Where does Curtis rank among the best running backs?

[Blackout]

He wasn't as fast and slippery as Barry Sanders, and he wasn't on a dynasty like Emmit Smith

But nobody was more consistant over a 10 year period despite playing for some horrible offensive coordinators (and coaches) for the latter of his career.

[Gainzo]

He wasn't as fast and slippery as Barry Sanders, and he wasn't on a dynasty like Emmit Smith

But nobody was more consistant over a 10 year period despite playing for some horrible offensive coordinators (and coaches) for the latter of his career.

I love the guy. Even though he left the Pats for more cash he was a true pro and a great guy.

I will never forget his TD run in the Super Bowl.

[docdhc]

Jimmy Brown, Gayle Sayers, OJ Simpson, Walter Payton, Eric Dickerson, Barry Sanders, Emmit Smith, LaDanian Tomlinson, and Freeman McNeil are all better than Curtis. I think he makes the top 20 all time, but not top ten. If anyone can think of any other backs better or disagree with mine, let me know.

[GM]

Jimmy Brown, Gayle Sayers, OJ Simpson, Walter Payton, Eric Dickerson, Barry Sanders, Emmit Smith, LaDanian Tomlinson, and Freeman McNeil are all better than Curtis. I think he makes the top 20 all time, but not top ten. If anyone can think of any other backs better or disagree with mine, let me know.

Earl campbell?

[docdhc]

Earl Campbell definitely.

[Blackout]

i dont think tomlinson has quiet enough career value to surpass Curtis yet

[Maxman]

Jimmy Brown, Gayle Sayers, OJ Simpson, Walter Payton, Eric Dickerson, Barry Sanders, Emmit Smith, LaDanian Tomlinson, and Freeman McNeil are all better than Curtis. I think he makes the top 20 all time, but not top ten. If anyone can think of any other backs better or disagree with mine, let me know.

The freeman thing comes down to this. Are they both healthy and you need to pick a guy for one game? If so it is Freeman.

If you are picking a franchise running back you have to go Curtis imo -- because of the injury factor.

[serphnx]

i dont think tomlinson has quiet enough career value to surpass Curtis yet

I think you can make the case he has, or will soon enough. 5 straight 1200+ seasons to start his career, and well on his way to a 6th if there is no injury. Over 7800 rush yards. 79 TDs+9 recieving TDs, and I think 3 passing TDs, over 2600 yards recieving.

CuMart obviously with the 10 straight 1000+ season, almost double the rush yardage at 14101, 90 TDs rush, 10 recieving, about 3300 yards recieving.

In terms of being the better back in any given season, no question that goes to LT. In terms of career, CuMart's career is extroardinary in terms of consistency and summation, but I don't think any individual season was really all that impressive. To me, being an all-time great has more to do with being great for a few seasons than being mediocre for a lot of seasons, to I think LT so far is both the better player any given season, and career wise as well. LT's TD totals are key, since Martin's TD totals are kind of low. Martin has 100 total TDs in 11 years (or 85 in 10 if you don't want to include that last year where Hermy tried to kill him), and LT has 88 in under 6 years. He'll probably surpass Martin's TD total either by the end of this year or early next. I think the key difference is that LT is a guy you can build a franchise off of, and can take over games, whereas Martin is more of just a solid workhorse that you can't go wrong with, but can't really make the centerpiece of your franchise.

Martin and LT are both awesome guys though. Both are really classy, and I feel LT is kind of a successor to him. LT's more athletic, but they approach the game in very similar ways.

[Sperm Edwards]

Depends on your definition of what makes a RB great. If you value longevity more, Curtis is a top-5 back as evidenced by his #'s. If you're hand-picking one RB for a 1-3 season window to make a run at the superbowl he's barely in the top 20.

