In Detroit, it’s blasphemous to call anyone other than Barry Sanders the greatest running back of all time.
But in Chicago, it’s the exact same, but with Walter Payton, instead. In Cleveland, they’ve got their argument for Jim Brown, and I’m sure Dallasites believe with all their silly hearts that Emmitt Smith is the guy.
That’s why I find it very interesting that our friends at Windy City Gridiron, the SB Nation site for the Chicago Bears, recently ranked the top-100 running back of all time, and
while they predictably put Payton first, they may have accidentally made the case for Sanders, instead.
Bill Zimmerman penned the well-researched article, and came up with a statistical method to guide the list. In essence, he created a point system based on stats and personal achievements. Here’s the scoring method:
- 1 point for every 1,000 career yards (rushing and receiving)
- 5 points for being on an All-Decade team, 4 points for second-team All-Decade
- 5 points for MVP season
- 4 points for Offensive Player of the Year
- 3 points for First-Team All Pro
- 2 points for Second-Team All Pro
- 1 point for Pro Bowl
By Zimmerman’s method, Sanders actually comes up first overall with 72 points. Here’s how Sanders earned those points:
- 18,190 career scrimmage yards — 18 points
- All-Decade Team — 5 points
- 1 MVP — 5 points
- 2 Offensive Player of the Year — 8 points
- 6 First-Team All Pro — 18 points
- 4 Second-Team All Pro — 8 points
- 10 Pro Bowls — 10 points
But despite finishing first in points by his own methods, Zimmerman placed Sanders third on his list, in the same tier as Payton (#1 on the list) and Jim Brown (#2).
“Sanders actually has a touch more points than both Payton and Brown, but Sanders’ lack of ability catching the football and blocking leaves him too one-dimensional to top the board altogether,” Zimmerman wrote. “But nobody has a YouTube highlight package like Barry Sanders.”
You can see Zimmerman’s entire list here. You may not agree with his argument about Sanders, but it’s an impressive feature nonetheless.
- Over in The Feed, thought this was a balanced perspective of Terrion Arnold’s legal case from the point of view of a retired lawyer, LoveTheLions:
- Lions players describing their first job? Lions players describing their first job.
- The Minnesota Vikings winning the NFC North??? ESPN writer Ben Solak is making that bold prediction.
- A good, concise look at the offseasons for each of the NFC North teams by Tim Twentyman of DetroitLions.com.
