it with any great consistency.

With the exception of the Eagles, taht is. In the NFL Championship Game, Philadelphia found a chink in Green Bay’s armor and did a good job exploiting it. Early in the contest, the Eagles gave the Packers unbelievable field position, but Chuck Bednarik and his teammates stuffed the run and Green Bay managed a lone field goal. Philadelphia continued to clamp down on Lombardi’s running game. The Packers finally broke through in the fourth quarter. Trailing 10–6, they mounted their only effective attack of the day, capping off an 80-yard drive with a short TD pass from Starr to Max McGee.

Green Bay had little time to celebrate a job well done. Rookie Ted Dean returned the ensuing kickoff to the Green Bay 39-yard-line. Seven plays later, he carried the ball across the goal line for a 17–13 lead. The last 10 minutes of the game saw the Packers make a valiant last-ditch effort, but time ran out with the ball deep in Philadelphia territory. It was the one and only postseason defeat the Packers would suffer during Lombardi ’s reign.

The NFL expanded its schedule to 14 games in 1961, and the Packers swept to another division crown, going 11–3 and leading the league in scoring with 391 points. The Green Bay running game was now working to perfection. In turn, Starr was able to open up the passing attack. He set a club record with 2,418 passing yards. Taylor, meanwhile, racked up over 1,300 yards on the ground. Hornung, playing Sundays on a weekend pass from the military, was less effective as a runner than in past seasons, but he handled the team’s kicking duties with his usual aplomb. A third back, Tommy Moore, picked up the slack in an expanded role from the previous season.

There were several seasons during the early 1960s when Hornung was either less than 100 percent or altogether unavailable. The fact that the Green Bay attack barely missed a beat was a tribute to the much-heralded offensive line. Although centers typically don’t get a lot of ink—less even than more-visible guards and tackles—Jim’s work was recognized in the press. Green Bay fans were certainly aware of his specialties. Few were better at picking off the middle linebacker on plays up the gut or burying the defensive tackle on sweeps. Both skills required tremendous quickness from a center.

For all of the scoring going on in Green Bay in 1961, the defense was the big story in town. Nitschke, who was also logging weekday military service, was the heart of a unit that included front men Willie Davis and Henry Jordan. Herb Adderley joined Willie Wood in the secondary, giving the unit two future Hall of Famers. With the exception of a big game by Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts, opponents normally found themselves shut out of the end zone against the Packers. The team surrendered 17 or fewer points in its first seven games to effectively end the division race by Halloween.

The Packers were a supremely confident bunch by this time. Their pregame routine said it all. Lombardi would disappear from the locker room about 10 minutes before kickoff, leaving the players to do some last-minute bonding and gut-checking. At the appropriate time, Jim would summon Lombardi back in and the coach would give short speech telling his men how proud he was to be their leader. From that moment on, the team was ready to go to work.

The Packers had honed their smashing attack to a fine edge by the 1961 Championship Game. Lombardi’s old club, the Giants, had survived a three-way tussle in the East to earn a place on the field on New Year’s Eve in Green Bay. New York made a show of it for exactly one scoreless quarter, after which the Packers scored three touchdowns and a field goal. They took a 24–0 lead into the locker room at the half.

Everyone knew what was coming next. For two miserable quarters, the Giants had to absorb Green Bay’s punishing ground game. Hornung, Taylor and Moore smashed into the New York defense again and again. The final score on this sub-freezing day was 37–0.

It hardly seemed possible, but the Packers were even better in 1962. The offense was literally uncontainable. Taylor took the rushing crown from Jim Brown’s head and Starr was the NFL’s most efficient passer. Four of the five offensive linemen were honored as All-Pros, including Jim, who contracted a nasty staff infection during the year. For six weeks, he spent Monday through Friday in a hospital bed and then suited up for games on the weekend, just as he had in 1957.

The Green Bay defense was perfectly balanced. A 26–14 home loss to the Lions was the only smudge on an otherwise perfect 13–1 season. The title game paired the Packers with the Giants again, this time in Yankee Stadium. On a frigid, windy Wisconsin-like afternoon, passing was not an option. Jim and his linemates earned their pay, jousting with Rosey Grier, Andy Robustelli, Sam Huff, Jim Katcavage and Dick Modzelewski in a line-of-scrimmage street brawl. The Packers led 10–0 at the half.

New York grabbed the momentum in the third quarter after blocking a Green Bay punt. Wthe score 10–7, the Packers regained control and added a final field goal to win their second straight championship. Jim spent much of the day looking for Huff, who spent most of the day looking for Taylor, who carried the ball 31 times for 85 hellish yards.

