I will say this, the running back I enjoyed watching the most was Barry Sanders. You just never knew what he would do when he got the ball. We'll probably never see that kind of running back again. He was the second most slippery man I have ever seen. The first being...
if you re-read my post you will see that I said "Greatest Athlete" and not greatest player, there is a difference, a big difference. that said, it seems clear that he was better, more dominant and influenced games he played in more than any other player in that game. interviews with old timers bear this out, defensive schemes were devised with the clear intention of stopping Jim Brown and most of them failed.
consider Bo Jackson, perhaps the Greatest Athlete of his era. was he the best Football Player, the best Baseball Player, I would say no. the Best Athlete is a different argument and he will win that one most of the time from most knowledgeable people. the same can be said for Jim Thorpe who is arguably the Best Athlete of the 20th Century.
most people don't know it but Jim Brown is widely recognized as the best LaCrosse player of all-time, bar none, end of discussion. the interesting thing about him is probably that in College he was a multi-sport athlet, something that is unheard of today. not only was he a premier LaCrosse player, he was a running back/placekicker in Football, first-Team Basketball, Track and managed to finish 5th in the Nation in the Decathlon. in this regard he was a more modern version of Jim Thorpe than probably any athlete will be, due to the fact that nobody seems to play more than one sport anymore, though there are exceptions.
when he focused on the NFL the picture got really clear. though most of his records have been broken it is interesting to note that many of them were set with only 12 or 14 game seasons.
@keets said:
if you re-read my post you will see that I said "Greatest Athlete" and not greatest player, there is a difference, a big difference. that said, it seems clear that he was better, more dominant and influenced games he played in more than any other player in that game. interviews with old timers bear this out, defensive schemes were devised with the clear intention of stopping Jim Brown and most of them failed.
consider Bo Jackson, perhaps the Greatest Athlete of his era. was he the best Football Player, the best Baseball Player, I would say no. the Best Athlete is a different argument and he will win that one most of the time from most knowledgeable people. the same can be said for Jim Thorpe who is arguably the Best Athlete of the 20th Century.
most people don't know it but Jim Brown is widely recognized as the best LaCrosse player of all-time, bar none, end of discussion. the interesting thing about him is probably that in College he was a multi-sport athlet, something that is unheard of today. not only was he a premier LaCrosse player, he was a running back/placekicker in Football, first-Team Basketball, Track and managed to finish 5th in the Nation in the Decathlon. in this regard he was a more modern version of Jim Thorpe than probably any athlete will be, due to the fact that nobody seems to play more than one sport anymore, though there are exceptions.
when he focused on the NFL the picture got really clear. though most of his records have been broken it is interesting to note that many of them were set with only 12 or 14 game seasons.
Sorry I misquoted you on the Greatest thing. And as far as the Decathlon goes JB is just lucky he didn't have to go against Caitlyn Jenner!
@DIMEMAN said:
But this last statement is TOTALLY ridiculous!! I get it like you really really like him and that is great.....but...…….no he would not be the greatest on the field today. I wouldn't even say that about him then.
The problem with this argument - not to pick on you, it's the problem with every era argument - is that you are stating as fact something that is impossible to know. Who is the "greatest on the field today"? Whoever it is, transport him back to Jim Brown's teams and replace Jim Brown with your GOTFT. Yes, the people tackling him will now be a lot smaller than the ones tackling him before he transported, but so are the people blocking in front of him. The defenders trying to tackle him also know that he is going to get the ball a lot more often than he's used to; they're keying on him now, every play, and he's going to get hit and tackled a lot more than he's used to. Can his body take all those extra hits? His physical condition won't be nearly as good as it is today, because he's not going to have the same resources, trainers, doctors, etc. His shoes and pads are are also going to be heavier, and he's going to be playing every single game on natural grass, and half of those in Cleveland, so lots of those games will be played in mud or on snow/ice. And the games he'll play south of Washington, D.C. will be few and far between, so there will be little respite from the mud and cold on the road either. And I don't know how this will affect your GOTFT, but his starting salary will be $12,000 and even if he does turn out to be as great as Brown it will only rise to $60,000 ten years later.
