James Lofton

James David Lofton (born July 5, 1956) is a former American football player and coach. A wide receiver, he played in the NFL for the Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Raiders, Buffalo Bills, Los Angeles Rams, and Philadelphia Eagles. While at Stanford University, he won the NCAA long jump title in 1978. Considered one of the all-time greats at his position, Lofton held the NFL record for career receiving yards when he retired and was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2003.

Lofton attended George Washington High School in Los Angeles, where he played quarterback and safety. At Stanford, as a senior in 1977, he caught 57 passes for 1,010 yards and 14 touchdowns, earning second-team All-America honors from the AP and NEA. He was a member of the Theta Delta Chi fraternity and graduated in 1978 with a degree in industrial engineering. On the track, he won the long jump at the 1978 NCAA Championships with a wind-aided leap of 26 feet 11¾ inches, and had previously won the 1974 CIF California State Meet with a jump of 24 feet 3½ inches. He also ran the 200 meters in 20.5 seconds and has competed in Masters track and field since 1997.

The Green Bay Packers selected Lofton with the sixth overall pick in the 1978 NFL draft. Over 16 seasons, he caught 764 passes for 14,004 yards and 75 touchdowns, averaging 20 yards per catch or more in five seasons and leading the league in that category in 1983 and 1984. He also rushed 32 times for 246 yards and a touchdown. An eight-time Pro Bowler (seven with the Packers, one with the Bills) and four-time All-Pro, he played in three Super Bowls with Buffalo.

Lofton was the first player to reach 14,000 receiving yards and the second to score a touchdown in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. He left Green Bay as the franchise’s all-time leading receiver with 9,656 yards (a mark later broken by Donald Driver). In 1987, after being charged with second-degree sexual assault, he was traded to the Raiders for two draft picks; a jury found him not guilty a month later. After two modest seasons with the Raiders, he signed with Buffalo as a free agent in 1989.

He briefly joined the Los Angeles Rams in 1993, playing one game, before finishing the season with the Philadelphia Eagles. Upon Steve Largent’s retirement, Lofton became the NFL’s active leader in receiving yards in 1990 and held that title until his own retirement. In 1991, he became the oldest player to record 1,000 receiving yards in a season (a record later broken by Jerry Rice), and that October he became the oldest to record 200 receiving yards and 200 scrimmage yards in a game. He was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1999.

After playing, Lofton became a wide receivers coach for the San Diego Chargers in 2002, a role he held until his firing in January 2008. During his coaching tenure, he identified Robert Woods as a future NFL prospect at a high school track meet and noted DeSean Jackson’s deep-ball potential while playing catch with him at the 2005 NFL draft. He was a candidate for the Oakland Raiders’ head coaching job in 2007, but the position went to Lane Kiffin.

The Raiders hired him as their wide receivers coach in 2008, but he was let go in January 2009 and replaced by Sanjay Lal. Lofton also worked as a color analyst and sideline reporter for Westwood One radio from 1999 to 2001, returning in 2009 for Sunday Night Football broadcasts. He moved to television as a game analyst for the NFL on CBS in 2017, paired with Andrew Catalon, and was considered a candidate for a promotion to higher announcing tiers in 2023.

Lofton and his wife Beverly have three children, including David, who played college football at Stanford. His cousin, Kevin Bass, was a Major League Baseball player. In October 1984, a dancer at a Milwaukee club accused Lofton and Packers teammate Eddie Lee Ivery of sexual assault; neither was charged due to lack of evidence. Two years later, Lofton was charged with second-degree sexual assault after an incident at a Green Bay nightclub, but a jury found him not guilty.