More dominant in their prime in no particular order (but I'll start with dochc's):

1. Jim Brown
   
2. Gayle Sayers
   
3. OJ
   
4. Payton
   
5. Dickerson
   
6. Barry Sanders
   
7. Emmitt Smith
   
8. Tomlinson
   
9. McNeill - if you never saw him play you won't agree
   
10. Earl Campbell
    
11. Jamal Lewis
    
12. Marcus Allen
    
13. Shaun Alexander
    
14. Ahman Green
    
15. Marshall Faulk
    
16. Terrell Davis
    
17. Tiki Barber
    
18. Corey Dillon - consider who HE played for his first 6 seasons
    
19. Tony Dorsett
    
20. ~ tie with Martin, Thurman Thomas, and Bettis. Thomas always played for better teams. That being said, he did some amazing things with the football & was a better receiver than Martin. 21 TD's in 21 post-season games. Came up small in 3 of 4 superbowls, but then he was IN 4 superbowls. Bettis was a different type of runner so you can't just look at gross #'s; always seemed to take 2-3 guys to stop him & faced more 8-men-in-the-box than Martin ever did (had exactly two top-20 passing games behind him before age 30 and both were lousy teams chasing an opponent's lead most of the season).

Can't comment on guys I never saw like Czonka, Riggins, Leroy Kelly, & Jim Taylor.

Tony Dorsett would've also had that same 10-year streak (maybe even 11) but for the '82 strike & Dallas drafting Herschel Walker in '86 followed by another strike season in '87. Ditto Walter Payton, who only had the '82 strike season interrupt an 11-year stretch of 1000 yds. Chicago not being so desperate to feed one RB the ball 300x his rookie season is not a knock on Payton.

Priest Holmes is hard to evaluate b/c his OL was so dominant.

Taylor was a more dangerous runner at just about every point in his career (a career 4.5ypc is no joke & just about matches Martin at his best in any one season). A 230-lb back with WR speed, was a good receiver & broke tackles all over the place. In his prime he never had a bad game in the playoffs; but he didn't get the nickname "Fragile Fred" by dumb luck.

These things are all subject to opinion anyway. There are no definites since you can't replicate a player's career as though he played for a different team in different circumstances.

[Ranger]

Depends on your definition of what makes a RB great. If you value longevity more, Curtis is a top-5 back as evidenced by his #'s. If you're hand-picking one RB for a 1-3 season window to make a run at the superbowl he's barely in the top 20.

More dominant in their prime in no particular order (but I'll start with dochc's):

1. Jim Brown
   
2. Gayle Sayers
   
3. OJ
   
4. Payton
   
5. Dickerson
   
6. Barry Sanders
   
7. Emmitt Smith
   
8. Tomlinson
   
9. McNeill - if you never saw him play you won't agree
   
10. Earl Campbell
    
11. Jamal Lewis
    
12. Marcus Allen
    
13. Shaun Alexander
    
14. Ahman Green
    
15. Marshall Faulk
    
16. Terrell Davis
    
17. Tiki Barber
    
18. Corey Dillon - consider who HE played for his first 6 seasons
    
19. Tony Dorsett
    
20. ~ tie with Martin, Thurman Thomas, and Bettis. Thomas always played for better teams. That being said, he did some amazing things with the football & was a better receiver than Martin. 21 TD's in 21 post-season games. Came up small in 3 of 4 superbowls, but then he was IN 4 superbowls. Bettis was a different type of runner so you can't just look at gross #'s; always seemed to take 2-3 guys to stop him & faced more 8-men-in-the-box than Martin ever did (had exactly two top-20 passing games behind him before age 30 and both were lousy teams chasing an opponent's lead most of the season).

Can't comment on guys I never saw like Czonka, Riggins, Leroy Kelly, & Jim Taylor.

Tony Dorsett would've also had that same 10-year streak (maybe even 11) but for the '82 strike & Dallas drafting Herschel Walker in '86 followed by another strike season in '87. Ditto Walter Payton, who only had the '82 strike season interrupt an 11-year stretch of 1000 yds. Chicago not being so desperate to feed one RB the ball 300x his rookie season is not a knock on Payton.

Priest Holmes is hard to evaluate b/c his OL was so dominant.

Taylor was a more dangerous runner at just about every point in his career (a career 4.5ypc is no joke & just about matches Martin at his best in any one season). A 230-lb back with WR speed, was a good receiver & broke tackles all over the place. In his prime he never had a bad game in the playoffs; but he didn't get the nickname "Fragile Fred" by dumb luck.

These things are all subject to opinion anyway. There are no definites since you can't replicate a player's career as though he played for a different team in different circumstances.

