With a maximum of fanfare and only a fleeting memory of what he once
was, Emmitt Smith has broken Walter Payton's all-time career rushing
record. It's too bad he couldn't have done it in his prime, as Payton
did, and it's a shame that the idea of feeding Emmitt the ball so he
could set the mark at home, rather than on the road, has caused people
to question the whole idea of a record taking precedence over the
competition itself. And now Emmitt fully intends to keep his career
going for a few more years and put his yardage total out of sight, which
is the saddest thing of all, because his skills will continue to decline
until someone will tells him, "That's it. It's over."
How would I rank Emmitt among all the great runners I've seen? Well,
the chart below will tell you. I've listed my top dozen in order, and
filled out the rest of my top 30 alphabetically, only because I didn't
want to go through the painful process of ranking the last 18 against
one another.
I've seen 28 of these runners in person and two on film, Bronko
Nagurski and Clarke Hinkle. I saw complete game footage of Nagurski at
the Hall of Fame, courtesy of Joe Horrigan, and Hinkle at the Packers'
complex, courtesy of Al Treml, their film director at the time. I have
never seen Ernie Nevers, who played in the late '20s and early '30s, nor
Cliff Battles in the early to mid-1930s, so they're not included. This
is not meant to be a compendium of great runners in NFL history, just a
personal memoir, a recounting of my own impressions.
Many great backs won't appear here -- Ken Willard, O.J.
Anderson, Ollie Matson, John Riggins, Paul Hornung, etc., which does
nothing to diminish their greatness. There just wasn't room. There is an
addendum at the bottom of the list-- those who were memorable in my
eyes, but whose careers were cut short or severely hampered by injury or
other reasons. I call it my Might Have Been list.
Top Dozen
1.
Jim Brown -- He came out of Syracuse as a power running
fullback, and at 228 pounds, he was one of the NFL's big backs, but what
stunned the football world was his elusiveness and balance and panther
quickness when he smelled the kill. And, of course, the power was always
there. He never missed a game. He set a career yardage record that
lasted for almost 20 years. He was the best.
2.
Walter Payton -- Small and compact, he ran with a furious energy
and exploded into tacklers and punished them. His legendary workouts,
running up the sides of the levees in his native Mississippi, gave him
the superb conditioning to get him through 13 NFL seasons, culminating
in the career rushing record that Smith broke Sunday.
3.
Emmitt Smith -- Forget what he looks like now. Remember,
instead, what he used to be, a dynamic little cutback runner with an
explosive power-burst. He lasted almost a whole career without a
significant backup to share the load. The Cowboys would use him to
close out a game and protect a lead, and he became energized as the
defense sagged. His courage is legendary -- who can forget the overtime
victory over the Giants in 1993, which got the Cowboys into the
playoffs? Smith played most of the contest with a separated right
shoulder, dazed with pain ("We had to get him up off the ground and lead
him back to the huddle," guard Nate Newton said), but he ran 32 times
for 168 yards and caught 10 passes for another 61 and set a club record
for scrimmage plays (42) that day.
4.
Barry Sanders -- A freak runner who probably would have broken
all the records if he hadn't decided to retire at age 30 in 1998.
No one ever has matched his crazy-legged, pinball style. No one ever had
the balance he did. He is a one-man highlight reel of the most amazing
runs in NFL history.
5.
O.J. Simpson -- He'd cruise, looking for a hole, and when he
spotted even the smallest crease, he'd make the lightning cut and he was
in the secondary and no one would catch him because he had world-class
speed. Tacklers never could figure the correct angle to take against him
because his change-of-pace was so dynamic.
6.
Hugh McElhenny -- The King. The Barry Sanders of his day, only
he did it as a pass-catcher, too. My favorite play in football was the
throwback screen to McElhenny. No middle ground with that play; it was
minus-2 or plus-40. He was another crazy legs who played in the most
famous backfield in history, which included two other Hall of Famers,
Joe Perry and John Henry Johnson.
7.
Marshall Faulk -- The all-time greatest receiving threat out of
the backfield. Can run from scrimmage, or line up on the flank or in the
slot, where he runs down the seam and puts the tackler in an impossible
one-on-one situation. Adds many hours to a defensive coordinator's work
week, since the opposition is constantly forced to readjust to his
location on the field.
8.