I am a lot more confident that if you transported Jim Brown to today - giving him a wall of 350 pound monsters to block for him, allowing him to run fewer plays carrying less weight, on turf and indoors most of the time, with year-round training and medical attention, and the motivation to earn millions - he would be even more impressive than he was in his own time than I am that a modern prima donna transported back to a time when he'd have to work a hell of a lot harder for 1% of the money would survive for an entire season.
But, I don't know. I can't know. You can't know. Because your GOTFT and Jim Brown were playing different games, and being the greatest at either game does not tell us much about how well they'd do at the other game.
This is most likely the best post written regarding the comparison of players across eras.
I'm sure at least one pea brained idiot will counter with "Yeah, but not player XYZ, he was obviously the GOAT, nothing you say means anything".
I have brought up a couple of your points, but you turned it into a very well rounded argument!
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
@DIMEMAN said:
No, you haven't got it. And you know it. Nobody has said Brady is the GOAT Football player. He is the GOAT QB.
On the contrary, quite a few people here assume that the GOAT football player must necessarily be a QB. It's an assumption without any evidence to support it, but it is being made by most of the people here.
You're a step ahead of all of them, but you're also making several assumptions for which there is no evidence when you say Brady is the GOAT QB. There is no valid statistical method to compare Brady to Sammy Baugh, or Johnny Unitas, or any of the other QBs who played a different game than Brady, just assumptions. So to get another step ahead of the others, maybe you could say that Brady is the greatest modern QB of all time (GMOAT).
But picking a GMOAT still involves several assumptions since each QB plays with the teammates he has, and there is no valid statistical way to isolate his play from the play of his teammates. So here, my only objection is to those who say "case closed" or something similar after declaring Brady the GMOAT QB. The case can't be closed, it will always and necessarily be a matter of opinion.
"IMO, Brady is the GMOAT QB" - perfectly reasonable statement. The further one gets from that statement in praise of Brady the less one is relying on actual reasons and more on assumptions and biases.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
I'm a big Len Dawson fan, but if I had to name the greatest Chief of all time it might be
an offensive guard, Will Shields. I don't know how you compare a QB to a guard and tell
who was better, but Will Shields played 14 consecutive years without missing a game.
When you ran behind Shields, you gained yards. Simple as that.
He was called for holding 1 time in his last 9 years. 1 holding call in his last 144 games!
I still miss him anchoring the offensive line for the Chiefs.
@Brick said:
I knew Jim Brown was a good Lacrosse player. I didn't know he was considered the best. He was even better than Tonto?
The Indians liked to invite British troops out to watch a lacrosse match, then while the the game was being
played, have their squaws sneak over to the fort's front gate with weapons and when they were in position
the Indians would stop the game to raid the fort and massacre the soldiers.
True story, hazy overview of course but that did actually happen.
@Brick said:
I knew Jim Brown was a good Lacrosse player. I didn't know he was considered the best. He was even better than Tonto?
The Indians liked to invite British troops out to watch a lacrosse match, then while the the game was being
played, have their squaws sneak over to the fort's front gate with weapons and when they were in position
the Indians would stop the game to raid the fort and massacre the soldiers.
True story, hazy overview of course but that did actually happen.
@Brick said:
I knew Jim Brown was a good Lacrosse player. I didn't know he was considered the best. He was even better than Tonto?
The Indians liked to invite British troops out to watch a lacrosse match, then while the the game was being
played, have their squaws sneak over to the fort's front gate with weapons and when they were in position
the Indians would stop the game to raid the fort and massacre the soldiers.
True story, hazy overview of course but that did actually happen.
If I remember correctly when Jim Brown was 49 years old there was talk of his being signed by a team for short yardage situations. The commissioner stepped in and put a stop to it.
@Brick said:
If I remember correctly when Jim Brown was 49 years old there was talk of his being signed by a team for short yardage situations. The commissioner stepped in and put a stop to it.