What, no love for Bo Jackson? :Cuss:

[Sperm Edwards]

What, no love for Bo Jackson? :Cuss:

See, every time I do something like this I leave someone out. And what a RB to leave out. For the time he played - particularly in his rookie season - Bo was the best RB I ever saw, as I'm not old enough to have seen Jim Brown & Gale Sayers, and I was like 8-10 when Campbell was tearing up the league...and I left Bo off my friggin' list. Typical me-move. In my defense, it was late.

[PeterNorth09]

Curtis is one of the all-time great running backs because he was good for such a long period. Running Back is the toughest and most physically demanding position in all of sports. The guy was an elite player at the position for over a decade and yet 2 or 3 wonders get rated over this guy?

[Biggs]

Nice back great longevity. Even the 1 year he lead the league in rushing he probably isn't top 5 back that year. He probably is a top 25 all time but there are very few short term dominating backs that I would take Curtis over. He has been very expensive in the salary cap era and hasn't dominated. We might have been better off spreading the money around and going with a more varied running attack by committee rather than depending on Curtis for so many carries?

The 98 Jet team would have gone just as far with RB by committee as with Curtis that year.

Tiki has been the best back in NY for years now. The Jets would not have been better with Curtis in 68 or 82 they would have been worse so I don't rank him ahead of Snell or McNeal and I also liked Riggins better.

Classy, tough, solid and durable also overpaid and not dominating.

[Bugg]

Depends on your definition of what makes a RB great. If you value longevity more, Curtis is a top-5 back as evidenced by his #'s. If you're hand-picking one RB for a 1-3 season window to make a run at the superbowl he's barely in the top 20.

More dominant in their prime in no particular order (but I'll start with dochc's):

1. Jim Brown
   
2. Gayle Sayers
   
3. OJ
   
4. Payton
   
5. Dickerson
   
6. Barry Sanders
   
7. Emmitt Smith
   
8. Tomlinson
   
9. McNeill - if you never saw him play you won't agree
   
10. Earl Campbell
    
11. Jamal Lewis
    
12. Marcus Allen
    
13. Shaun Alexander
    
14. Ahman Green
    
15. Marshall Faulk
    
16. Terrell Davis
    
17. Tiki Barber
    
18. Corey Dillon - consider who HE played for his first 6 seasons
    
19. Tony Dorsett
    
20. ~ tie with Martin, Thurman Thomas, and Bettis. Thomas always played for better teams. That being said, he did some amazing things with the football & was a better receiver than Martin. 21 TD's in 21 post-season games. Came up small in 3 of 4 superbowls, but then he was IN 4 superbowls. Bettis was a different type of runner so you can't just look at gross #'s; always seemed to take 2-3 guys to stop him & faced more 8-men-in-the-box than Martin ever did (had exactly two top-20 passing games behind him before age 30 and both were lousy teams chasing an opponent's lead most of the season).

Can't comment on guys I never saw like Czonka, Riggins, Leroy Kelly, & Jim Taylor.

Tony Dorsett would've also had that same 10-year streak (maybe even 11) but for the '82 strike & Dallas drafting Herschel Walker in '86 followed by another strike season in '87. Ditto Walter Payton, who only had the '82 strike season interrupt an 11-year stretch of 1000 yds. Chicago not being so desperate to feed one RB the ball 300x his rookie season is not a knock on Payton.

Priest Holmes is hard to evaluate b/c his OL was so dominant.

Taylor was a more dangerous runner at just about every point in his career (a career 4.5ypc is no joke & just about matches Martin at his best in any one season). A 230-lb back with WR speed, was a good receiver & broke tackles all over the place. In his prime he never had a bad game in the playoffs; but he didn't get the nickname "Fragile Fred" by dumb luck.

These things are all subject to opinion anyway. There are no definites since you can't replicate a player's career as though he played for a different team in different circumstances.

Franco Harris and John Riggins were both better. Other than that, hard to disagree.

One major quibble-Dickerson had one all-time season and a bunch of other really good ones. I don't think he's even in the top 20. If you get to throw out the numbers for Freeman(and I readily agree) you have to look past the numbers and look at his actual play on Dickerson.

[Preston Howley III]

DCan't comment on guys I never saw like Czonka, Riggins, Leroy Kelly, & Jim Taylor.

Add Cookie Gilchrist and Marion Motley to that list.

