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Greatest Athletes?

N

Norrin Radd

Vice Admiral
Weird thing...

It's relatively easy to choose the greatest players in most sports. Don't get me wrong, I realize many of the below are extremely arguable, but it's easier.

Baseball: Babe Ruth
Hockey: Wayne Gretzky
Basketball: Michael Jordan
Boxing: Muhammad Ali
Soccer: Pelé
Golf: Tiger Woods (perhaps remains to be seen)

But American football? Whereas maybe I could come up with two or maybe three credible different choices for any of the above, I keep coming up with five or ten possibilities for football.
 
Football's got so many positions and many depend on each other (you can't be a great QB if all your WRs suck or you have no OL). But QB, RB and WR would be the glory positions, with QB at the top. You'd probably have to go with a QB for the biggest name recognition, and it's probably the most difficult position in all of sports with the most responsibility.
 
Rugby: Dan Luger (only five other rugby players have scored more tries than him).
 
I will vote for Walter Payton as the greatest football player ever. Jim Brown may be the greatest running back ever. Emmitt Smith may hold the records, but Walter Payton was a better all round player than either of them. Missed 1 start in his career, Threw 8 TD passes, was a feared blocker, has more receiving yards than Brown or Smith and punted once in his rookie year. Also played for some of the absolute worst teams in football with the late 70's bears.
 
Norrin Radd said:
Weird thing...

It's relatively easy to choose the greatest players in most sports. Don't get me wrong, I realize many of the below are extremely arguable, but it's easier.

Baseball: Babe Ruth
Hockey: Wayne Gretzky
Basketball: Michael Jordan
Boxing: Muhammad Ali
Soccer: Pelé
Golf: Tiger Woods (perhaps remains to be seen)

But American football? Whereas maybe I could come up with two or maybe three credible different choices for any of the above, I keep coming up with five or ten possibilities for football.
Click to expand...

Going by career stats, which it seems you're doing above, you'd have to go with Jerry Rice in the NFL, He's so far ahead fo the #2 guy statistically speaking, it's not even close.
 
Icemizer said:
I will vote for Walter Payton as the greatest football player ever. Jim Brown may be the greatest running back ever. Emmitt Smith may hold the records, but Walter Payton was a better all round player than either of them.
Click to expand...

The only reason Smith holds the records is because Barry Sanders quit, otherwise Smith never would've even gotten close. Not to take anything away from Smith.
 
I strongly disagree, all Pele has going for himself are the three World Cups - which is something, granted.
I'm not sure Pele would even be in the top5 if you reviewed the whole history of football within each period of it's time.
 
Aragorn said:
Icemizer said:
I will vote for Walter Payton as the greatest football player ever. Jim Brown may be the greatest running back ever. Emmitt Smith may hold the records, but Walter Payton was a better all round player than either of them.
Click to expand...

The only reason Smith holds the records is because Barry Sanders quit, otherwise Smith never would've even gotten close. Not to take anything away from Smith.
Click to expand...


The same could be said about Jim Brown, if he had played a full career with 16 game seasons. Even after all these years, his stats per game still lead the other RBs mentioned in this thread:

Yards Per Game

Brown 104.3
Sanders 99.8
Payton 88.0
Smith 81.2

TDs Per Game

Brown .90
Smith .73
Sanders .65
Payton .58

Going by stats alone, LT may soon lay claim to the title of greatest running back, however.
 
Everyone's marveling at how Rafa Nadal won Wimbledon after taking the French—admittedly, an amazing display of adaptability.

Bjorn Borg did it ... three times.

Guy's resting heartbeat was under 40 a minute. No wonder they called him Ice-Borg.
 
JM1776 said:
gblews said:
Norrin Radd said:
Basketball: Michael Jordan
Click to expand...
One might argue Wilt Chamberlain here. His accomplishments dwarf Michael's (as they do all others) in every way except number of championships.
Click to expand...

And one might argue Bill Russell over either,
Click to expand...
One might, but then one would have the same problem with arguing Michael Jordan because Wilt also dwarfed Russell with his accomplishments, just as he dwarfed Michael and all others, except in number of championships.
 
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