The law of gravity seized the Packers in 1963. Hornung was suspended for gambling, and Starr was injured for a month. The surprising Bears, who beat Green Bay at Lambeau Field on opening day, proved they were for real with a 26–7 victory in their November rematch at Wrigley. Chicago finished 11–1–2, while the Packers went 11–2–1.

The post mortem on this disappointing season included a change of address for Jim. Lombardi traded him to the Eagles—a famous albeit it somewhat shrouded staple of Packer lore. The story goes that after yet another All-Pro campaign, Jim wanted a raise from the team and brought an agent into Lombardi’s office to negotiate it for him. The coach excused himself from the room, and when he returne,d he informed Jim’s agent that he was in the wrong city to discuss his client’s contract. Jim had been dealt to Philadelphia.

Lombardi was a shrewd and aggressive trader who did not shy away from moving a star. Over the years, he amassed an amazing number of high draft picks for the Packers. The selection he acquired for Jim was used on Donny Anderson.

Jim welcomed the chance to play closer to home. He could drive the 70 miles from his house in Easton to practice each day. In fact, there have been counterclaims in the ensuing years that Jim actually requested the trade from Lombardi for reasons that went to the grave with both men. Lombardi, however, did not discourage the more dictatorial account, feeling that it would increase his leverage with other players making salary demands. Jim and Lombadri remained friendly until the coach’s demise from cancer in 1970.

After beating the Packers for the NFL title in 1960, the aging Eagles had been trying to rebuild. Jim was one of several front-line players to join the club heading into the 1964 season. Norm Snead, Floyd Peters, and Ollie Matson were three other headline-makers acquired by coach and GM Joe Kuharich. The Snead deal cost Philadelphia Sonny Jurgensen, giving Eagles fans their first of many reasons to despise Kuharich.

Jim’s linemates on the Eagles included guards Ed Blaine (a former Packer teammate) and Lynn Hoyem, and tackles Dave Graham and Bob Brown, a rookie who would go on to enjoy a Hall of Fame career. Pete Retzlaff, a sure-handed receiver and good blocker, lined up at tight end. Ex-Packer Earl Gros (who was part of the Ringo trade) would lead the team in rushing.

The Eagles played to a 6–8 record but were in position to finish much better. They let several games slip away. Jim provided the glue for a team trying to find itself and enjoyed another Pro Bowl campaign. Though he was still one of the NFL's best, he began yielding ground to young Mick Tinglehoff of the Minnesota Vikings as the top center in the game.

The Eagles made no progress in 1965. Their defense was atrocious, which forced the offense to play catch-up much of the year. Philadelphia beat up on the bad teams and lost to the good ones to finish with a 5–9 record. Jim received yet another Pro Bowl invitation and garnered a few All-Pro votes. After 13 seasons, however, he was beginning to show the wear and tear of his annual trench warfare.

That did not mean Jim was sitting out games or missing starts. Quite to the contrary, he was putting the finishing touches on what would end up as an NFL-record 182-game playing streak. The final 56 games came in an Eagles uniform.

By 1966, t here was good reason to suit up every Sunday, because the Eagles finally regained their competitive edge. The defense, led by Peters, gave the offense plenty of chances in good field position. Which quarterback would be leading the offense was another matter. Kuharich used a three-passer platoon for much of the season and often did not reveal his choice until right before game time. The strategy must have driven Jim a little crazy. He liked to prepare for opponents, and doing so without knowing who would be taking the snaps wasn't easy. Indeed, there were subtle differences between the styles of Snead, King Hill, and Jack Concannon, all of whom got starting nods from the coach.

Another problem was that Philly lacked a star receiver. But the offensive line did a marvelous job opening holes for the team’s runners, who racked up nearly 2,000 yards and scored 19 touchdowns. The Eagles held their own in a competitive Eastern Conference, winning their final four games to finish 9–5, just behind the first-place Cowboys. Dallas would lose a shootout to the Packers in the NFL Championship, with Green Bay gaining a berth in the first Super Bowl. Ken Bowman and Bill Curry had taken over at center for Green Bay by this time.

The 1967 season would be Jim’s last as a player. A new league alignment scheme landed the Eagles in he Capitol Division with the Cowboys, Washington Redskins and New Orleans Saints. Philadelphia ran hot and cold all year. The Eagles beat the Cowboys one week only to lose to the expansion Saints seven days later. They finished 6–7–1.

The Philadelphia passing attack, often used out of necessity, was one of the league’s most potent. Snead cranked out 29 touchdown strikes, and Ben Hawkins, a benchwarmer the year before, caught 59 passes for an NFL-high 1,265 yards. Jim’s final game was a 28–24 victory over the Browns, winners of the Century Division. He made one more appearance in an NFL uniform, during the Pro Bowl in January of 1968. At the time, he was the oldest offensive lineman ever to play in the game.

