NFL Freaks and Greatest Players! Who's your pick?
Bo Jackson.
/end thread
Just trying to make conversation with fellow posters. No harm, no foul Magnus.
Um, I wasn't literally trying to end the thread. You asked a question, and I answered.
Why Bo? He burned out too early for me, but was definitely a freak.
He burned out early because he fractured his hip socket. He had three 80+ touchdwns and two 90+ yard touchdowns. He averaged 6.8 YPC as a rookie and was averaging 5.6 during his fourth season when he got hurt. Adrian Peterson - who some consider to be the greatest NFL back of this generation - has a career-high of 6.0 and a career average of 4.9 (Bo's career average was 5.4). If Bo had played a full career and hadn't also been an all-star center fielder, he'd probably be in the discussion as one of the all-time great running backs, along with Walter Payton, Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, Emmitt Smith, etc.
Watching that clip, in addition to the power and speed we all knew about, you can see his vision and instincts were equally on par. He was an amazing athlete to watch work his craft, in both football and baseball. And he did it with an amazingly humble personality.
It's an older book by this point, but I found Dick Schaap's biography of Bo Jackson to be enthralling. "Bo Knows Bo" is one of my favorite sports books of all-time. There's some great stuff in there on how he grew up and what kind of freak athlete he was from a very young age.
I just watched the clip where Bo ran down a ball and ran up the outfield wall.
The guy was amazing.
he consider playing football as a side job or hobby while he consider Baseball as his primary sport yet he still dominated in the league.
By the size of his legs. Tree trunks.
HS teammates walked on at Auburn Bo's senior year. My buddy said Watching the guy play up close was surreal, funny and sad (for the defense).
Burned out.....? An injury ruined his career. It's not like he had 2 good seasons and then sucked because the talent wasn't there. His injury was so freakish that he's considered one of the few people even possible of hurting himself like that.
...and he came back strong enough to play Major League Baseball.
Apparently fracturing your hip is burning out. TIL.
The dude would play baseball all year then come play for the Raiders in October/November. And even with missing 6-9 games per season, he still would get around 600 yards averaging over 5 YPC, and almost got a 1000 yards his third year when he started playing game 6.
Randy "The Freak" Moss
Water covers 70% of the earth, Charles Woodson covers the rest.
Brett Favre could handle Vicodin better than any other human ever.
Kyle Orton aka King Neckbeard
Jabrill Peppers
Appreciate each league for their separate qualities. Disappointing. Love both, not just one.
nuff said. Close it down, boys.
But without what the OP did to Harbaugh's face.
Yeah but the proflie pictures are so small, that yours looks like someone drop a ballon of yellow paint on Harbaugh
Should probably pick something different.
The helicopter 8 yard run won them the title. He came out every day and competed.
Brett Favre is a close second especially the "Dad Game"!
https://youtu.be/TsWq3cnp1qQ
A bit of a homer take here, but with the one-dimensional offense the Lions had for many years, Barry Sanders was always productive. Even if the Lions were terrible any given year (remember that one time?), I could watch just to see Sanders play. Best lateral movement / change-of-direction/speed player I've ever seen.
On the defensive side, the OT got it right I think. LT was playing at a different level for a number of years. As a younger fan, he made watching football less about focusing on the offensive play and more about the dynamics between offense and defense.
Just was a wonder to watch. How could someone be so much more agile and quick than the best atheletes in the world?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKO_9iQs3l8
There's no one like him, period. He has the combination of height/weight, speed, and godgiven ability. Single cover him, he get over 150 with ease. He forces the DC to change his scheme by rolling his coverage towards him which made it difficult for any QB to watch opposing defense film because it's always different than what they see on film.
Probably an obvious pick, but that guy could do things on a football field that were incredible. I heard someone once say that he could could run sideways as fast as most players could run forward. While that might be an exaggeration, it's not by much.
Would have loved to have seen what he could have done while playing on a good team. I'm sure he would, too.
With Bo Jackson already on the board, I'll add Deion Sanders in his primest of prime times.