Eric Dickerson -- So graceful, so smooth ... a glider who made
an eight-yard gain out of what looked like plus-2. Probably had more
walkover touchdowns than any back in history.
9.
Tony Dorsett -- Small and shockingly fast. Could he last in the
heavy-duty world of the NFL? The question was answered early, when he
backed up his dashing runs with strength and toughness. Gave the Cowboys
11 quality years.
10.
Gale Sayers -- A darting dragonfly in the open field, catching
passes or running sweeps. Excelled on kick returns, too, with the
league's all-time best career average of 30.6 yards.
11.
Earl Campbell -- Smacked into the line with an amazing takeoff
for a 240-pounder. Played too tough for his body, and at 29 he was
through. On one legendary goal line play against Oakland, he took a kill
shot to the head from The Assassin, Jack Tatum, continued into the end
zone and collapsed. "The man scored a touchdown while he was
unconscious," Raiders strong safety George Atkinson said.
12.
Marion Motley -- My favorite fullback. People remember the
Motley who came into the NFL at age 30, on two bad knees, but for the
four years before that he terrorized the AAFC, averaging 8.2 yards a
carry in his first season. An early size-and-speed back, 232 pounds in
his prime and fast. Played some situation linebacker on defense and was
the greatest pass blocker I ever saw. "Motley takes the romance out of
the blitz," Weeb Ewbank once said.
The Best Of The Rest, Alphabetically
Marcus Allen -- In ordinary
situations, a quality runner but not really extraordinary. But down
around the goal line, a sixth sense kicked in and his instincts for the
end zone became phenomenal. It was a unique talent.
Larry Brown -- I'll get
some arguments here, but for pure toughness I've never seen anyone like
him. Small and not especially fast, he made it a one-man war between
himself and anyone trying to tackle him. Took some of the most
devastating hits I've ever seen. Gave his share of them,
too.
Larry Csonka -- A great
finisher. Had the unique ability to get low, despite his 239 pounds, and
tunnel for extra yardage.
Terrell Davis -- It'll be
touch-and-go with Terrell for the Hall of Fame, since assorted knee
injuries limited his productiveness to the first four seasons of his
seven-year career. But what a great four-year run. He was the heart and
soul of the Broncos' twin Super Bowl championships, a marvelous cutback
runner perfectly suited to Denver's stretch-the-defense style of attack.
Frank Gifford -- The
complete player. A gifted, instinctive runner, a tough blocker, as all
of them had to be in the Giants' system, and good enough as a pass
catcher to end his career as a wideout. Also used as a situation
defensive back in his early years.
Carlton "Cookie" Gilchrist
-- A legend in the Canadian Football League, Cookie finally made it to
the AFL Buffalo Bills at age 27, a 252-pound monster and power runner
who frightened enemy tacklers and made his employers nervous with his
erratic lifestyle. A year after he arrived in Buffalo he set a Bills'
single-game record against the Jets with 243 yards on 36 carries, all on
brute power. "I'm not shifty," he said. "I can't sidestep anybody."
Cookie had his own limo, with a phone in it, and a personal chauffeur to
drive him around and answer calls. "Wait, I'll see if he's in," was the
guy's standard reply to callers. Larry Grantham, the Jets' linebacker,
once told me about the time he was Cookie's teammate at an AFL All-Star
game. Grantham was amazed to see Cookie strip his uniform off at halftime,
take a shower, and get dressed again in time for the second half. I
asked him how Cookie managed to get all his pads back on. "Pads?" Grantham
said. "The only things Cookie needed were shoulder pads and enough
bennies to fill the palm of one hand."
Franco Harris -- An Eric
Dickerson-type who weighed 230 but had the gliding speed of a much
smaller man. Not known as a power runner, but he was an amazing yardage
machine who rose to the heights in the big postseason contests, notably
the Steelers' four Super Bowls.
Clarke Hinkle -- From the
dim flickering of the film projector I saw a dynamic figure who hit with
shattering force and backed up the line on defense with two fists. "The
question of who was better, Hinkle or Bronko Nagurski, is still a hot
topic for debate in Green Bay," said Al Treml, the Packers' film man who
ran the footage for me. And this was in the early 1990s, more than 50
years after they'd gone at each other.
Priest Holmes -- Slashing
style, great balance and moves, superior skill as a pass catcher and the
ability to carry an offense ... why did it take the league so long to
discover him? Put him in any era and he'd have dominated the
game.
