Thursday, December 11, 2008

Barry Jr.

If I was the son of a Hall-of-Fame athlete, I'm not sure that I would chose to play the same sport as my father. Let alone play the same position.

But Barry Sanders, Jr., ain't afraid of the expectations. Only a high school freshman, Barry Jr. looks like he's at least inherited his father's feet and balance. I know somebody who knows somebody at TCU who needs to be called about making him a scholarship offer - STAT.



On another note, there's a little debate in a comments thread at TBL about the best running backs of all-time. I'll humbly submit my top five in ascending order: 5. Earl Campbell; 4. Barry Sanders; 3. O.J. Simpson; 2. Walter Payton; 1. Jim Brown.

4 comments:

avery said...

props for including orenthal james. i notice that you didn't have #22 in there, though. any thoughts on why you excluded him?

blackink said...

You know, I really struggled with leaving Emmitt out of the top 5. It would be easy to make a case for him as No. 3 - I just can't put him over Jim Brown and Sweetness.

But in the end, if I was starting a team from scratch, with no assurances about the offensive line, quarterback or receivers, I don't think Emmitt would be the best bet over these five. Everyone in my top 5 carried their teams offensively - at some point - minus the sort of surrounding talent that #22 had in Dallas.

The choice of Earl, in some part, may be the product of my bias for the Oilers. But I also know that #34 hammered out a lot of those yards on his own. Dan Pastorini was no Aikman, you know?

But Emmitt is no lower than No. 6.

avery said...

yeah, i was always of the opinion that barry was elite, where emmitt was a very good back who happened to be in an excellent system. if you put emmitt behind a mediocre line, i don't know that he'd be mentioned in these types of discussions, whereas barry played behind, well, trash. and he was still the man. almost like donovan and his receivers.

blackink said...

For sure. Emmitt was a great back and the Cowboys weren't the same when he wasn't in the lineup - Derek Lassic, Sherman Williams, Lincoln Coleman and Troy Hambrick, among other, were never equal to the task. But he never deal with the stacked fronts and pop-gun armed qbs like Barry had to.

And, as for DMac, it's damn near criminal how the Eagles have wasted his career. They're lucky they hit on Westbrook because no one expected that kind of career out of him.