Not to distract this threat with irrelevance, but CHFF has recently posted a well-presented list of their Top 10 NFL Quarterbacks. Brady ranks well, but isn’t first; same for Montana.
I’m liking this cold hard football facts site. I’d never been there before.
[Homer Alert]
Otto Graham is underrated and rarely involved in GOAT discussions. He, along with Paul Brown, invented a lot of what we’d consider to be modern football. Some people don’t know that Bill Walsh was Brown’s star pupil and a lot of the elements that he’s credited with bringing to the game are just refinements of what Brown taught him.
Graham has a career winning percentage of 86.1%, and went to championships in all 10 years of his career, winning 6. His career yards per attempt (IMO, the single most important stat in evaluating quarterbacks/passing games) was 10.6 (!), which blows the next guy out of the water by like 2 and a half yards. It’s like if there was a runner who averaged 6.3 yards/carry or so.
Four of those years were in the AAFC (where the records don’t count, although pre-merger AFL stats do), but even in the tougher NFL his career YPA was 8.6, still the highest of all time. His career 86.6 passer rating sounds pretty good (Tom Brady is at 92.9 career) in modern terms, but it’s staggering for the era he played in, where the league averaged around 50-55. (The site has an interesting article where they try to adjust passer ratings by their era here which concludes that Graham’s 1953 season was the best ever in terms of era-adjusted QB rating.)
He played long ago and that tends to bias people against him, but like Jim Brown’s career 5.2 YPC, Otto Graham’s (10.6 or 8.6, take your pick) YPA hasn’t been surpassed in 50+ years (40+ for Jim Brown) and may never be.
Jim Brown and Otto Graham, by the way, missed playing together by a season (1956). Imagine them in the same backfield together. It would’ve been ridiculous.
I have also never heard of that website. I thought that it’d just have been a little website created by the folks at Coors Light.
Glad it isn’t.
Corrections: He won 7 of 10 titles, and my 10.6 career number was wrong, I got it mixed up with his best season. The actual 9 YPC (can’t find precise numbers on his AAFC days, but 9 is what that site lists for his total career) numbers are still a step above everyone else.
I recall an NFL films show that made that point. It showed how the 49ers’ famous Montana to Clark pass play that beat Dallas was the same one that the Browns had used back in the 50s, except it was Graham to Lavelli (or maybe to Mac Speedie).
Hey, that doesn’t matter. The man was amazing from some of the films I’ve seen.
Apparently Peter King was on the Colin Cowherd show this afternoon and Colin brought up this very discussion, about whether Tom Brady was the best of all time. Apparently without hesitating Peter King declared Otto Graham as the GOAT. So I guess he does receive some consideration.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHnTtYhCbX4&feature=related Barry was the best pure runner ever. No one could do what he did. He played 10 years and practically missed no games, He did not fumble. He played for teams too bad to even figure out how to use him. When he scored ,he handed the ball to the ref.
Also, I’d like to point out that there weren’t necessarily “highlight” reels. There were highlight games and a highlight career. Saying that ranking Barry as number one because you’re only looking at the highlights is a misnomer, because his entire damned career was. In that video, they don’t even have the run he had against the Buccaneers (if I remember right) where the line completely broke down and he had to run about 50 yards to get 3 or even the Rod Woodson incident (back when he played for the Steelers) where he blew his knee out from trying to tackle him. Michael Strahan swears to this very day that he saw Barry split in two once when he was trying to tackle him.
More “highlights”.
I still get chills watching these.
In those videos, how many plays do they show where the Lions had third and 3, and the line opened up a hole that a high school kid could have gone through, but Barry darted left, saw a defender 4 yards down field, spun around with his back to the line, came back right, and got tackled for a 4 yard loss the the outside linebacker who kept contain?
Because, that’s what I think of when I think of Barry Sanders.
In order for there to be a video like that there would have to have been a time when the Lions O-line opened up a hole at all.
You conveniently neglect each and every tackle that is blown by those same linebackers in the video. Some of the videos he gets some blocking, but he ends up shooting through the smallest crack and accelerating in virtually no time flat and leaving everyone behind to catch up (because he never really did have exceptional top-end speed).
Every “Barry is the best” argument can be reduced to two words…“Ooooh, Shiny!”
Yeah, but the Lions’ fullback…oh, never mind. 
For all the complaints and criticism about Barry’s many runs for negative yardage, he managed to hit positive yardage often enough to average 5 yards per carry for his career. That destroys Walter Payton, Curtis Martin and even Emmitt Smith, the member of the 10,000 yard club who best typifies “go North/South, don’t get fancy and don’t get stopped for a loss.”
…Says the man on his high horse.
It’s not just a shiny argument, though. The man put up numbers, he was explosive and exciting, he was unstoppable at most times, and he’s one of the most feared offensive weapons in NFL history. Really, if I follow you correctly, you’re saying that (insert other running back not named Jim Brown) put up better numbers, was more dominant, and was a greater offensive weapon. That’s just not true.
Sorry, I missed the edit window. The high horse comment was made in jest.
I’m saying that Barry is not the GOAT. Very simple point.
He’s great, electric and certainly one of the best. I got no problems with Barry’s ability. The point is that his negative plays are a huge Achilles heel and there are far too many other running backs who were more complete, productive and successful to think he deserves to be in that conversation. He was a big part of the reason why the Lions were a losing franchise for his entire career.
You are clearly oblivious to what it takes to produce a consistent, feared, offensive attack.
No one on earth is disputing what Barry Sanders could do with the ball when he wasn’t destroying drives.
Barry can break off 3 20 yard runs in a row, and then gain ZERO YARDS on 3 straight plays.
He has a 10 yard average.
END OF DRIVE.
Do you understand how different that is than a guy who can pick up 3.5 yards per carry every single carry?
Do you now understand why no one gives a shit that he averaged 5 yards per carry?
DO you understand why a highlight reel of his best carries is probably the best highlight reel there is, but is a complete mischaracterization of his effect on a football game?
Do you understand he had a crappy offensive line? Do you understand that for much of his time playing that crappy line was in a scheme with very poor blocking pickup?
Do you understand that no-one else(excluding Jom Brown) in the history of football would have gotten close to 3.5 yards on everyplay on that team?
Emmit Smith, or anyone else(excluding James Brown) would have pounded the line for one yard, pounded the line for one yard, pounded the line for half a yard, then had to punt on 3 and 7?
I think you overweight your argument by saying that “no one gives a shit that he averaged 5 yards a carry”. Again, when he was playing, he was the number one most feared offensive weapon in the league.
You’ve obviously got no idea about his effect on a football game. The year he ran for 2053, it was a lot like Barry Bonds the year he hit 73 or the year Mcgwire and Sosa trampled 60 home runs together. You knew the touchdown was coming. The defense knew it was coming. There’s virtually nothing they could do to stop it. The only other threat that I’ve seen like him was Randy Moss in his rookie year.
Really, we’re arguing apples an oranges. You’re saying he killed some drives. Well yeah. Who hasn’t? He’s killed more than the average NFL back. He also has the most negative yards. He’s also got more positive yards than almost anybody else and was completely unstoppable. Obviously, you place a premium on getting 3 or 3 and a half yards every carry. That’s great, but a lot of running backs…hell…any NFL running back can do that with a decent line. Barry averaged 5 and change with a worse than average line.