Loved that guy.
You stole my thunder on this one - I was going to mention that when you hit a home run in an MLB game and score a touchdown in an NFL game in the same week, you are doing something pretty remarkable as an athlete, and Deion Sanders was a rather remarkable athlete indeed.
Aside from TB12, I am providing the Board with a list of five (5) NFL players that would cause me to watch them on tv no matter what my schedule looked like on a given day:
1) Barry Sanders - others will say it better.
2) LT - see above
3) Eric Metcalf - I loved the Browns of that era and he was as flawed and entertaining as they were. Probably best used as a PR, Metcalf would have been at home in RR offense as a slot mtn goat.
4) Michael Irvin - I forget where I saw this, but he was on tv in a retrospective. He described his approach to the game (some of this paraphrased): "When I get scared or afraid of catching a pass over the middle I just tell myself 'ok, mike, catch this or you're going back to the hood.'" Shady background/personal life, but Irvin would cut off his arm to win a game. I celebrate his entire catalogue going back to the U.
5) Roger Staubach - He suffered approximately 259 concussions due to the way he played (in addition to the nature of the way the League treated QB's in the 70's), so I hope he can avoid the same issues many younger players currently face. He was as much a threat to run as to pass. Never gave up in a game and would have put up better numbers if he could have played more years with Dorsett, Pearson and Hill. I'm not a Cowboys fan, but I had those cheesy home and away #12 Cowboys jersey every 70's kid wore.
Jim Brown, Bo Jackson, the original LT, Deion Sanders, Moss
My personal favorite was Eric Metcalf.
GOAT. Never missed a game in 9 seasons as a punishing running back during the late 50's through the mid 60's.
Had he played even 5 more years (he retired at age 29)- his records would still stand today.
Brian Dawkins was by far my favorite player. I am an Eagles fan, so I am VERY biased, but Weapon X was awesome.
I'm not sure how much he qualified as a freak athlete, but he played with a wild abandon that made him an absolute joy to watch.
There's also this:
Tecmo Super Bowl Bo and real life Barry.
took me to several championships.
The guy was a machine. He outworked everyone, and made the game seem so easy.
22k total yards compared to Randy Moss 15k.
Remember the three year stretch Moss had with Brady? Imagine that lasting a dozen-ish years.
you think he made those QB's better?
Would've loved to see what Moss could've done under similar circumstances.
Imagine if TB and Jerry Rice had played together.
When I saw the title my first thought was also L.T. Guy was fucking scary straight up.
No one will mention him since he was 300 lbs and didn't run a 4.5 or whatever, but I'd add Reggie White - he was a terror as a DE or a DT, he could do anything on the line. A man among boys. He did "Suh" things but better, and in an era when 300 lbs was not yet typical.
In terms of who had me clutching my heart like Redd Foxx in Sanford & Son, Barry Sanders. (Not an athletic freak I guess in terms of size etc but a ballerina in spikes).
Randy Moss above also a great choice.
with Reggie White. The guy was awesome.
but Deion has to be on the list somewhere
Bo Jackson!
Bo Jackson definitely tops the lists. Some others would be Earl Campbell, Mike Singletary, Joe Green, LT,
Bo Jackson hands down.
The "other" Woodson, who played for Purdue, the Steelers, the Raiders and the Ravens. A CB physical enough to play LB, and a LB fast enough to play CB (at least before his knee injury).
Everyone remembers his contemporary Deion Sanders, but it was Woodson, not Sanders, who was named to the All NFL 75th Anniversary Team. That was correct. Deion was the greatest ever at taking away another team's best received one on one, but he couldn't change the game if the offense simply got the ball to someone else. Woodson on the other hand, could cover feature receivers one on one, gamble on jumping a short route because he knew he had the speed to recover if the receiver went deep, blitz effectively, and was a force in run support. The Steeler defense was built around him, and the offense couldn't avoid him.
Also, he tore a knee ligament on week 1 of the regular season, and recovered so fast that he played in the Super Bowl of the same season.