Jim Gehman Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 Granted, they’re winless, however, because of the Bills’ most recent efforts [three losses by a total of nine points], and the mild wave of respect they are earning for not just going through the motions, the possibility that things will turn around and they’ll find at least a sliver of success may not be as farfetched as it was, say, a month ago. It can be done, and, in fact, was done by Buffalo’s longtime guard Jim Ritcher, whose story I’m happy to share from my book about the Bills - “Then Levy Said to Kelly…”. Don’t Ever Give Up If he discovered change in a pay phone’s coin return, Jim Ritcher would likely mail it to the telephone company. An-honest-day’s-work-for-an-honest-day’s-pay type of guy, he came to Buffalo in 1980 as the team’s first-round draft choice and had his work cut out for him despite being a two-time consensus All-America center at North Carolina State and the 1979 Outland Trophy award winner as college football’s top lineman. It would be three years before he would get off the Bills’ bench and became a fixture at left guard. Becoming a two-time Pro Bowl selection, Ritcher left the Bills in 1994 after playing 14 seasons and an all-time team record 222 total games, including the four Super Bowls. He never complained about the beginning of his career with the Bills and never bragged about the ending. "It wasn’t something individual as it was just the team," was Ritcher’s reply when asked what he is most proud of regarding his Bills’ career. "Certainly in the first half it was not that the effort wasn’t there, but things weren’t going right. And just the fact that we didn’t give up in the [1993 32-point comeback] Houston wild-card game. I look back on that and there seem to be so many life lessons about not giving up. Showing up and continuing with the work that’s before you. Just plug away at it and good things will happen. I try to teach my sons that. Not to ever give up and just keep plugging away. "I think my career was a little bit like that. I had some success in college, but I got to the Bills and… Here I was a number one draft pick coming in, and I wasn’t a starter my first couple years, and I just really felt that I let the scouts and whoever had elected to bring me to the Bills, I really let them down. The people thought enough of me to draft me in the first round and then to not be able to be out on the field, that bothered me." He continued, "I remember reading an article, and I think the reporter was probably exactly right, but it doesn’t mean that it still didn’t hurt when I read it. It said, ‘Jim Ritcher, is he another first-round flop for the Bills?’ I guess we had a number of guys that just didn’t pan out previous to me being there. I felt like, gosh, yeah, maybe I am just a flop. So like I said, it was sort of a life lesson to keep plugging away and keep working at it, and things got better. "We went through a really bad time, back-to-back 2-14 seasons [1984-85], but the team and myself just kept working at it and tried to get better at something every day. Things ended up getting better, and here I finish my career with the Bills by going to four Super Bowls." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albany,n.y. Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 It sure helped to have an HOF QB to help turn things around. I saw Jim Kelly play, Ryan Fitzpatrick is no Jim Kelly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaccof Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 I was fortunate enough to be at NC State for Ritcher's last year and of course was thrilled when the Bills picked him up. I think he's a commercial pilot now based out of the Raleigh, NC area....there may be something to not getting too down on the young guys their first or second year on the team... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seadog Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 (edited) It sure helped to have an HOF QB to help turn things around. I saw Jim Kelly play, Ryan Fitzpatrick is no Jim Kelly. He ain't no jim kelly, but he's playing the part as well as anybody has since. Edited November 9, 2010 by seadog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cåblelady Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 Don’t Ever Give Up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John from Riverside Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 The question is......would Jim Kelly have been JIM KELLY behind this offensive line? People conveniently ignore this obvious fact....Payton Manning, Phillip Rivers, insert any QB you want..... IT DONT HAPPEN WITHOUT THE BLOCKING AND SUPPORT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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