VANITY - The Best Football Players of All-Time - VANITY

[One Proud Son]

QUARTERBACKS: (1) Johnny Unitas (2) Dan Marino (3) Joe Montana RUNNING BACKS: (1) Jim Brown (2) Walter Payton (3) Barry Sanders WIDE RECEIVERS: (1) Jerry Rice (2) Don Maynard (3) Randy Moss DEFENSIVE LINEMAN: (1) Joe Greene (2) Howie Long (3) Randy White LINEBACKERS: (1) Dick Butkus (2) Jack Lambert (3) Mike Singletary DEFENSIVE BACKS: (1) Ronnie Lott (2) Paul Krause (3) Ken Houston

[infidel29]

QBs are okay with me, RBs; (1) Walter Payton (2) Gayle Sayers (3)Barry Sanders (4) Jim Brown (5) O.J. Simpson WRs: (1) Jerry Rice (2) Don Maynard (3)Steve Largent (4) Lance Alworth (5) Lynn Swann DL: (1) Deacon Jones (2) Bruce Smith (3) Joe Greene (4) Leroy Selmon (5) Howie Long LB: (1) Dick Butkus (2) Chuck Bednarik (3) Willie Lanier (4) Lawrence Taylor (5) Jack Lambert DB: (1) Dick 'Night Train' Lane (2) Mel Blount (3) Paul Krause (4) Herb Adderly (5) Mel Renfro P/K: (1) Ray Guy.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

Randy Moss is still a kid.

Randy Moss is still a punk.

[jwalsh07]

Safeties: Ronnie Lott, Larry Wilson

Corners: Mel Blount and Neon Deion

I know, I'm an old bastard. :-}

[infidel29]

Shouldn't David Overstreet be on that Dolphins RB list as well?

[F16Fighter]

"Defensive Line: from Deacon Jones, Bob Lily, Joe Greene, Reggie White

Linebackers: Ham, Butkus, LT"

Perfect, Big Jawn.

At the Defensive corners: Mel Blount and Willie Brown.

At Safeties: Ronnie Lott and (?).

[sanemom]

the NFL's all-time scoring leader: Gary Anderson

[scott says]

Some of my all time favorite's
Joe Montana
Ronnie Lott
Barry Sanders
Mike Singletary
Reggie White
for starters......

[birbear]

I don't think this is true at all. If anything, it was Montana who had the better wide receivers on his team throughout his career, along with good tight ends (Jon Frank, Brent Jones) and one of the best pass-catching running backs (Roger Craig) of all time

I agree. I'm saying Montana could still have been great with a less competent recieving corp, given the fact that he had an easy catching ball.

Marino threw a bullet that not everybody could catch. If Marino had a Jerry Rice to throw too his numbers would be remarkably higher. As it was, he had a mediocre set of receivers to throw to, so his stats are even more impressive.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

I can't comment on players before the late 70's-early 80's, but here's my list:

QB: 1. Joe Montana. As a long suffering Saints fan from when they used to play twice a year in the old NFC West, he broke the hearts of some of Jim Mora's best teams, and nearly always in the last two minutes. 2. John Elway. 3. Tie-Dan Marino and Dan Fouts. If you love shootouts, they could always be counted on to provide you with an old-fashioned AFL type of pinball game.

RB: 1. Walter Payton. 2. Earl Campbell. 3. Eric Dickerson, insanely fast once he found the hole.

WR: 1. Jerry Rice. 2. Everybody else.

TE: 1. Kellen Winslow, Sr. 2. Ozzie Newsome. 3. Shannon Sharpe

OL: 1. Anthony Munoz. 2. Willie Roaf. 3. The Dallas O-Line of the early 90's.

DL: 1. Reggie White. 2. Fred Dean.

LB: 1. LT. 2. Mike Singletary. 3. Ricky Jackson.

DB: 1. Lester Hayes. 2. Ronnie Lott. 3. Rod Woodson. MOST OVERRATED: Deion Sanders. He couldn't tackle a receiver or runner downfield if his life depended on it.

K: 1. Morten Anderson. 2. Adam Venitieri. 3. Mark Moseley, the last of the old-style kickers.

Coach: 3. Bill Belichick. 2. Bill Walsh. 1. Joe Gibbs, for winning three Super Bowls with three different, average quarterbacks.

[TADSLOS]

[F16Fighter]

Same era , Jawn...

Lol, we both had Blount and Lott?

Neon was great. #8 Wilson -- the guy had a nose for the ball.

"Wideouts: Rice, Don Hutson

Tight End: Big John Mackey."

Hmmm...

Rice yep. Statistically Hutson fits the bill. hate to say it, but Randy Moss is awesome.

Tight end? Mackey was one tough SOB. Dave Casper was money, but for three years the Giants Mark Bavaro was the man.

QB? Miami's Garo Yepremian (lol, remember that ill-fated Super Bowl "toss" returned for a TD by the Skins on a busted FGA?)

[spectre]

"I really like Swann, he is a likeable guy and a great receiver but Bradshaw is who made Bradshaw look good."

