NFL 101 Part #6 - Quarterbacks and Running Backs
By: Schwartz
Some people call the middle linebacker the “quarterback of the defense.” Well, now we’re going to take a look through history at the quarterback of the offense...the actual quarterback. We’ll also discuss their backfield mates, running backs.
Starters in Italics
Quarterbacks: Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Peyton Manning, Roger Staubach, Brett Favre, Otto Graham, John Elway, Dan Marino, Johnny Unitas, Drew Brees
Additions: Brees
Cuts: Sammy Baugh
Not only does Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr. earn the position of starting quarterback in my lineup, but the Patriots legend is quite possibly the best player at any position across this entire legendary team. This was so far from a question that I almost forgot to even designate a starting QB; I figured it would just be apparent who it should be. Over his two decades in New England, TB12 has won pretty much everything possible, topped off of course by nine Super Bowl appearances from which he has garnered an absurd six rings and was named the game’s MVP four times. Somehow, a 320+ yard, 4 TD winning performance against the best defense of the decade doesn’t even come close to his best performance in the biggest game of them all, as he followed it up with 466- and 505-yard efforts, between which he threw a total of one interception. An unmatched competitor, Brady’s desire to prove the league wrong after being picked just 199th in the 2000 draft has fueled the most decorated and remarkable career in league history, as there has never been a hole too big for Brady to dig his team out of. The 3-time league MVP is the beginning and the end of the history of the (tied for) winningest franchise in the NFL, and is responsible for two veritable dynasties separated by a decade- a young Tom Terrific won 3 rings in his first four seasons, and more recently, he led the Pats to 3 in 5 campaigns. After winning 11 consecutive division titles, and appearing in 8 consecutive AFC title games, however, he has opted for a change for the final chapter of his career. Recently, Brady was named the first-team all decade QB for a second consecutive decade, another unprecedented feat for the New England great. While all of Patriots Nation is sad to see him go, he has forever changed the franchise, and it will be thrilling to see how he can add to his legacy and continue to rewrite the record books in Tampa Bay.
One of the players whose omission from the NFL 100 surprised me the most was Drew Brees. While both titles are still somewhat up for grabs, he’s the league’s all-time leader in both passing yardage and touchdowns, holding the edge in an ongoing battle versus Brady. While he is a bit lacking in personal accolades, never having won league MVP, he has come extremely close a number of times and has almost always been considered among the very best, if not THE best passer in all of football, but has suffered in the voters’ eyes by playing for poorer teams. Considered to be one of the most precise throwers of the football of all time, Brees has worked with some seriously shoddy supporting casts, and ran offenses that had to prop up some embarrassing defenses, and put together impressive, efficient seasons nonetheless. The crowning achievement of his career, of course, is rallying a destroyed, defeated city of New Orleans behind the Saints’ 2009 Super Bowl run in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. A magical path to the ring, that involved daring comebacks against legendary opponents in Brett Favre and Peyton Manning, led to a victory that meant more to New Orleans than almost any win has meant to any city in sports history, forever enshrining Brees as a legend and a hero down by the bayou. His inclusion means the removal of Sammy Baugh, an early NFL legend who accomplished a great deal for the Redskins of the 30s and 40s, but unfortunately owns more league interception crowns than touchdown titles. While he remains a legend and an all-time great, Baugh’s accomplishments were not quite enough to merit his inclusion over any of the other names on the list, namely Brees’s.
Running Backs: Jim Brown, OJ Simpson, Walter Payton, Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, Adrian Peterson, Eric Dickerson, Steve Van Buren, Earl Campbell, LaDanian Tomlinson
Additions: Peterson, Tomlinson
Cuts: Dutch Clark, Lenny Moore, Marion Motley, Gayle Sayers
One of these two starting running backs will appear as a no-brainer to many fans of the game, while the other may be met with some controversy - let’s start with the latter. OJ Simpson, for all of his off-field troubles, is one of the most electric runners in league history and the definition of a generational athlete. While he didn’t play for the longest time, as tends to be the case with running backs, The Juice enjoyed one of the most absolutely dominant peaks of any pro regardless of position. In 1973, he became the first NFL player to rush for 2,000 yards, and remained the only to do so for 11 seasons. His yardage from that MVP-winning 1973 season is still the 7th highest total of all time, despite the fact that every other back in the 2k club had their banner year in a 16-game season, whereas OJ did it in just 14. Unsurprisingly, his 143 yards per game from that campaign is still the league record. That season was the second of a 5-year stretch during which time Juice was a first-team All-Pro every season, and racked up 4 rushing titles while finding the end zone 46 times, including a ridiculous 23 scores from scrimmage in ‘75.
