Sure, Jim Brown is a living legend of football, but how well would he have fared in today’s ultra-fast, supersized sport of 275-lb. linebackers and 325-lb linemen?
The mystique surrounding Cleveland running back Jim Brown seems to have no equal. Across 9 golden seasons, he caught passes, returned kickoffs and threw three touchdown passes. He ultimately compiled 12,312 rushing yards and 15,459 combined net yards, was unanimously voted first-team All-NFL pick eight times, played in nine Pro Bowls, and was the game’s outstanding back three times.
Said Bob Costas: “5.2 yards per carry, never missed a game, won the rushing title every year but one when he was in the league, there were a lot of contenders but if you have to select one, you have to pick Jim as the greatest running back in history.”
Said columnist Red Smith: “For mercurial speed, airy nimbleness, and explosive violence in one package of undistilled evil, there is no other like Mr. Brown.” Discuss
Linemen have gotten bigger and faster. Linebackers really haven’t: the prototype linebacker then was around 220-240 lbs and ran a 4.7-4.8 40 yard time, and the same pretty much holds true today. Ray Lewis and Brian Urlacher are faster than that, but so were Dick Butkus and Ray Nietchke.
Imagine “Jerome Bettis but somewhat faster” and you’ve got the picture.
While defenses have improved, so has the training regimen of running backs. Imagine a bigger, stronger, more fit Mr. Brown and he stays waaay on up there, if not at the very pinnacle.
There’s also the point that with substantially more NFL teams, talent - including defensive talent - is more diluted now. Playing today, Jim Brown would have more opportunities against mediocre (or worse) defenses than he did during his career.
Since no one’s joining in, here’s my take: defensive players ARE bigger than they were in Brown’s time. And much faster. Brown was 6 feet 2 inches and weighed about 225 lbs., making his size rather average by today’s standard.
It’s like the Jim Thorpe analogy. What would happen if Thorpe–who dominated athletics in his day–were to compete today. The answer is that he would probably be soundly defeated or overshadowed in almost every event. He certainly wouldn’t be an Olympian.
Brown would still shine, but not with the same luster. The “talent gap” has narrowed considerably in the last 30-35 years. Dominating athletes are happening less and less.
I disagree, Carnac. Jim Brown would have a better training regimen and specialized coaches. He was outstanding in his time; he would still be outstanding for the same reasons that every back is not Bettis or Alexander or LT or Barber. Things such as spotting holes, ability to cutback, and ability to make others miss are what differentiate the top of the back-pack versus the rest, and Brown had those traits. His size is not an issue. Barber and Dunn are two outstanding small backs.
The assertion that LBs haven’t gotten bigger and stronger is totally wrong. Dick Butkus never sniffed a 4.6 40 time and he was dominant then. The average LB then was barely in the 5.0 range. Nowadays if a LB can’t run a 4.6 40 he won’t make the practice squad of the worst team.
More significant would be the improvement in physicality of the secondary. You never saw a DB who was anywhere near 200 LBs in that era, and when Brown got to the second level he got a free pass to the endzone because he was 50 pounds heavier and as fast as the best CB. Today guys like Roy Williams, Mike Brown, Troy Polamalu would put Jim Brown on his back.
Jim Brown was the NFL equivalent of Wilt Chamberlain. A guy who was talented and successful, but who’s edge was primarily built on sheer differential in size. If Wilt plays today he’s probably going to be a top 15 player, but not a HOFer. If Jim Brown plays today he’s a starting RB, but not a HOFer.
I don’t think you ever watched Jim Brown. The guy never made a cut back in his entire career. The only time he made guys miss was when he trotted out of bounds. His highlight reel consists of gaping holes and north-south runs with much smaller guys hoping to catch up.
Jim Brown walked away from football early in his career and self-admittedly says that he was never that into the game. He would never have had the motivation to put in the film study, weight room work, and pure drive that it takes to hone your body into the form that todays athletes have. He prefered to be an actor and public figure, so I think the argument that he’d have advanced alongside todays players is a flimsy one.
This might be true if you time-travelled 1962 Jim Brown into the year 2005 and plop him into an NFL team’s starting lineup.
But how about a Jim Brown born in 1976 instead of 1936? He’d have grown up with modern strength training, nutrition, speed training, and football coaching (which has undergone numerous innovations over the past four decades). He’d probably be both faster and bigger – tack on maybe 10-15 pounds and drop two-tenths of a second off of his 40 time.
If the kind of money available to pro athletes then had been what it is today, Brown just might have been able to motivate himself to play a few more years, too. No telling if he’d still have his speed and moves once he 'roided up, though.
Maybe I’m thinking of someone else, but wasn’t Jim Brown kind of a prick? Regardless of his onfield abilities, I think he’d likely self-immolate a la Terrell Owens in today’s environment.
What about pure athleticism? I don’t care how big or fast a guy is if he is a great athlete, he can make something happen. Some players just have a knack for making great plays. Jim Brown was an incredible athlete. He was an All-American Lacrosse player in college–some say he would have easily been the greatest Lacrosse player of all time.