[PFSIKH]

i dont think tomlinson has quiet enough career value to surpass Curtis yet

Short of injury derailing him like Terrell, LT might be one of the G.O.A.T.

He is unreal and a dual threat. He could have 16000 yards 150+ TDs and over 800 catches by the time all is said and done.

Sperm I think you have a pretty accurate list. I think you have Tiki a tad to high. IMHO he is in that group with Martin, but I digress.

[Sperm Edwards]

Franco Harris and John Riggins were both better. Other than that, hard to disagree.

One major quibble-Dickerson had one all-time season and a bunch of other really good ones. I don't think he's even in the top 20. If you get to throw out the numbers for Freeman(and I readily agree) you have to look past the numbers and look at his actual play on Dickerson.

We didn't get every game back then, but when I did see Dickerson he was pretty damn impressive - particularly for someone that tall. He had more than one great season. At the time of his retirement, he had 3 of the top 8 (and 4 of the top 14) single-season totals of all time.

http://pro-football-reference.com/players/DickEr00.htm

3 1800-yard seasons, a 1650-yd season, plus 1300 in the strike-shortened '87 season (12 games) with two teams in the same year. Also a career 4.9ypc over his 7 playoff games.

[Biggs]

Short of injury derailing him like Terrell, LT might be one of the G.O.A.T.

He is unreal and a dual threat. He could have 16000 yards 150+ TDs and over 800 catches by the time all is said and done.

Sperm I think you have a pretty accurate list. I think you have Tiki a tad to high. IMHO he is in that group with Martin, but I digress.

Someday he might be as good as Tiki Barber.

[EM31]

One note about the so called bad offensive coordinators. Yes, they were bad, but no, that did not affect Curtis's ability to put up numbers. In fact it is 100% in the other direction. With Hackett and then Dinger, the structure of the offense seemed designed with the single purpose of giving the ball to Curtis (and only Curtis!) so that he could rack up his personal career numbers even if that ended up being bad for the Jets (many times it was). Curtis played for possibly the most Run-oriented OC working under the most run-oriented HC in the NFL. I guess that is what happens when your high school coach ends up being your Offensive coordinator.

I would definitely say that Curtis was better, over the course of his career than Eddie George. It is not all clear to me that the same could be said about Curtis and the bus.

Tiki has clearly put together a stretch of dominant seasons better than anything Curtis even came close to doing.

Other than that the Jets paid a boatload of money, more than has ever been paid out to any other running back in history, for a player who was better than fair-to-middling on the field. But not all that much better. Curtis managed to perform this feat year in and year out without major injury for an ungodly amount of years.

Curtis was never smaller than when the game was big.

Curtis did not make the newspapers for beating his wife or waving a gun at somebody in a club at 3am in the morning. In New York with athletes often making headlines for the wrong reasons, that was a good thing.

[nj meadowlands]

1. Jim Brown
   
2. Walter Payton
   
3. Barry Sanders
   
4. Gale Sayers
   
5. OJ Simpson
   
6. Emmitt Smith
   
7. Eric Dickerson
   
8. Barry Sanders
   
9. Marshall Faulk
   
10. Earl Campbell
    
11. Terrell Davis
    
12. LaDainian Tomlinson
    
13. Curtis Martin
    
14. Tony Dorsett
    
15. Marcus Allen
    
16. John Riggins
    
17. Freeman McNeill
    
18. Bo Jackson
    
19. Thurman Thomas
    
20. Tie: Red Grange/Jim Thorpe

Jamal Lewis? Corey Dillon?? Please Sperm. Why don't you put Eddie George and Ricky Watters on the list.

[PFSIKH]

Someday he might be as good as Tiki Barber.

Who LT?

Tiki is half the back LT is.

[Matt39]

Who LT?

Tiki is half the back LT is.

Tiki and LT are at about the same level right now. Maybe a slight edge to LT. To say Tiki isnt half the back LT is just stupid.

[Biggs]

Who LT?

Tiki is half the back LT is.

Since Tiki has been installed as the Giants full time starter he is better than LT and probably is the best back in football over the last 3 years.

