Pardon me, best running back in NFL of ALL TIME?

Answer 1

When looking at the greatest running backs of all time, where do you begin. Is Emmitt Smith the greatest running back ever simply because he ran for the most yards? The sound you heard is a resounding no! How does Gale Sayers and even Bo Jackson enter the conversation when they didn't have a "full" career? Can you even consider LaDanian Tomlinson and Shaun Alexander? Their careers are not over yet, but from what we've seen their extraordinary backs.

The simpliest tool to compare running backs is statistics. All-time statistics can be misleading, though useful. When I measure I running back, I look at his yards per attempt and yards per game as measures. The bigger sample of rushing attempts they have, the better we can evaluate a runner.

Let's compare several key backs (in order of games played): Emmitt Smith, Walter Payton, Barry Sanders, Jin Brown, LaDanian Tomlinson and Gale Sayers. Here are their all-time numbers (games-attempts-yards-touchdowns-yards/attempt-yards/game)

Smith 226-4409-18355-164-4.16-81.22
Payton 190-3838-16726-110-4.36-88.03
Sanders 153-3062-15269-99-4.99-99.80
Brown 118-2359-12312-106-5.22-104.34
Tomlinson 95-2050-9176-100-4.48-96.59
Sayers 68-991-4956-39-5.00-72.88

The most interesting thing to note is how close Tomlinson is to Jim Brown already. He also has played exactly half of the games that Payton did, so imagine the damage. Put like I said, the key numbers are yards per attempt and game. Yards per attempt is the most important because if the job of the running back is to gain yards on the ground, getting four yards every carry is better than two. Well, obviously. But by comparing stats per attempt, you eliminate those that pick up overall statistics just because their teams kept feeding them the ball or because they had a long career.

Having a long career is important. Bo Jackson tells us that story. He played less games than Larry Johnson has. Emmitt Smith can be appluaded for having a long fruitful career, but if you had to pick one running back to be the best of all time, you want to be able to compare apples to apples. So, let's take that list of running backs and compare their statistics as if they all played 160 games...or six more than Tiki Barber played before he abruptly retired. In order of expected yards...

Brown 3199-16694-144 tds
Sanders 3202-15968-104
Tomlinson 3453-15454-168
Payton 3232-14085-93
Smith 3121-12995-116
Sayers 2332-11661-92

So, you see here that given the same number of games. Let's see what happens when they all get 3000 carries.

Brown 3000-15657-135
Sayers 3000-15003-118
Sanders 3000-14960-97
Tomlinson 3000-13428-146
Payton 3000-13074-86
Smith 3000-12489-112

So, now you know my answer. It's Jim Brown, followed by Barry Sanders than Walter Payton. But please, watch out for LaDanian Tomlinson.

Answer 2

This is a question I argue with my uncle about all the time. He says Jim Brown is the greatest. And I do admit the man was way before his time. But he also played against vanilla defenses. Again I am not taking anything away from those great athletes that paved the way. The schemes where simple, the players where not as big, strong, and not nearly as quick.

It seams like every generation you get a freak of nature, like Jim Brown, Gayle Sares, Waltor Pyton, Bo Jackson, Barry Sanders, and now L.T.

I think when L.T. is all done in this leauge he will go down as the greatest of all time. Again no disrespect to our forefathers of football.

Answer 3

I'd have to say there is a tie....Barry Sanders and Walter Payton,,,,,,When thay hit that line it was all about the yardage that they could get, not just accept 1 or 2 yards.......Jim Brown is the best yardage per carry by far, Earl Campbell was the 1st power running back, Marcus Allen was an awesome 1-2 yard back, and Christian Okoye Was one of the hardest hitting backs that I have ever seen......It's all on ones perspective of the game......Myself I don't even consider Emmitt Smith as one of the great running backs......Good yes great no....

Answer 4

1. Walter Payton
2. Jim Brown
3. Barry Sanders

Answer 5

Jim Brown followed by Walter Payton. Barry Sanders was the most exciting and Eric Dickerson was the most talented. I admire Emmit Smith because he understood his system and was smart enough to stay within the system. I don't believe that Barry would have followed that Dallas line the way that Emmit followed those big boys. So Emmit by far was the smartest running back of all time.

Answer 6

JIM BROWN. There has never been a running back like him. Never will be again either. I love Barry, and Emmit, and Walter, even Gale Sayers. But Jim Brown was the most feared running back in the NFL. Played for nine seasons, never missed a game.

Answer 7

There is no real debate here... Jim Brown was the greatest RB of all time.... Everyone else is fighting for second. Most of the people who answer this question and list someone else as #1 are probably still wet behind the ears. JB was a beast... If you were to querry the top 10 RBs of all time, to a man, they would say that JB was the best...

#2 BS
#3 WP

Answer 8

There is no better running back to ever grace the football field the Berry Sanders. I don’t care if Smith holds the record I don't give a poo if he is even last. I believe if Sanders hadn’t retired Smith would die on the field trying to catch the man.

Smith ran behind the line of Dallas. If he had to play in Detroit he would never even been in the top 15 running backs of all time. If you put Sanders in Dallas with the line that Smith had protecting him every game oooooo weeeeeee Sanders would own that and you never see another person even smell that record. Even Sweetness would say Sanders is the best.

Answer 9

Sweetness. Walter Payton was the rock of the Bears offense when the Bears had no offense. He usually had to break a tackle just to get back to the line of scrimmage in the '70's. If he had the '85 Bears line his whole career, his records would have been untouchable.

Answer 10

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