The USC product is joined in the backfield by perhaps the greatest back in league history, the fortuitously named Cleveland Browns legend, Jim Brown. The face of the dominant late 50’s and 60’s Browns squad, the Syracuse grad had a relatively short but extremely sweet career, rumbling his way to both a rushing title and a first-team All-Pro selection in 8 of his 9 pro seasons (he was a second-teamer in the one other year). The definition of a workhorse back, Brown also bruised defenses at the goal line to the tune of 5 league-leading rushing touchdown campaigns, including a (tied) career-high 17 in his final season, and was even a factor in the passing game, rare for a fullback in his era. A true model of consistency, Brown averaged 5.2 yards per carry for his career, never dipping below an average of 4.3 in any given year. There’s rarely been a player who was so clearly the best at his position for his entire career, but there’s no other way to describe Brown, who was uniquely dominant every single season he played, racking up 3 MVPs across his tenure, also including one in his last campaign.
There were just entirely too many running backs on the initial list. However, I could not believe that Adrian Peterson was not one of them, and I came fairly close to making him a starter when I sat down to put this team together. AP stands out as the best runner I’ve ever gotten to watch, and while the modern NFL isn’t a running back’s league, it would be a crime to not have a single back representing the 21st century. Plenty of quarterbacks, coaches or defensive units have dragged a mediocre team to a high level, but Peterson is the only halfback I’ve ever personally watched run a team into the playoffs, and he might be the last one we ever see do it. His MVP season in 2012, a post-injury season which many believed could prove disastrous, was an awe-inspiring masterpiece as he battered the NFL on his way into the 2k club, coming just 8 yards - realistically just one nice carry - away from Eric Dickerson’s all-time record. The NFL’s fifth all-time leading rusher (so far), Peterson was the 2007 Offensive Rookie of the Year and never looked back. He has rushed into the end zone 111 times, placing him fourth in league history, and earned 3 rushing titles en route to 7 All-Pro selections, four of which were first-team nods, and most recently, was a unanimous, first-team selection to the NFL’s all-2010s roster.
Okay, I lied. I added 2 backs from this side of the turn of the millenium. But you can’t blame me for including LaDanian Tomlinson, who put together one of the craziest seasons, and career peaks, you’ll ever see. His 2006 campaign featured a league-record 28 rushing touchdowns, paired with 3 through the air to give him an absolutely disgusting final total of 31 scores, just one short of two per game. He’s the league’s 7th leading rusher, which is particularly impressive considering he played in a pass-first offense during a pass-first era. Tomlinson rushed for over 1,000 yards in each of his first 8 seasons, including 3 years in which he surpassed 1,600. In each of his first 9 seasons, he eclipsed the 10-touchdown mark, going over 15 four times and thrice leading the league in that category. Unsurprisingly, the six-time All-Pro (three first-team) ended up with 145 career scores, which is good for second on the all-time list. While they weren’t on the original list, I felt that it was necessary to include these modern legends on my roster.
In my efforts to include LT and AP, as well as pare down the overall amount of backs on the list, since there’s just no reason to have 12, I was faced with the challenging task of eliminating four fantastic rushers. Probably the most straightforward, but not the most painless casualty was Gayle Sayers. The Chicago Bears legend was a perennial All-Pro-level player when on the field, but just four campaigns in which he played at least 10 games, and not a single season where he led the league in scoring, are not enough to elevate his resume onto the same level as the other backs on this list. Dutch Clark was a similar type of cut, as the star depression-era back only played 6 full seasons and scored on the ground less than 40 times, although he was one of the best at his position for essentially all of the short time he played. Lenny Moore, who played from the mid 1950s to the late 60s, was an early do-it-all star for some strong Baltimore Colts team, but I had a really hard time including a running back who never cracked 650 rushing yards in a season. He was a well-rounded contributor when you include his high impact in the passing game, but there are so many pure rushers to put on the roster and even when factoring in his receiving numbers, Moore led the league in scrimmage yardage just once, in his second season. The final player I chose to remove in this exercise is Cleveland Browns star fullback Marion Motley. He was a fantastic player and remains a reminder of great fullbacks of years past, a position largely lost in today’s league. Still, his production does not warrant a spot on this list, particularly when compared to his contemporaries. He earned only two rushing titles and All-Pro selections and one season leading the league in rushing touchdowns, en route to a career where he racked up less than 5,000 yards and hardly over 30 touchdowns. He was a fantastic player and a brutal force out of the backfield, but he did not stand above the pack enough to warrant a spot on this roster.