Floyd Little -- Tireless
worker. An early Emmitt Smith who never had the luxury of a great
supporting cast. Did a lot on his own.
Curtis Martin -- His
numbers tend to be overlooked, but he has never gone for less than 1,160
yards in a season. A slash-and-bang runner who has carried the ball more
times in his first seven years than anyone in history over a similar
period.
Bronko Nagurski -- It was
an obsession with me for many years. I simply had to get a good look at
this legendary powerhouse who inspired such vivid prose through the
years ("can only be stopped with a rifle," etc.). NFL Films offered a
few tantalizing glimpses. I was impressed by his takeoff speed -- I
didn't realize he had quickness, too -- but I wanted to see him in a
total game situation. Finally, Joe Horrigan of the Hall of Fame showed
me films of two of Nagurski's afternoons. I never saw anyone move a pile as he
did. He'd hit into a mass of bodies, and it would go backward. He'd fly
into occasional rages, too, attacking a tackler, putting him on his back
and drilling him as he went down. And, of course, he backed up the line
on defense. I met Nagurski once, when he was in his 70s and the NFL
brought him over to the press hotel during Super Bowl week, and we got a
chance to interview him. I was sitting next to him during the
introductory remarks and we sat in those classroom chairs with the big
armrests, and my arm was parallel to his. His wrist was exactly twice
the size of mine, and I weighed 240 at the time. He weighed in the high
230s when he played, but with that massive bone structure he'd be a 275
pounder today, in this era of weight training and other enhancements. I
asked him, in private, why he'd never run up big numbers, considering
everyone wrote that he was so impossible to bring down. For instance,
he'd never had a 100-yard game, unless it was in his first two years,
when rushing statistics weren't officially kept. "Because George Halas
believed in sharing the wealth," he said, "and wearing down the other
team with platoons of troops. You always shared the carries with other
people. You never got to be the featured runner in that system. Plus, I
had to put in a full afternoon on defense."
Joe Perry -- Joe the Jet,
with a fullback's size and jet-like takeoff speed. Frankie Albert, the
quarterback, had to put in extra practice time on his handoffs because
Perry would fly by so quickly. Joe the Jet was another guy who'd
occasionally go berserk on the field. I saw an example of that when the
49ers played the Buffalo Bills in an old AAFC contest and Rocko Pirro, a
Buffalo middle guard as tough as his name sounds, gave Perry a little
kick in the head as they were getting up off the ground. Perry had to be
held back, and Albert, crafty little operator that he was, gave him the
ball on the next four or five carries. I have never seen such
unbridled fury by a running back.
Jim Taylor -- Both he and
Hornung ran the Lombardi sweeps, and got good yardage out of them, but
Taylor was the tougher runner, the guy who also did the heavy-duty work
inside. I always thought he was the one player perfectly suited to the
rugged Green Bay weather.
Thurman Thomas -- He had
his biggest seasons as an option runner, with great cutback moves, in
the Bills' K-gun, which Jim Kelly said was an offshoot of the run 'n
shoot. "When they named it the run 'n rhoot," Kelly told me, "you'll
notice which one came first. Without the running, it won't work.
Thurman's running is the key to our K-gun." And so was his pass
catching.
LaDainian Tomlinson -- The
youngest and least-experienced member of our roster, and maybe after not
quite a year-and-a-half as a pro it's too early for such lofty status,
but I've seen enough of his great moves and burst and fine balance to be
convinced of his excellence, both now and in the future. When things get
tough, he carries the offense, which is a lot to ask of a 23-year-old
player.
Deacon Dan Towler -- At 27
he quit football to enter the ministry full time. He was a 230-pounder
with speed and elusiveness, the mainstay of two distinct Rams' systems,
the Bull Elephant Backfield, which featured three big guys, and an
early, ultra-modern version of today's four-wideout set, originally
introduced by the legendary Clark Shaughnessy, one of the coaches who
brought the modern T-formation into pro football. It devastated the
league for a number of years and set many offensive records. Towler's
running was its solidifying element.
Steve VanBuren -- Held the
NFL's single-season and career rushing records until Jim Brown arrived
10 years later. Set the standard by which all runners were measured.
Powerful, fast, gifted with remarkable balance, he ran at a 45-degree
angle, tilted forward, and was perhaps the best who ever lived on a
muddy, slippery field. A quick-hitting 208-pounder, he was the perfect
weapon for the new T-formation attack.
