4 thoughts on “The 100 Greatest Football Players of All-Time”

1. 

   Nice list. But waaaay too many modern players. In all sports, especially one as subjective as football, the only way (IMO) to compare players from different eras is based on relativity; how good was player x relative to his peers? A good start to answering this question is to look at all-pro teams. You can’t just look at statistics because how well a player does relies on several factors (who he plays with, what game plan is called, etc.) But of course some years had more all-pro sources than others, so this must be accounted for. I think an efficiency rate is in order (how may teams did a player make divided by how many teams could he have made. You need to do 2 things here: account for a 1st team selection v a 2nd team selection and realize that not all all-pro teams are equal. A daunting, and subjective, task. I’d like to see you try it.

   1. 

      Hey Frank, I appreciate the comment! The whole philosophy of this website is that modern players have been grossly underrated by people/publications who put together lists like these.

      Comparing eras is certainly not for the squeamish. You mentioned the importance of comparing players relative to their peers and that’s exactly how I construct my lists… with one major caveat. All eras are not created equal. It has never been more difficult to make an All-Pro Team, win a Super Bowl, lead the league in yards, touchdowns, or sacks than it has been in the last 30 years. Roughly 2/3 of all of the players who have played in the NFL have played since 1970. It stands to reason that a top-100 list would and should have a higher representation of players since 1970.

      I like your idea of an All-Pro efficiency measure. There are some factors that would make it tough as you mentioned. There would need to be a measure for league strength. For instance, it was much easier to make an All-Pro team in a 12-team league with half of the available competition in an entirely different football league (AFL), and racial quotas keeping talented minorities off the field.

2. 

   Nice list, but I have a couple of quibbles.

   Julio Jones and Antonio Brown, but no Thurman Thomas? He was the best offensive player on the best offense of the era and a league MVP (and should have been Super Bowl MVP in ’90). Also, Barry Sanders is a top 10 player. Even though he “only” played 10 seasons, what he did in those 10 years, on those Lions teams, behind that O-line, with those QB’s, was nothing short of miraculous.

   1. 

      Hey Dan! I appreciate the comments and I love the quibbles. Apologies for the length, here. Barry’s place in history is a pretty popular debate, so I wanted to give this discussion the real estate that it deserves. I’ll hit on Thurman Thomas first, though.

      There’s all kinds of competition for the last 5-10 spots on the football top-100. There are more than enough arguments out there to be made for several who didn’t make it. Thurman Thomas is one of them. The argument for Thomas is that he led the league in yards from scrimmage for four consecutive seasons, was an elite receiver out of the backfield, and helped the Bills to four consecutive Super Bowls. The argument against him is that he was only good for four years. The drop-off from his age 26 to age 27 season was significant. His yards per carry fell to a paltry 3.7 which is borderline unplayable. He never led the league in rushing yards or touchdowns and only finished in the top 5 in rushing 4 times and the top 5 in touchdowns twice. There are just too many players across the history of the NFL who maintained a higher level of player than Thomas and did it for longer. Julio Jones and Antonio Brown are both examples of that, IMO. However, neither are long for the top 100. They’ve peaked at their current spots at the very back of the list.

      On Barry… I won’t begrudge anyone who wants to make the argument for Barry at any spot on the list. It’s easy to do. To steal from “The Rock,” he is the most electrifying man in NFL history. However, this list is built on a balance of ability and accomplishments. While a few extra seasons at an elite level certainly wouldn’t have hurt his case, I actually don’t think his early retirement limits his upside on this list. He played at an elite level for 10 seasons. For a RB, that’s unmatched. There are, however, other strong reasons why he doesn’t crack the top 10, IMO. First, the touchdowns. Barry didn’t routinely pick up the tough yards in short yardage situations. It’s easy to attribute E. Smith’s success to a great offensive line while also casting Barry’s line as being terrible, but there was more to their vast discrepancy in touchdowns than line play. E. Smith was a physical runner who could pick up the tough yards in short yardage situations in both the regular season and the playoffs. Barry wasn’t. In fact, the Lions stopped giving the ball to Barry in goal line situations after 1993. He only had 7 touchdowns from inside the 3 yard line from 1993-1998. Other Lions running backs over that span had 20! Throw in the fact that Barry had the most negative yardage plays in NFL history with a whopping negative yardage total of over 1,100 yards and a portrait of a brilliant runner with a pretty serious limitation emerges.

      The other part that keeps Barry’s ceiling capped outside of the top-10 is playoff success. Barry would have, by far, the worst playoff resume of any player in the top-10 or top-15. In fact, he has one of the worst playoff resumes of anyone in the top-100. It’s easy to say that he played for terrible teams, but a). That’s not as true as the narrative suggests and b). Part of that playoff disappointment is on Barry. In six playoff games, he broke 70 yards just once and scored just 1 touchdown. In 17 playoff games, E. Smith broke 70 yards 14 times and scored 19 touchdowns. Emmitt didn’t just have playoff success, he was the primary reason his team had playoff success. Barry was phenomenal, but his limitations keep him outside of the top-10, IMO. The highest I could possibly rationale rating him is #13 ahead of Deion. Anything higher than that and I run out of ammunition. I like where he’s at, but I wouldn’t begrudge anyone for bumping him up just behind Drew Brees. I’d also like to point out that I have him as the 2nd greatest running back of all-time and the 16th greatest player in the 100+ year history of the NFL in a sport that has 25+ different positions and nearly 30,000 players. I’m all about Barry!