Take Jim Brown and put him into today’s specialized version of a football player, and he would be incredible. He would also be bigger and faster with the advantages of steroids, I mean training regimens, and this means he would be very tough to stop.
Shibb, I’ve heard the same thing. I’m not sure he’d throw a teammate under the bus, but he was disliked by his peers by most accounts. Hell, he’s disliked by most people who have met him totday.
Well, first-off, I’m not sure I agree with your theory. I made that argument in the earlier post regarding his confessed disdain for the game of football.
Secondly, I think this argument pretty much renders the OP moot. “If you change him completely does he succeed” is basically what you’re asking.
Lastly, I think the point is that the differential then was greater than it was now. Players today have moved much closer to maximum potential than they did then. It’s a case of diminishing returns. If you take Jim Brown who was 20% bigger and faster than his peers and put him in the game today, even with modern prep and development, he’d at most be 5% bigger and faster than current players.
I don’t think too many people believe that in another 40 years players will be as far ahead of todays players as todays players are ahead of players from the 60s.
BS. The point is that he was physically far ahead of his peers. That explains both his NFL dominance and his Lacrosse dominance. If you put him in today’s Lacrosse environment his advantages would be lessened as well. Though not quite as lessened as the NFL.
It’s about the maturity of sports in America. The increase in human physcial potential is growing slowly. No one can reach 100% of their potential, but today athletes are much closer than that than they were 45 years ago. Thats they difference.
In 1965 the average athlete hypotheitically reached about 65% of their max abiltiy. Jim Brown was probably in the ballpark of 85%, and that’s why he was so much better than his peers.
Today the average athlete may reach something like 90% of his potential, and even if a reengineered Jim Brown rasied in a modern environment reached 95% of his potential, it’s still a much smaller differential than what is was 45 years ago.
In 40 years athletes will probably find themselves reaching close to 98% of their potential and the best will be squeezing close to 100% of their potential, but the difference between the bst andthe average will be a much smaller margin than it was in the past.
I’d rather not take into account what’s going on in his head. To me, the OP makes more sense when athleticism alone is evaluated.
I can’t tell from the OP precisely what question he’s asking … but I think my answer certainly addresses a question that can be reasonably interpreted from the OP.
Well, the OP specifically asks “how would Jim Brown have fared in today’s NFL”. Not “how would the best RB from 40 years ago fare today”. Since it’s specific to one guy, it seems almost necessary to include discussion of him as a whole, especially with a guy that’s so openly discussed his state of mind. If you’re going to make the argument that he would have made the effort to develop himself the way modern athletes have it seems even more critical.
Consider that the NFL is no a year-round profession. In Jim Brown’s career he made a handful of movies during his offseasons and was a fixture in Hollywood. I’m pretty sure that today’s regimen would preclude that, or at least make it supremely difficult. If Brown had put in the year-round efforts your presumption requires it’s also fair to suppose that he might have burned out even earlier and gone all Ricky Williams on us.
I agree, hence my Jim Thorpe analogy. The same goes with extraordinary physical specimens like Charley Paddock, whose then-blazing 10.8 sec. showing in the 100-meter sprint nabbed him the gold in the 1920 Olympics. Back then, outliers like Thorpe and Paddock competed in sports at a time when poverty, isolation, child labor, racism, malnutrition prevented numerous other potential outlier-athletes from competing. Eventually the field caught up with their level of athleticism and today differences in performance among the best of the best are marginal. Modern training or no, today Thorpe and Paddock wouldn’t likely qualify for the Olympic teams. [A crude analogy would be the 7th grade male who is clearly bigger, stronger and more coordinated than his spindly peers. Three years later, many have likely caught up with him.]
As for a modern-day Jim Brown, the field has caught up with and perhaps surpassed the extreme physicality he displayed 4+ decades ago, partly due to HGH and steroids. My guess is that Brown today would be a solid running back, but hardly a living legend. The speed and size of today’s defenses would awe him and no doubt give him a needed attitude adjustment.
At 6-2, 230 Brown was a weird mixture of Power and Speed for 1962. A comparable back today might be Corey Dillon {6’1 225} or Mike Anderson, Stephen Davis (6’0 230) these are all excellent to very good 1200-1400 yards for a few years running backs. But they aren’t Sporting News’ Number 1 Football Player of all time. They aren’t going to make ESPN Century’s 4th best player of the Century.
Brown in 2005 may have been Heschel Walker — but my WAG (and what I really think) is that he would be a back with similar career numbers to Dillon at best, and at worst maybe the 6’1 225 Herschel Walker (1-2 good to great years & an NFL Caliber Player for sure – just not WOW!!)
I think you are all focusing on numbers way to much.
Barry Sanders and Jerry Rice, Both of whom I consider to be modern era players, didn’t really have that great of numbers(size, speed etc) but were very successful. Saying Brown wouldn’t be that good because of arbitrary numbers, seems wrong to me.