Indelible Memories -- The World of Might Have Been
Emerson
Boozer -- I am sitting in the press box in Shea Stadium watching this
rookie tear off one of the most amazing runs I have ever seen. The
opponent is Oakland, and the distance is 47 yards, and he bounces off a
tackler and whirls, bounces and spins away from another couple of
tacklers, until he finally goes over the goal line, backing in. It was
an early version of Barry Sanders, and when people ask me if I'd ever
seen anyone who ran like Sanders did I say, "Yes, Emerson Boozer as a
rookie," because those runs were his trademark. The sky was the limit
for him. His career as a freak runner ended with knee surgery after a
Chiefs game in Kansas City the following season. He remained a Jet for
the next eight years, a sturdy pro who became a fine blocker, first for
Matt Snell, then John Riggins, and remained a solid enough runner. But
the magic was gone.
Orban "Spec" Sanders --
When the single-wing departed in the late '40s, so did the great triple
threat, run-pass-kick, tailbacks. For one season, 1947, Sanders, the
star of the New York Yankees in the old All-America Football Conference,
was the best who ever lived. Steve VanBuren set an NFL single-season
record of 1,008 yards that year, but Sanders topped it by more than 400
yards, finishing with 1,432. It lasted for 11 years, until Jim Brown
finally beat it. Sanders' mark is only dimly remembered because when the
leagues merged in 1950, the NFL's ruling fathers decided that the old
AAFC records were not worthy of inclusion. But what a year 1947 was for
Sanders, a gangly, will-o'-the-wisp runner from little Cameron College
in Texas. Passed for 1,442 yards, averaged 27 yards on kickoff returns
and 27.3 yards returning punts, punted for a 42.1-yard average. And yes,
he played defense, too. He was a skilled pass defender, with three
interceptions that season. In 1948 he played hurt, with various leg and
knee injuries, and by 1949 he was finished. His career in the AAFC had
lasted three seasons. The NFL never got a look at him.
Willie Gallimore -- Flashy,
improvised, impossible runs marked his NFL career. He lit up dull games,
brought the crowd to its feet. People would shake their heads. How the
hell did he do that? But it was quality, not quantity, because he was
seldom injury-free. Two knee operations, a pulled groin, recurring ankle
sprains, all of which he played through, marked his career with Chicago.
Then at 29 he was dead, killed in a car crash on a country road outside
Rensselaer, Ind., on his way to the Bears' training camp.
Claude "Buddy" Young --
They never knew what to do with this 5-foot-4, 170-pound collegiate
sprint champ from Illinois. Today, they wouldn't know, either. Line him
up as a wideout, and let him use blazing speed to get downfield? Maybe,
but that would nullify his greatness as a runner, with the remarkable
takeoff and darting, waterbug style. The old AAFC Yankees lined him up
as a fullback next to Spec Sanders, and sometimes he'd also run reverses
from the wing. He averaged 6.1 yards per carry but he was basically an
adjunct to an exciting, flashy offense, not the key to it. He made it to
the NFL, where he lasted four years as an occasional runner and an
effective, if underused, kickoff returner. For one year, though, he
achieved legendary status. That was in 1945, when he was a 19-year-old
star for the Fleet City Naval Air Station, the greatest service player
in history, he was called. His rushing records haven't surfaced, if they
were ever kept at all, but I'll bet they were really something. In the
next world I'll get a look at them.
Bo Jackson --
I've been keeping a weekly log book of every team in the NFL, going back 31 years. I am looking for my entries for 1990. In mid-July I have the notation, "Jackson hits three home runs against the Yankees and suffers a slight shoulder separation diving for a ball." There it is, colossal promise, but always under the shadow of injury. I have all his long runs logged in, the 80- and 90-yarders, but for Jan.13, 1991, in my notes for the Raiders-Bengals AFC Divisional Playoff game, I had jotted down, "Jackson injures hip ... first half ... tackled by Kevin Walker." His rushing stats for that afternoon were six carries, 77 yards ... numbers that spoke the language of speed, pure speed, 227 pounds worth of it. The hip injury turned into something called avascular necrosis that cut off the supply of blood and ended his career as the greatest two-sport athlete who ever lived. He was 28.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman covers the NFL beat for the
magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. To send a question to Dr.
Z's Mailbag, click here.
