In 1983, after gracing the Miami Hurricanes’ gridiron, QB Jim Kelly was ready for his NFL debut. Not a big fan of cold weather, Kelly told his agent he didn’t want to play for Minnesota, Green Bay, or Buffalo. But you don’t always get to choose your path. The Buffalo Bills used their 14th overall pick to draft him. And his reaction? Well, the QB was not exactly happy. “You have to say those things… I cried. (Laughs) I didn’t really literally cry. I just had tears. I’m like, ‘You got to be kidding me,’” Kelly shared.
The quarterback’s 11-year NFL career was full of both glory and heartbreak. Kelly famously led his team to four straight Super Bowls, an incredible feat in itself, but walked away without a ring each time. Fast forward to 2025, and the 5-time Pro Bowler opened up on the Grace Begins podcast about those painful losses and the even tougher personal battles he’s faced off the field.
Growing up in Pittsburgh, Kelly was a die-hard Steelers fan, watching them clinch Super Bowl after Super Bowl. “So maybe one of these days I’ll be able to get that chance,” he had once hoped. Well, the player did get his shot, but the Lombardi Trophy stayed just out of reach. Now, years later, his outlook has shifted. “I was able to go 40 years in a row, even though we did not win… I might have lost four Super Bowls in a row, but I kicked cancer’s b*** four times,” Kelly reflected.
In 2013, the former QB was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma (a form of cancer) at the age of 53. The unexpected diagnosis hit Kelly hard, who had already faced multiple heartbreaks in life. He lost four Super Bowls and, in 2005, endured the devastating loss of his son, Hunter, 8, because of Krabbe disease.
In 2024, Dr. Dhiren Shah, Kelly’s radiation oncologist, recalled, “I see Jim’s name on the file, I said, ‘Oh gosh, what’s going on?’ I look over the records and scans, and suddenly my whole mood dropped. I realized how serious this was. Truly, at that point, what we found, it was incurable.” It was intensely serious—relentless pain, described as ten times worse than a typical toothache, lasting all day and all night.
“He suffered a lot. The pain Jim went through was indescribable. The severity of pain, this nerve, was destroyed by the tumor. So, most people would quit. Jim didn’t quit,” Dr. Shah said. After undergoing surgery for his cancer, Kelly’s speech was affected. Then, in 2014, life threw another challenge at him when the cancer returned, more aggressively this time. After undergoing a year of intense chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Jim finally emerged victorious in 2014. But the battle didn’t end there.
By the time the legendary QB turned 58, the cancer relapsed again for the third time in five years. For his incredible resilience, Kelly was honored with the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at the ESPY Awards. Then, in 2021, the former QB yet again faced another diagnosis, his fourth, this time involving skin cancer.
But Kelly came through that as well. In an interview he gave in 2024, he said, “To begin with, it was my wife, thank God for her, my two daughters. Every time they walked into my hospital room at ECMC, not one time did they ever have a frown on their face. Their attitude was to make my day better by their presence. For me, that made me fight to beat this.” He definitely came out as a fighter.
Jim Kelly’s fight beyond the gridiron
Kelly’s professional football journey started in the USFL. After being drafted by the Bills, the QB was approached by the USFL and eventually signed with the Houston Gamblers. In his two seasons of USFL career, Jim racked up 9,842 yards and 83 TDs. He thrived in Coach Mouse Davis’s pass-heavy “run-and-shoot” offense.
Once the USFL finished off, Jim headed to Buffalo finally. The QB changed the Bills’ offense alongside Andre Reed. During his 11-season career, Kelly led the Bills to the playoffs eight times and snagged six AFC East titles. In 1996, the QB decided to hang up his cleats because of injuries. Kelly’s NFL career finished with a total of 35,467 yards and 237 TDs. Though he lost four Super Bowls, losing first to the Giants, then the Redskins, and twice to the Cowboys, Kelly’s impact on the team was undeniable.
But the legendary QB won life’s biggest battle. He beat cancer four times, and encouraged by his wife Jill, Kelly channeled his experience in helping others. He partnered with Merck and the Your Cancer Game Plan campaign to support head and neck cancer patients. The QB’s cancer battle inspired countless fans and survivors.
Apart from his cancer fight, losing his son was the greatest setback, along with the inspiration to give back to society. He established the Hunter’s Hope Foundation in 1997 with his wife, Jill. Since its founding, the organization has raised over $6 million and awarded more than $3.8 million to support research into leukodystrophy and other neurological diseases.
Hunter Kelly, born in 1997, was diagnosed with Krabbe disease, a rare inherited disorder that affects the central and peripheral nervous systems. Doctors gave him no more than three years to live, but he was a fighter like his dad. And survived till he was 8 years and 6 months old.
In May 2024, Jim celebrated a decade since completing his final radiation treatment for oral cancer. Once burdened by all the lows in life, his mantra now is, “If tomorrow’s my last day, I’m going down with a smile.” Jim Kelly might not have won a Super Bowl ring, but his battle against cancer on life’s gridiron is a victory that will always be bigger than any Lombardi Trophy.
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