As a player, Jim had been in charge of the offensive line. He would determine the adjustments needed during games and knew each blocker’s assignments as well as he knew his own. It was inevitable that Jim would find his way into coaching.

In 1969, Jim was hired by the Bears to work with their linemen. He spent three seasons plugging holes in Chicago. Though the Bears were not known for their run-blocking or pass protection during this time, it is worth noting that in 1972—the season after Jim left—Chicago quarterback Bobby Douglass was forced to scramble for his life (and nearly 1,000 yards).

By then, Jim had joined Lou Saban’s staff in Buffalo. For two seasons, the Bills had completely underutilized their extraordinary running back, O.J. Simpson. The team hired back Saban from the college ranks to restore the Buffalo running game. He had coached the club to the AFL title in the 1960s, and the Bills hoped for a return to glory.

Saban brought in Jim to whip the offensive line into shape. Like Lombardi in 1959, Jim had some good raw material to work with. Over the next few seasons, Reggie McKenzie, Joe DeLamielleure, Mike Montler, Donnie Green and Dave Foley blew open holes for Simpson and gave quarterback Joe Ferguson the time he needed to put up good numbers. Buffalo’s offensive line became know as the Electric Company because they turned on The Juice. Simpson led the AFC  in rushing four times from 1972 to 1976 and cracked the 2,000-yard mark in 1973.

Jim received rave reviews for his work with the Buffalo offense,and was the natural choice to replace Saban when he retired unexpectedly, five games into the 1976 season. Jim inherited a club torn apart by Simpson’s off-season trade demands and the departure of receivers Ahmad Rashad and J.D. Hill. Two games after Jim took over, Ferguson went down for the year with a back injury. Injuries also hobbled the defense, which yielded almost 5,000 yards in 14 games. The dispirited Bills dropped all nine games under their new coach, including a season-ending 58–20 debacle that gave the Colts the division title.

To the credit of Buffalo owner Ralph Wilson, Jim was given a chance to stay and rebuild the club in 1977. Alas, it turned out to be another miserable year for the Bills. The first win of the year did not come until Week 5, and it was a 3–0 squeaker against the Atlanta Falcons.

Jim watched in dismay as his offense, defense and special teams made mistakes at critical times game after game. He was a long way from his Green Bay days. Even worse, in a 56–17 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, Simpson suffered the knee injury that would ultimately end his career. The Bills won a grand total of three games, and Jim was replaced by Chuck Knox after the season.

Jim’s next stop was New England, where he was line coach in 1978 and offensive coordinator for three more seasons under Ron Erhardt. Led by quarterback Steve Grogan, the Patriots had three winning seasons before they tumbled into the AFC East cellar in 1981. Jim was swept out with the rest of the Erhardt regime. Ironically, it was the same year that Jim was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Jim took a job with the Los Angeles Rams in 1982, moved over to the New York Jets for two seasons, and then returned to the Bills in 1985 to become the team’s line coach and offensive coordinator. The Buffalo offense was not much better than the one he left eight years earlier, But that situation changed in 1986, when Jim Kelly joined the team from the New Jersey Generals of the USFL, and Marv Levy took over as head coach from Hank Bullough.

Jim and Bullough did not get along well, dating back to their days as assistants with the Patriots. Bullough wanted to can Jim, but Wilson intervened and ultimately Bullough was the one who was given his walking papers.

This would have been a dream situation for Jim had cancer not taken Betty early in 1987. They had been married since they were teenagers, some 35 years. Jim later remarried. His second wife’s name was Judy.

In the spring of 1987, the Bills considered their options for stationing a quality runner behind Kelly. Jim's fellow Buffalo assistant and former Green Bay teammate Elijiah Pitts began lobbying for the club to take Thurman Thomas of Oklahoma State, if he dropped into the second round. What seems like a no-brainer today was anything but back then.

Thomas had been injured in 1986 and was considered a gamble. Jim backed up Pitts, and the team grabbed Thomas in the second round. Jim's advice helped transform the Bills. He also did solid work on the field. Besides assisting in the development of Kelly and Thomas, Jim was credited with making Kent Hull into a top NFL center. Jim knew that a great team needed a great center. In the early 1990s, the Bills won four straight AFC Championships.

Sadly, Jim was not around for those triumphs. During a 1988 game against the Colts, a play spilled over the sidelines and into the bench area. Jim’s leg was broken. True to form, he continued to coach until the game was over. The injury was slow to heal. After the Bills fell to the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship game, Jim decided it was time to retire.

On November 19, 2007, Jim passed away from pneumonia in Chesapeake, Virginia. He was 75. In 1996, Jim had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. His memories of the glory years with the Packers faded in and out, but no fan who saw him during his heyday could ever forget him.