Lucius Marvin Sanford, Jr. (born February 13, 1956) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, p ...

who played ten seasons in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) with the

Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. ...

and

Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference ( ...

. He played collegiately for the Georgia Tech football team. While at GeorgiaTech, Sanford was a member of the ANAK Society, one of the highest recognitions a senior can achieve. Was a six-year winner and two-year runner up of the Milledgeville mean-mug award. In 2001, he was inducted into the

Georgia Sports Hall of Fame The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame is located in Macon, Georgia. It is the largest state sports hall of fame in the United States at . Exhibitions The Hall of Fame houses over of exhibit space broken down into sections including Hall of Fame Induc ...

Professional career

Sanford was drafted in the 4th round of the 1978 NFL Draft by the Bills. He started 114 of his 129 career games in the NFL and recorded 5 interceptions returned for 124 yards. He unofficially registered 13 career sacks (the NFL did not make sacks an official stat until 1982). He returned one fumble for a touchdown (46 yards) against the Seattle Seahawks on October 14, 1984. Once earning a starting role with the Bills, Sanford recorded 100 tackles in five straight seasons and led Buffalo in forced fumbles in 1980 and 1981. As a rookie, he set the Bills record for most blocked field goals in a game with two against the Kansas City Chiefs on December 3, 1978. In addition, he is the only player in Bills' history to return two blocked punts for a touchdown in a career (September 9, 1979, 3 yards versus Cincinnati Bengals; October 5, 1980, in end zone versus San Diego Chargers.)

References

1956 births Living people American football linebackers Buffalo Bills players Cleveland Browns players Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football players Players of American football from Georgia (U.S. state) {{linebacker-1950s-stub