Ethical Sports Takes

If you asked me to choose one running back at his absolute best to hand the football to, I’m taking Barry Sanders.

The balance. The acceleration. The vision. The cuts. The ability to turn what looked like a three-yard loss into a 40-yard gain.

Barry didn’t run like anybody else.

And that is why he is my greatest running back of all time.

One of the Greatest College Seasons Ever

Before Detroit, Barry produced one of the most ridiculous seasons in college football history.

Sanders played at Oklahoma State, initially sharing the backfield with another future NFL star, Thurman Thomas. Once Thomas left for the NFL, Sanders finally became the featured back in 1988.

What happened next was absurd.

Sanders rushed for 2,628 yards and 37 touchdowns during the regular season in only 11 games, averaging nearly 240 rushing yards per game. He also contributed as a returner and seemingly spent the entire season rewriting the record book.

He rushed for more than 300 yards in four games.

He scored five touchdowns in three different games.

And he won the 1988 Heisman Trophy in one of the easiest decisions imaginable.

Even today, his 1988 season remains one of the greatest individual performances college football has ever seen.

Detroit had seen enough.

The Lions selected Sanders with the third overall pick in the 1989 NFL Draft.

Barry Arrives in Detroit

There was no long adjustment period.

As a rookie, Sanders rushed for 1,470 yards and 14 touchdowns, finishing just 10 yards short of the NFL rushing title despite missing a game.

He won NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and immediately established himself as one of the most dangerous players in football.

Then he just kept doing it.

Barry played 10 NFL seasons.

He rushed for at least 1,000 yards in every single one of them.

There was never a down year.

Never a season where Barry stopped being Barry.

You Couldn’t Teach This

Statistics explain part of Barry Sanders’ greatness.

Film explains the rest.

Sanders was only around 5-foot-8, but his low center of gravity became one of his greatest weapons. His balance and change of direction were unlike anything the league had seen.

A defender could have him perfectly lined up.

Then Barry would plant his foot.

And suddenly that defender was tackling air.

He could stop almost completely, change direction and accelerate again before the defense had time to react. He routinely escaped situations where simply getting back to the line of scrimmage looked impossible.

Sometimes that style produced negative plays. Barry lost plenty of yards trying to create something out of nothing.

But that was the trade-off.

Because on the next carry, the same instinct could create a touchdown nobody else on the field was capable of producing.

You didn’t watch Barry Sanders because every run was perfectly efficient.

You watched because at any moment, something impossible could happen.

Winning Without the Perfect Situation

Barry’s career becomes even more impressive when you consider the situation around him.

The Detroit Lions were not the Cowboys dynasty Emmitt Smith played for. Barry didn’t spend his prime surrounded by a championship roster and one of the most celebrated offensive lines in NFL history.

Defenses knew exactly who Detroit’s biggest weapon was.

It didn’t matter.

Sanders still produced.

In 1991, he rushed for 1,548 yards and 16 touchdowns and helped Detroit finish 12-4. The Lions reached the NFC Championship Game, which remains one of the deepest playoff runs in franchise history.

Detroit never reached the Super Bowl during Barry’s career.

Some people will hold that against him.

I don’t.

Running backs don’t build rosters, call defenses or control the other 52 players on their team. Barry’s job was to run the football.

Few human beings have ever done that better.

Sharing an MVP

By 1994, Sanders had already established himself as an all-time great.

He rushed for 1,883 yards, averaging 5.7 yards per carry, and was named NFL Offensive Player of the Year.

He also shared the NFL MVP award with Brett Favre.

But somehow, Barry still hadn’t produced his greatest NFL season.

That came three years later.

The 2,000-Yard Season

Barry’s 1997 season started strangely.

Through the first two games, Sanders had only 53 rushing yards.

Then something clicked.

Over the final 14 games of the season, Barry rushed for exactly 2,000 yards.

He finished with 2,053 rushing yards, becoming only the third player in NFL history at the time to surpass 2,000 yards in a season.

He averaged 6.1 yards per carry.

Think about that.

More than 2,000 rushing yards while averaging over six yards every time he touched the ball.

Sanders was named NFL MVP and Offensive Player of the Year.

At 29 years old, he was playing arguably the best football of his career.

Still Great Until the End

Barry followed his MVP season with another 1,491 rushing yards in 1998.

Then he retired.

There was no massive decline.

There wasn’t a season where everybody could see that Barry was finished.

He had just rushed for nearly 1,500 yards.

He was 30 years old.

And he walked away.

Sanders retired with 15,269 career rushing yards, leaving him only 1,457 yards behind Walter Payton’s then-NFL record.

Considering Barry had rushed for 1,491 yards in his final season, the possibility of breaking the record was sitting directly in front of him.

He simply chose not to chase it.

That’s part of what makes his career so fascinating.

Barry never seemed obsessed with the numbers.

When he scored touchdowns, he famously handed the football to the official rather than turning every score into a celebration.

He played.

He dominated.

And when he decided he was finished, he left.

Ten Years of Greatness

Barry Sanders’ résumé is remarkable when you remember how short his career was.

In only 10 seasons, he accumulated 15,269 rushing yards and 99 rushing touchdowns.

He won four NFL rushing titles.

He made the Pro Bowl in all 10 seasons.

He earned six First-Team All-Pro selections.

He was the 1997 NFL MVP, shared the 1994 NFL MVP, won two Offensive Player of the Year awards, and was named to the NFL 100 All-Time Team.

He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004, his first year of eligibility.

And perhaps the most ridiculous statistic of all:

10 seasons. 10 seasons with at least 1,000 rushing yards.

There was no wasted season.

Barry arrived great.

Barry remained great.

Barry retired great.

Why Barry Is Number One

Jim Brown has perhaps the strongest argument against him.

Brown won three MVPs and eight rushing titles in nine seasons. Walter Payton was one of the most complete running backs the game has ever seen. Emmitt Smith owns the career rushing records. Eric Dickerson still owns the greatest single-season rushing total.

Every one of them has a legitimate argument.

But when I ask myself who I think was simply the best at running the football, my answer is Barry Sanders.

He created yards that weren’t supposed to exist.

He embarrassed defenders who were in perfect position.

He dominated despite defenses knowing exactly who they had to stop.

And he accumulated more than 15,000 rushing yards without even playing past age 30.

Maybe he would have broken the rushing record.

Maybe he would have reached 18,000 yards.

Maybe he could have pushed toward 20,000.

We’ll never know.

And honestly, we don’t need to.

What Barry Sanders did in those 10 seasons was enough.

15,269 yards. Ten straight 1,000-yard seasons. A 2,000-yard season. MVPs. Ten Pro Bowls. And a highlight reel that still doesn’t look real decades later.

There may eventually be another running back who breaks every rushing record.

But I don’t know if we’ll ever see another runner quite like Barry Sanders.

Barry Sanders is number one on my list of the greatest running backs in NFL history.

The greatest running back I have ever seen.

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