Well said..I humbly bow to your expertise...:)

sw

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

QB? Miami's Garo Yepremian (lol, remember that ill-fated Super Bowl "toss" returned for a TD by the Skins on a busted FGA?)

I remember a Monday night game from the early 80's when he was kicking for Tampa Bay and they botched the field goal snap. That time, instead of trying to pass, he kicked the ball out of bounds, which got him a flag, and endless recollections from Gifford, Cosell and Dandy Don about Yapremian's quarterbacking prowess in SB VII. LOL!

[Alberta's Child]

Overstreet wasn't the Dolphins' rushing leader in his one season in the NFL before his life was tragically cut short in a car accident.

[kabar]

Agree with you about Unitas. Also, don't forget the rules now that favor receivers, ie., the five yard chuck rule.

[kabar]

Answer: In addition to being pretty inconsequential NFL running backs during their careers, they were also the players who led the Dolphins in rushing during Marino's 17-year career. There was a single 1,000-yard rusher among them (Abdul-Jabbar in 1996) and a single Pro Bowler (Keith Byars in 1992, who isn't even on this list because he was primarily a receiver at the RB position).

It has to do more with the type of offense you are running than whether you had a 1,000 yard rusher. The Dolphins were one dimensional, which is why Marino was not a winner.

I find it hard to believe that Elway should be considered a better quarterback than Marino just because an old, broken-down Elway had Terrell Davis on his team for the last two years of his career.

The versatile Elway is the only player in National Football League history to pass for more than 3,000 yards and rush for more than 200 yards in the same season seven consecutive times. He was only the second quarterback in NFL history to record more than 40,000 yards passing and 3,000 yards rushing during his career

Elway took his teams to 5 Superbowls and won two. Marino went to one and lost it.

[Alberta's Child]

It's true that Taylor revolutionized his position, but that doesn't by definition make him an all-time great. Magic Johnson also revolutionized his position (in a sense that big men were never point guards before him), but he's an all-time NBA great primarily because he was one of the greatest point guards of all time.

Taylor's main asset was his incredible athleticism and intense energy on the field. But I honestly think he was a better player in his first three years in the NFL (when the Giants were a pretty bad team most of the time) than at any time after that. In his early years he was a very complete player -- a linebacker who could rush the quarterback, stuff the run, and chase receivers all over the field. The NFL had probably never seen a linebacker like that before.

During his "best" years (from the standpoint of public accolades and media coverage) in the mid-1980s he was still a great athlete and didn't lose any of that intensity, but he became very one-dimensional at his outside linebacker spot. The Giants played a 3-4 defense in those days, and as the weak side OLB Taylor was used almost exclusively as a pass rusher. He wasn't the same complete linebacker he had been earlier in his career, and I've wondered if his highly-publicized drug problems and reputation for avoiding any kind of off-season workout regimen were a major factor.

He still put up great numbers, and even won the league's MVP award in the Giants' 1986 Super Bowl season. But it's no coincidence that he flourished at a time when right defensive end Leonard Marshall molded himself into a Pro Bowler and became a major pass-rushing threat in his own right.

If you can get your hands on any highlight films from that era (or better yet full game tapes), go back and watch the Giants from the 1985 playoffs through the 1986 season and Super Bowl XXI. Despite winning the MVP award in 1986, LT wasn't even the best linebacker on the Giants that year.

[Alberta's Child]

Marino's greatest accomplishment was in 1985 when he picked apart the vaunted Chicago Bears defense (arguably the greatest of all time) for 270 passing yards in a 38-24 victory -- the Bears' only loss in a marvelous 15-1 season. With his pinpoint accuracy and quick release, he was probably the only QB in the NFL capable of pulling that off.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I had thought Jerry Kramer to be one of the top three but got some disagreements here about that.

[kabar]

He still put up great numbers, and even won the league's MVP award in the Giants' 1986 Super Bowl season. But it's no coincidence that he flourished at a time when right defensive end Leonard Marshall molded himself into a Pro Bowler and became a major pass-rushing threat in his own right.

Great numbers in 1986? How about stupendous? He recorded his finest statistical season in 1986 when he was named the NFL's MVP, becoming the first defensive player to do so since 1971. That season, Taylor recorded a career high 20.5 sacks, 105 total tackles, five passes defensed, and two forced fumbles. Has any LB ever had a better year?

Guys like Marshall, Harry Carson, Carl Banks and Gary Reasons were fortunate to have LT drawing double and triple teams. This enabled them to perform like All-stars. Like so many great players, LT made his teammates play better. He was such a force that the opposition had to stop him even if it meant making themselves vulnerable elsewhere. I have watched pro football for 50 years and never saw a defensive player dominate a game like LT.

If you can get your hands on any highlight films from that era (or better yet full game tapes), go back and watch the Giants from the 1985 playoffs through the 1986 season and Super Bowl XXI. Despite winning the MVP award in 1986, LT wasn't even the best linebacker on the Giants that year.

I don't need highlight films. I watched the games at the time. He was definitely the best linebacker on the team for the reasons I mentioned previously. His teammates benefitted from his presence on the field.