Comments
I will say this, the running back I enjoyed watching the most was Barry Sanders. You just never knew what he would do when he got the ball. We'll probably never see that kind of running back again. He was the second most slippery man I have ever seen. The first being...
if you re-read my post you will see that I said "Greatest Athlete" and not greatest player, there is a difference, a big difference. that said, it seems clear that he was better, more dominant and influenced games he played in more than any other player in that game. interviews with old timers bear this out, defensive schemes were devised with the clear intention of stopping Jim Brown and most of them failed.
consider Bo Jackson, perhaps the Greatest Athlete of his era. was he the best Football Player, the best Baseball Player, I would say no. the Best Athlete is a different argument and he will win that one most of the time from most knowledgeable people. the same can be said for Jim Thorpe who is arguably the Best Athlete of the 20th Century.
most people don't know it but Jim Brown is widely recognized as the best LaCrosse player of all-time, bar none, end of discussion. the interesting thing about him is probably that in College he was a multi-sport athlet, something that is unheard of today. not only was he a premier LaCrosse player, he was a running back/placekicker in Football, first-Team Basketball, Track and managed to finish 5th in the Nation in the Decathlon. in this regard he was a more modern version of Jim Thorpe than probably any athlete will be, due to the fact that nobody seems to play more than one sport anymore, though there are exceptions.
when he focused on the NFL the picture got really clear. though most of his records have been broken it is interesting to note that many of them were set with only 12 or 14 game seasons.
Sorry I misquoted you on the Greatest thing. And as far as the Decathlon goes JB is just lucky he didn't have to go against Caitlyn Jenner!
This is most likely the best post written regarding the comparison of players across eras.
I'm sure at least one pea brained idiot will counter with "Yeah, but not player XYZ, he was obviously the GOAT, nothing you say means anything".
I have brought up a couple of your points, but you turned it into a very well rounded argument!
On the contrary, quite a few people here assume that the GOAT football player must necessarily be a QB. It's an assumption without any evidence to support it, but it is being made by most of the people here.
You're a step ahead of all of them, but you're also making several assumptions for which there is no evidence when you say Brady is the GOAT QB. There is no valid statistical method to compare Brady to Sammy Baugh, or Johnny Unitas, or any of the other QBs who played a different game than Brady, just assumptions. So to get another step ahead of the others, maybe you could say that Brady is the greatest modern QB of all time (GMOAT).
But picking a GMOAT still involves several assumptions since each QB plays with the teammates he has, and there is no valid statistical way to isolate his play from the play of his teammates. So here, my only objection is to those who say "case closed" or something similar after declaring Brady the GMOAT QB. The case can't be closed, it will always and necessarily be a matter of opinion.
"IMO, Brady is the GMOAT QB" - perfectly reasonable statement. The further one gets from that statement in praise of Brady the less one is relying on actual reasons and more on assumptions and biases.
I'm a big Len Dawson fan, but if I had to name the greatest Chief of all time it might be
an offensive guard, Will Shields. I don't know how you compare a QB to a guard and tell
who was better, but Will Shields played 14 consecutive years without missing a game.
When you ran behind Shields, you gained yards. Simple as that.
He was called for holding 1 time in his last 9 years. 1 holding call in his last 144 games!
I still miss him anchoring the offensive line for the Chiefs.
I knew Jim Brown was a good Lacrosse player. I didn't know he was considered the best. He was even better than Tonto?
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Ralph
The Indians liked to invite British troops out to watch a lacrosse match, then while the the game was being
played, have their squaws sneak over to the fort's front gate with weapons and when they were in position
the Indians would stop the game to raid the fort and massacre the soldiers.
True story, hazy overview of course but that did actually happen.
https://mynorth.com/2010/05/deadly-lacrosse-game-in-mackinac-straits-at-fort-michilimackinac-in-1763/
Jim Brown is in the Lacrosse HOF and college and NFL HOF. Not bad.
He would suck today as a Lacrosse player the modern athletes are SO much better. Oops I have no brain. Sorry.
Well of course he would. So would any other 83-year-old.
If I remember correctly when Jim Brown was 49 years old there was talk of his being signed by a team for short yardage situations. The commissioner stepped in and put a stop to it.
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Ralph
What would have been wrong with that?
The commissioner said he was worried about injury. There were not enough good linebackers at that time.
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Ralph