LT 06 473 rushing yards 3.8 YPC 32 catches 246 yards 7.7

TB 06 647 rushing yards 5.0 YPC 26 catches 222 yards 8.5

LT 05 1462 rushing yards 4.3 YPC 51 catches 370 yards 7.3

TB 05 1860 rushing yards 5.2 YPC 54 catches 530 yards 9.8 YPC

LT 04 1335 rushing yards 3.9 YPC 53 catches 441 yards 8.3 YPC

TB 04 1518 rushing yards 4.7 YPC 52 catches 578 yards 11.1 YPC

[Sperm Edwards]

1. Jim Brown
   
2. Walter Payton
   
3. Barry Sanders
   
4. Gale Sayers
   
5. OJ Simpson
   
6. Emmitt Smith
   
7. Eric Dickerson
   
8. Barry Sanders
   
9. Marshall Faulk
   
10. Earl Campbell
    
11. Terrell Davis
    
12. LaDainian Tomlinson
    
13. Curtis Martin
    
14. Tony Dorsett
    
15. Marcus Allen
    
16. John Riggins
    
17. Freeman McNeill
    
18. Bo Jackson
    
19. Thurman Thomas
    
20. Tie: Red Grange/Jim Thorpe

Jamal Lewis? Corey Dillon?? Please Sperm. Why don't you put Eddie George and Ricky Watters on the list.

The list is for: if you had a 1-3 year window and you could take these players in their prime 3 years.

Martin never had to deal with the adversity of playing for the Bengals for his first 6 seasons. Or do you think he would've fared no better on the 90's Pats & Jets? Finally went to a good team with the Pats in '04 & outperformed Martin in his stellar year, ramming it down the throat of good & bad defenses alike, unlike Curtis.

Jamal Lewis in his prime was better than Martin in his prime. He's a scumbag & Martin's a nice guy. At their respective best, Lewis was better. Deal with it. A 240-lb RB with moves who broke tackles & ran like the wind. You want to talk about 8 men in the box with CuMar? Were Kyle Boller, David Wright, Jeff Blake, and Trent Dilfer with zero WR's keeping the safeties out of the box? I think not.

[nj meadowlands]

The list is for: if you had a 1-3 year window and you could take these players in their prime 3 years.

Martin never had to deal with the adversity of playing for the Bengals for his first 6 seasons. Or do you think he would've fared no better on the 90's Pats & Jets? Finally went to a good team with the Pats in '04 & outperformed Martin in his stellar year, ramming it down the throat of good & bad defenses alike, unlike Curtis.

Jamal Lewis in his prime was better than Martin in his prime. He's a scumbag & Martin's a nice guy. At their respective best, Lewis was better. Deal with it. A 240-lb RB with moves who broke tackles & ran like the wind. You want to talk about 8 men in the box with CuMar? Were Kyle Boller, David Wright, Jeff Blake, and Trent Dilfer with zero WR's keeping the safeties out of the box? I think not.

My list is for building a team and keeping that running back around for 6-8 years in good condition. These are the guys I would choose. Curtis is 13, maybe higher, Period.

[Sperm Edwards]

Then you didn't read my post & just skipped right to the list.

[mbn007]

Depends on your definition of what makes a RB great. If you value longevity more, Curtis is a top-5 back as evidenced by his #'s. If you're hand-picking one RB for a 1-3 season window to make a run at the superbowl he's barely in the top 20.

More dominant in their prime in no particular order (but I'll start with dochc's):

1. Jim Brown
   
2. Gayle Sayers
   
3. OJ
   
4. Payton
   
5. Dickerson
   
6. Barry Sanders
   
7. Emmitt Smith
   
8. Tomlinson
   
9. McNeill - if you never saw him play you won't agree
   
10. Earl Campbell
    
11. Jamal Lewis
    
12. Marcus Allen
    
13. Shaun Alexander
    
14. Ahman Green
    
15. Marshall Faulk
    
16. Terrell Davis
    
17. Tiki Barber
    
18. Corey Dillon - consider who HE played for his first 6 seasons
    
19. Tony Dorsett
    
20. ~ tie with Martin, Thurman Thomas, and Bettis. Thomas always played for better teams. That being said, he did some amazing things with the football & was a better receiver than Martin. 21 TD's in 21 post-season games. Came up small in 3 of 4 superbowls, but then he was IN 4 superbowls. Bettis was a different type of runner so you can't just look at gross #'s; always seemed to take 2-3 guys to stop him & faced more 8-men-in-the-box than Martin ever did (had exactly two top-20 passing games behind him before age 30 and both were lousy teams chasing an opponent's lead most of the season).

