Where Are They Now: Jeff Nixon
Nixon has remained in the Buffalo area since retiring

buffalobills.com
Dec. 11, 2002

By Jim Gehman

Jeff Nixon was selected in the fourth round of the 1979 NFL draft.

Selected in the fourth round of the 1979 NFL draft, Jeff Nixon demonstrated right away that he felt it was very important to be prepared.

"The one thing that I did immediately after getting drafted is find out what kind of team they had, what was their record, who was the free safety, the strong safety and the cornerbacks? And I found out that they had a guy named Tony Greene that had been an All-Pro on two separate occasions and that he was just coming off of a pretty bad knee injury. So I knew they were bringing me in to see maybe if they could kind of groom me for the starting position," said Nixon. "Tony wasn’t really known as a really good run-support guy, but he was good against the pass. They saw that I was not only a good pass defender, but that I would really come up and support the run pretty good too."

After making the team and spending the first 11 games of his rookie season as Greene’s backup and playing in the nickel defense, Nixon moved into the starting lineup at an unusual time.

"We were playing Green Bay and right at the end of the half, Tony was like waiting in the back of the endzone for the ball to come down and (Packers receiver James) Lofton jumped right in front of him and caught it. It really hurt us at that point in the game. And at halftime, my coach, Jim Wagstaff, came up to me and said, ‘You’re starting the second half.’ It wasn’t starting a game, but that’s when I took the starting position."

Nixon stayed there for the rest of the season and finished the campaign with six interceptions for 81 yards. The most picks by a Bills’ rookie since Butch Byrd totaled seven in ‘64. Nixon was also credited with 61 tackles.

The following season opened with a home game that many Bills players and fans had circled on their calendar as soon as the schedule was released. Miami! Buffalo was winless during the ’70s against the rival Dolphins. 20 straight games! It didn’t reach 21. Nixon grabbed three interceptions, two off of Bob Griese and one off of Don Strock, to help the Bills beat Miami 17-7.

"I knew that if there was anything I could do to stop them from continuing that streak, I was going to do it. It was so nice to see us finally beat them. Not so much for me, but for the older veteran guys that had played for 10 years and had lost every single game," Nixon said. "It was such a burden lifted from people like Reggie McKenzie and Joe Ferguson and Joe DeLamielleure and all those guys that had been playing for years. And really, that gave us the momentum that year to really just realize that we were a good team."

Following the Miami game, the Bills added three more victories during the next three games and had a showdown with the Chargers, who were also undefeated. Buffalo won the battle, but not without a cost.

"I got hurt in the game, which was really tough for me. My parents had driven from Phoenix to San Diego to watch. It would be the first game that they’d ever seen me play. The Bills had made me the honorary captain for the game because I was leading the NFL (with five) interceptions at the time. Then I went out there and (hurt my left knee) in the very first quarter. It was real depressing moment for me."

Nixon played in only two more games that season and then re-injured his knee during the ‘81 training camp.

"That was the beginning of a tough period for me as far as football. I knew there was something wrong with my knee, but I figured, ‘Hey, the doctors know what’s best for me.’ And so every time I’d injured it, they might take out a little piece of cartilage or fix it up a little bit with a brace or something. But after I hurt it again and again and again, they finally decided to do reconstruction surgery. I had five surgeries all together. They were all arthroscopic except for the total reconstruction. They had to give me the 10-inch zippers on each side of my knee," laughed Nixon. "I think God has a hand in everything and with that I knew it was just something that I had to go through. Injuries are a part of football. Of course, you don’t think about it when you’re a healthy person. You don’t think, ‘Hey, I’m going to get injured.’ You just play. But unfortunately this happens to a lot of people in the NFL.

Since retiring in 1983 Jeff Nixon has remained in Buffalo.

"There’s a lot of players that could have maybe had great careers. Just think, Jerry Rice, in the first game he ever played, could have got hit by somebody very easily and destroyed his entire career. And no one would have ever known how great he could have ever been. But fortunately for him, he never got that. And there’s a lot of players that have a little bit of luck going behind them or fate or God’s protection. I don’t know what it is. But it’s a fortunate thing for them that they could go through an entire career without being injured."

Since retiring in ‘83, Nixon has remained in Buffalo for his second career. Following 12 years as the Erie County Youth Bureau director, he has spent the past two years as the youth services manager at the Buffalo Employment and Training Center.

"I basically run the summer youth employment program for the city of Buffalo. We hire over 2,000 young people every summer and put them in work experiences all throughout the city. And with a lot of those kids, we put them in school-year support programs too," Nixon said. "What we try to do is give them work-readiness skills, occupational skills. We help them with their academics to make sure they graduate from high school and prepare them for the future workforce. That’s the bottom line. We want to give them all the opportunities to excel in the world of work."

Nixon and his wife, Joyce, share the same field. She is the executive director of National Inner Cities Youth Opportunities, a not-for-profit agency based in Martin Luther King Park. They have five children from previous marriages. Three sons: Charles, Damien and Jeff. And two daughters: Libran and Jena.

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