Can't comment on guys I never saw like Czonka, Riggins, Leroy Kelly, & Jim Taylor.

Tony Dorsett would've also had that same 10-year streak (maybe even 11) but for the '82 strike & Dallas drafting Herschel Walker in '86 followed by another strike season in '87. Ditto Walter Payton, who only had the '82 strike season interrupt an 11-year stretch of 1000 yds. Chicago not being so desperate to feed one RB the ball 300x his rookie season is not a knock on Payton.

Priest Holmes is hard to evaluate b/c his OL was so dominant.

Taylor was a more dangerous runner at just about every point in his career (a career 4.5ypc is no joke & just about matches Martin at his best in any one season). A 230-lb back with WR speed, was a good receiver & broke tackles all over the place. In his prime he never had a bad game in the playoffs; but he didn't get the nickname "Fragile Fred" by dumb luck.

These things are all subject to opinion anyway. There are no definites since you can't replicate a player's career as though he played for a different team in different circumstances.

I know you did not mean these names in any order, but.........

I disagree with the Terrill Davis pick, solely because he did not play long enough. He was as good as anyone for the time he played though.

Dorsett belongs higher on that list. He was a solid a back, very consistent, every year.

Csonka was a bulldog. He bowled over folks, and in the open field, was almost impossible for a D. Back to tackle one-on-one.

Riggins? Think Earl Campbell, without the speed. And "Riggo" had a great line in Washington (remember the "Hogs"??) But he was a pure up-the-middle runner. Great back for the 4th quarter of games. And what a Mohawk haircut, especially when he was a Jet!!

Never say Taylor.

Kelley was Gale Sayers, but not as elusive.

There were many backs from the 1960s-1970s not on your list, most of whom did not enjoy long careers. But they were very good. John Brockinton (Packers) is one Larry Brown (Washington) is another.

One final note: Brown was the toughest, but Sayers was the best ever.Fast, tough, elusive, made-you-miss more often than not, a TD threat every time he touched the ball. Returned Kicks, Punts, passes out of the backfield, he did it all. Injuries robbed him of his greatness, but he was by far the best. You had to see him to believe him.

[124]

Top 10 with Payton, Smith, Cambpell, Sayers, Sanders, OJ, Dickerson, Dorsett, Thomas.

[serphnx]

I know you did not mean these names in any order, but.........

I disagree with the Terrill Davis pick, solely because he did not play long enough. He was as good as anyone for the time he played though.

Dorsett belongs higher on that list. He was a solid a back, very consistent, every year.

Csonka was a bulldog. He bowled over folks, and in the open field, was almost impossible for a D. Back to tackle one-on-one.

Riggins? Think Earl Campbell, without the speed. And "Riggo" had a great line in Washington (remember the "Hogs"??) But he was a pure up-the-middle runner. Great back for the 4th quarter of games. And what a Mohawk haircut, especially when he was a Jet!!

Never say Taylor.

Kelley was Gale Sayers, but not as elusive.

There were many backs from the 1960s-1970s not on your list, most of whom did not enjoy long careers. But they were very good. John Brockinton (Packers) is one Larry Brown (Washington) is another.

One final note: Brown was the toughest, but Sayers was the best ever.Fast, tough, elusive, made-you-miss more often than not, a TD threat every time he touched the ball. Returned Kicks, Punts, passes out of the backfield, he did it all. Injuries robbed him of his greatness, but he was by far the best. You had to see him to believe him.

Davis won two SBs and had over 2000 yards in a season, or at least, I think I remember that. I'd have to check but, that seems really dominant to me. His career stats aren't that bad either.

[Bugg]

We didn't get every game back then, but when I did see Dickerson he was pretty damn impressive - particularly for someone that tall. He had more than one great season. At the time of his retirement, he had 3 of the top 8 (and 4 of the top 14) single-season totals of all time.

http://pro-football-reference.com/players/DickEr00.htm

3 1800-yard seasons, a 1650-yd season, plus 1300 in the strike-shortened '87 season (12 games) with two teams in the same year. Also a career 4.9ypc over his 7 playoff games.

Can't argue with the numbers. But if you gave me a game to win, I'd take almost anyone else on the list, and Riggins, Csonka or Harris in a heartbeat over Dickerson. Heck, I might take Rodney Hampton, OJ ANderson, Roger Craig, Larry Brown or Joe Morris over him.

[mbn007]

Can't argue with the numbers. But if you gave me a game to win, I'd take almost anyone else on the list, and Riggins, Csonka or Harris in a heartbeat over Dickerson. Heck, I might take Rodney Hampton, OJ ANderson, Roger Craig, Larry Brown or Joe Morris over him.

No you wouldn't. Or at least I wouldn't Eric was amazing for a guy his size. And when he turned the corner, there were not mnay l/Bs who could run him down.

[mbn007]

Davis won two SBs and had over 2000 yards in a season, or at least, I think I remember that. I'd have to check but, that seems really dominant to me. His career stats aren't that bad either.

I did say that he was as good as anyone for the time he palyed. Just that he had a very short career to rank among the all time greats, IMO.

[serphnx]

I did say that he was as good as anyone for the time he palyed. Just that he had a very short career to rank among the all time greats, IMO.

It's true his career was short, but he absolutely dominated during that time. He basically had 4 years, with 3 of those as probably the best back in the league. For my criteria that's good enough. He's also the Broncos all-time rushing leader, although maybe that speaks more about the Broncos RBs in general I guess. I mean, as I've posted before, it depends on what your criteria is. Does beind mediocre for 10 seasons mean more than being great for 3? That's a personal judgment, you lean one way and I lean the other, but I don't think there's any doubt that cases can be made for either way, and that both accomplishments are exceptional in their own rights.

[Sperm Edwards]

I know you did not mean these names in any order, but.........

I disagree with the Terrill Davis pick, solely because he did not play long enough. He was as good as anyone for the time he played though.

Dorsett belongs higher on that list. He was a solid a back, very consistent, every year.

Csonka was a bulldog. He bowled over folks, and in the open field, was almost impossible for a D. Back to tackle one-on-one.

Riggins? Think Earl Campbell, without the speed. And "Riggo" had a great line in Washington (remember the "Hogs"??) But he was a pure up-the-middle runner. Great back for the 4th quarter of games. And what a Mohawk haircut, especially when he was a Jet!!

Never say Taylor.

Kelley was Gale Sayers, but not as elusive.

There were many backs from the 1960s-1970s not on your list, most of whom did not enjoy long careers. But they were very good. John Brockinton (Packers) is one Larry Brown (Washington) is another.

One final note: Brown was the toughest, but Sayers was the best ever.Fast, tough, elusive, made-you-miss more often than not, a TD threat every time he touched the ball. Returned Kicks, Punts, passes out of the backfield, he did it all. Injuries robbed him of his greatness, but he was by far the best. You had to see him to believe him.

This was not a list "in order" at all. The first 9 guys were taken from someone else's post who also didn't list them in any order. After that I just threw names up there as they came to mind. And with that I still forgot a couple of people.

Nor was this a "who had the greatest career" list. Read the top of my post. This was a "If you're hand-picking one RB for a 1-3 season window to make a run at the superbowl" list, which is what I wrote word-for-word.

And if I've got a 3-year window where my team has a real shot at a superbowl, you bet your ass a pre-injury Terrell Davis is on my list. Who cares what he did 4 years past his prime. I'm looking at a 3-year window max. Here's something for fun. Try to find a game where Terrell Davis was mediocre in the playoffs. Keep in mind these are all playoff teams he's going up against. Not a bad game. Try to find a mediocre game. C'mon, everyone has one. Closest I could find was "only" 100 yds vs the NFL's #2 rush defense in the superbowl. But then, he did have another 50 receiving yards. Oh, and most important: they won the friggin' game. I doubt you could easily find 3 bad games he had in 3 years from '96-'98. THAT is dominating. CuMar? I can find more than that in every single season of his career.

Since I only started watching football around '78-79, I absolve myself for missing guys from the mid-70's and earlier. All I have to go by for them are stats, which don't tell the whole story. Plus it was 1am when I made that list.

[Blackout]

Terrell Davis is the Eric Gagne of the NFL

possibly the most efficient player ever, but for such a short time